[ctrager]

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.

[ryanlol]

> 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.

[vanilla_nut]

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?

[DonaldFisk]

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.

[ryanlol]

This is an awesome resource https://transeurotrail.org/

Wonderful bike trail, has realistic information on where you can camp for each country.

[AdrianB1]

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.