Europe is far more free than the US for a lot of this, no permits required, right to roam in many countries, and camping is tolerated most places it isn’t a nuisance.
There's where you can WALK and where you can CAMP. I'm talking about where you can CAMP. The only countries in Western Europe where there's a lot of freedom to camp are Scotland, Norway, and Sweden.
In the Alps, where there is the most dramatic scenario, in France, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, there aren't a lot of areas where you can just pick a spot and camp there.
You don't need a permit to stay in a hut/refuge, but you usually need a reservation, which is sorta the same thing, a limit to the number of overnight visitors. Effectively a permit.
There are very very very few places in the USA where you need a permit to just hike for the day. Places where they are required are either very vulnerable like "The Wave" in Utah or dangerous when overcrowded like Angels Landing in Zion.
> The only countries in Western Europe where there's a lot of freedom to camp are Scotland, Norway, and Sweden.
If Sweden counts as Western Europe, we might as well add Finland to this list too.
Besides a few exceptions (military bases, the border zone, a few protected natural parks) you have an absolute right to camp anywhere as long as you don’t cause more than minor harm to the landowner.
Just learned about the Right to Roam in the UK a couple of years back, and planning on putting it to good use during a bike tour next year. Do you know of any resources that do a good job of comparing “right to roam” equivalents throughout Europe and/or the world?
Everyman's right/right to roam only applies in Scotland (see https://www.mygov.scot/scottish-outdoor-access-code for details). There are more limited rights in a few places in England, such as Dartmoor. Elsewhere, access to private land without permission is trespass: if the landowner asks you to leave, you must leave.
In the Eastern Europe, in the Carpathian mountains, you can camp almost anywhere on public land and, with the owner's permission, on private land. At least in Romania I never had trouble camping and in the past several campers put their tent in my grandma's yard when I was a kid (it is a mountain region up north). The only problem camping in the wild in Romania is the big number of beasts that can kill you: bears, boars, wolves.
In the Balkans people camp regularly on the side of the road on public lands. I have friends that did it in almost every country in the region on motorcycle tours, so they were camping quite close to roads.
If you go to the mountains actually, you will see tons of folks camping around all the time, nobody has any issue with it. The only exception are proper natural parks, but that's understandable.
"but that's understandable" - Except it's the opposite of the USA. No right to camp on private land, but usually allowed on public land. There are a lot of different types of public land in the USA. Not just National Parks, but also National Forest ("forest", a misnomer, because that can include treeless mountain areas, deserts), BLM land. For most National Forst and BLM land, camp anywhere. For National Parks, some places you have to camp in designated campgrounds, but many huge areas where the rule is camp anywhere.
I'm saying, the management of public land in the USA is DIFFERENT. Even different than Canada.
In the Alps, where there is the most dramatic scenario, in France, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, there aren't a lot of areas where you can just pick a spot and camp there.
You don't need a permit to stay in a hut/refuge, but you usually need a reservation, which is sorta the same thing, a limit to the number of overnight visitors. Effectively a permit.
There are very very very few places in the USA where you need a permit to just hike for the day. Places where they are required are either very vulnerable like "The Wave" in Utah or dangerous when overcrowded like Angels Landing in Zion.