5 ms·

> Where I live, there's islands which are not owned by anyone in the rivers. (Check your county's GIS map for which ones) You can just go camp on those, no prob

> Where I live, there's islands which are not owned by anyone in the rivers. (Check your county's GIS map for which ones) You can just go camp on those, no problem. Oh, you have to care about who owns the land in order to camp in the wilderness? Bummer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam

RajT88 3y ago
Now listen. You can try camping on land which is owned by someone, and which is otherwise completely uninhabited. People do that all the time for various reasons without any issue. But that is technically trespassing, and could get you shot or arrested. So you know, if you're going to do that, make sure you assess that risk carefully.
- avgcorrection 3y ago
  Sounds like yet another interesting survival challenge.
- swashboon 3y ago
  That depends on the state, many states are default open to travel in open land and require posting / signage to block free access. Pretty much all trespassing laws require notice first (of which adequate signage counts as notice) and you are not trespassing until you have been told to leave and don't.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- salamanderss 3y ago
  Having been homeless and stealth camped extensively I can assure anyone reading that with no car and greater than .25 mi from a road or home you are invisible to 99.99% of population and 100% of local cops. The only guy that ever found me out was a forest ranger who wildly I randomly met on foot several miles away from nearest road in rugged terrain (and that was way too far for him to mess with hauling me to jail).
  - OfSanguineFire 3y ago
    In my long career of first hitchhiking the world and then bicycle-touring/bikepacking it, I have spent hundreds of nights outside stealth camping, but I have been caught more often than you suggest happens. Farmers in some places do daily rides around their land to check for squatters or illegal tree-felling. Male friends so often like to walk into the woods and drink (and fire off weapons, which can be unnerving to one sleeping). And I’ve been told by forest rangers that they are increasingly using drones to surveil forests instead of having to go down every trail themselves.
    - salamanderss 3y ago
      Interesting. Your experience is wildly different than mine, although i admit I always restricted stealth camping to at night with a bivy the same color as the terrain and I have a pretty good sixth sense of good cover. I would have definitely avoided areas worn enough to suggest daily ride around or worn enough to be the no-thought default path of a drunk, which probably shielded me largely from your noted encounters.
pcl 3y ago
> Oh, you have to care about who owns the land in order to camp in the wilderness? Bummer. Downvoted because of the obnoxious tone of your comment. You could have made the same point in a more-engaging way. I've lived and camped in countries with freedom to roam, and I've lived and camped in the US. I think that freedom to roam is a really cool notion, and also I think it's great that so much of the United States is owned by federal and state governments, rather than by individuals -- 40% according to one source [1]. In the UK, for example, only 8% of land is publicly-owned [2]. [1] https://www.summitpost.org/public-and-private-land-percentages-by-us-states/186111#chapter_2 https://www.summitpost.org/public-and-private-land-percentag... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/money/2019/apr/17/who-owns-england-thousand-secret-landowners-author https://www.theguardian.com/money/2019/apr/17/who-owns-engla...
- OfSanguineFire 3y ago
  Within the overlanding and bicycle-touring community, there are frequent complaints that so much of the federal-owned land in the United States (BLM land) is out west. If your travels are towards the east of the country, it can become very challenging to camp. In the Nordic countries that have freedom to roam, that freedom to roam is everywhere, even right outside the major metropolitan areas.
  - Ostrogoth 3y ago
    With family roots in ranching, one of the concerns with freedom to roam in the US for landowners (in particular for land used for livestock and agriculture) is a lack of respect for others/natural resources. Existing public use areas in the US already regularly get trashed in some parts of the country by those who fail to practice leave-no-trace. And my family has had existing issues with poachers and trespassers cutting fences, leaving gates open (which becomes a liability when livestock enter roads), and even shooting livestock. I personally like the idea of FTR, but putting on my ranching hat to see from that perspective, we might need additional legal protections to protect landowners from damages and liability.
    - OfSanguineFire 3y ago

RajT88 3y ago

Now listen. You can try camping on land which is owned by someone, and which is otherwise completely uninhabited. People do that all the time for various reasons without any issue. But that is technically trespassing, and could get you shot or arrested. So you know, if you're going to do that, make sure you assess that risk carefully.

avgcorrection 3y ago
Sounds like yet another interesting survival challenge.
swashboon 3y ago
That depends on the state, many states are default open to travel in open land and require posting / signage to block free access. Pretty much all trespassing laws require notice first (of which adequate signage counts as notice) and you are not trespassing until you have been told to leave and don't.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
salamanderss 3y ago
Having been homeless and stealth camped extensively I can assure anyone reading that with no car and greater than .25 mi from a road or home you are invisible to 99.99% of population and 100% of local cops. The only guy that ever found me out was a forest ranger who wildly I randomly met on foot several miles away from nearest road in rugged terrain (and that was way too far for him to mess with hauling me to jail).
- OfSanguineFire 3y ago
  In my long career of first hitchhiking the world and then bicycle-touring/bikepacking it, I have spent hundreds of nights outside stealth camping, but I have been caught more often than you suggest happens. Farmers in some places do daily rides around their land to check for squatters or illegal tree-felling. Male friends so often like to walk into the woods and drink (and fire off weapons, which can be unnerving to one sleeping). And I’ve been told by forest rangers that they are increasingly using drones to surveil forests instead of having to go down every trail themselves.
  - salamanderss 3y ago
    Interesting. Your experience is wildly different than mine, although i admit I always restricted stealth camping to at night with a bivy the same color as the terrain and I have a pretty good sixth sense of good cover. I would have definitely avoided areas worn enough to suggest daily ride around or worn enough to be the no-thought default path of a drunk, which probably shielded me largely from your noted encounters.

pcl 3y ago

> Oh, you have to care about who owns the land in order to camp in the wilderness? Bummer. Downvoted because of the obnoxious tone of your comment. You could have made the same point in a more-engaging way. I've lived and camped in countries with freedom to roam, and I've lived and camped in the US. I think that freedom to roam is a really cool notion, and also I think it's great that so much of the United States is owned by federal and state governments, rather than by individuals -- 40% according to one source [1]. In the UK, for example, only 8% of land is publicly-owned [2]. [1] https://www.summitpost.org/public-and-private-land-percentages-by-us-states/186111#chapter_2 https://www.summitpost.org/public-and-private-land-percentag... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/money/2019/apr/17/who-owns-england-thousand-secret-landowners-author https://www.theguardian.com/money/2019/apr/17/who-owns-engla...

OfSanguineFire 3y ago
Within the overlanding and bicycle-touring community, there are frequent complaints that so much of the federal-owned land in the United States (BLM land) is out west. If your travels are towards the east of the country, it can become very challenging to camp. In the Nordic countries that have freedom to roam, that freedom to roam is everywhere, even right outside the major metropolitan areas.
- Ostrogoth 3y ago
  With family roots in ranching, one of the concerns with freedom to roam in the US for landowners (in particular for land used for livestock and agriculture) is a lack of respect for others/natural resources. Existing public use areas in the US already regularly get trashed in some parts of the country by those who fail to practice leave-no-trace. And my family has had existing issues with poachers and trespassers cutting fences, leaving gates open (which becomes a liability when livestock enter roads), and even shooting livestock. I personally like the idea of FTR, but putting on my ranching hat to see from that perspective, we might need additional legal protections to protect landowners from damages and liability.
  - OfSanguineFire 3y ago