Jealous! We only saw one - in Utah, I think. Or Arizona? In any case, only one. Darn!

I stealth camped pretty much everywhere on my first bicycle trip across the United States this last month. I never really had any major problems besides swarms of musquitoes and other insects, and getting rained on occasionally. I've camped behind rest areas, in the mountains, behind churches, underneath church canopies during storms, in peoples' backyard, wherever there is shelter or seems safe enough.

My second night of the trip, I did have a strange incident happen. I was about 30 miles north of Santa Fe, New Mexico in the mountains. Had just set up camp behind a bunch of trees off the road and it was dark. This truck rolled by me super slow and literally stopped on the side of the road, flashed its brights. I could not see who was in the vehicle from my vantage point. After about a minute, the truck took off and thankfully, nothing ever became of it. Who knows, really. Could have been somebody called a rancher friend after seeing me, could have been they wanted to make sure everything was alright, or maybe they really were up to no good. I was on state land. Its hard to say.

But yeah, stealth camping is the way to go, especially on budget. Safe journeys!

Here are some links to my videos so you can see how I camped:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCf-US5moJU

_Jeff

In a lot of my just-off-the-road camping, I haven't tried real hard to be stealthy. At times riding with a bright orange tent. Working to obey the "no trespassing" signs and working to leave no trace. In that context, most of the time it is perfectly fine, though I've had a few run ins:

- Camping next to some oil wells in the West Siberian Plain, I was awakened by some sentries, complete with guns coming to check me out. I was able to communicate enough Russian to let them know I was a tourist cycling through and they said it was fine to sleep until morning.
- Ducked behind a row of trees near the Volga River. Discovered too late that a nearby village looked out on my tent. Local youths thought it was a fun game to see if they could sneak up on me - so let them get fairly close before asking them to give me some peace.
- Camped a little too close to nice set of ponds in Eastern Siberia. Some locals who had too much to drink came by and started asking questions of whether I was alone, if I had money, etc that set off my warning signs. Once one of them went to grab a pannier - stood up, put my hand on his chest and firmly said in loud English, "Don't Touch". Was a tense set of minutes, but eventually they left me alone.
- Skipped past a youth hostel since it was too hot. Ended up at a campground but w/o a tent. Asked for a site way on edge of the campground, without realizing it was next to mosquito infested swamp. Was awake most the night being bitten by mosquitos in my thin sleep sack. Finally got up at 4am and then spent later parts of the day sleeping under a pier.
- Camped on top of a dead mostly composed deer, but didn't realize it until morning
etc...

Hitchhiked to Canada from Connecticut once. Way up by Houlton, ME. Crossed over at the end of I-95 and enjoyed my first legal night of drinking.

Drunkenly pitched my Eureka Solitaire down an embankment by a little river, thinking I was out of the way. Woke up having been violently ill in my tent. Disgusted and hung over, I unzipped to discover myself pretty much in the middle of the town!

At least there was that river there to wash out my tent.

I've had better luck on bike tours. But hitchhiking is still a fine way to travel.

I hitched down the coast of western France in October '88 with my little Solitaire bivy. The night I arrived in Calais from Dover, I pitched my tent on top of one of the Nazi bunkers that dotted the cliffs there. The best view of the trip was the effect of the eroding sand under the bunkers-- they were all in various states of slowly angling and tumbling into the channel as time wore away the earth underneath them.

May peace likewise prevail.

The only bad story I remember is when I was trying to cross the mountains from Death Valley to the coast.It had been a long day and was tired.I knew I wasn't going to make over the mountain pass,so I looked for a place to camp off the side of the road.Found the perfect spot,or so I though.Overnight it had snow lightly.About 4 in the morning,I awoke to lights making my tent glow like a UFO and air horns blasting.

So I get out of my tent to see what is going on,and come to find out,I had pitched my tent in the road!The snow plow was waiting for me to get the $#@! out of the road! LOL! Hey,it was flat!Did I say I was tired?

I've stealth camped maybe two dozen times. I'm public parks, on private but hidden property. next to roads but far enough away. I've never had any problems, but I never sleep as well as I do when I'm camping at an approved location. That said, I've had a lot of luck simply asking business owners and property owners if I can camp for the night in the grass behind the establishment. Most of the time no one cares, plus you have the piece of mind that you're allowed to be there. Gas stations or small mom and pop stores work really well for this type of thing. This eliminates the need to stealth camp as much. I guess out west this might be harder but then it's also probably easier to find a remote location to camp.

i dont like camping somwhere without a shower for more than one night or two, especially with summer temps..

I stealthed for 26 days in Oregon and Washington, and I didn't have a single bad experience.

The very first night, I was in the corner of some field, with corn on one side and a row of trees on the other. In the middle of the night I woke up to raccoons or possums or something right outside my tent. Freaked me out, but I survived.

One night I slept on the corner of a Walmart parking lot. Once a cop came into the adjacent 7-11 parking lot with his lights flashing, I was scared out of my mind that he was there for me. But it turned out to be for a robbery or something.

But the rest of the nights were fine, and after a few nights I got used to sleeping outside

damn racoons. I'm not sure if they're more bothersome when I'm sleeping in my hammock and I feel like they're about the claw my butt, or in a tent and I feel like they're heavy breathing new my face.

Imagination is a wonderful thing, but it can make things a bit unpleasant, as we all likely have experienced.

The one time that it really took hold with me was in northern Belgium. I had crossed the English Channel from Britain by ferry that day, and looked for a likely camping spot with a reasonable amount of time to spare. I found an old, disused railway nestled behind some sand dunes, with the road I arrived on running parellel. I pitched my tent right adjacent to the line, at the edge of the sleepers/ties.

Well, at some stage during the night a truck must have sounded a horn, and I was awake with the impression that the railway track wasn't disused, and that there was a bluddy train heading straight for me!!! I just sat in a muck sweat waiting, until I determined that everything was silent. I was sure I had checked the rails for deep rust... or did I?

Thought sleeping under an overpass on a sandy bank of a creek was a good idea in Kansas one night.

The wind picked up at 2am and pulled all the stakes out of my tent.

I was walking around with a flash light, naked, trying to find my tent stakes but gave up. It was too windy anyway. Just layed there until the sun came up with the tent laying on my face.

If you sleep under bridges sometiimes they turn into wind tunnels. Beware.

When I did a tour in 2005, I spent everyday of it stealth camping. Never felt threatened at all... My tips

1) If you have never stealthed camped before touring, do a night or two of it before you actually tour. This will allow you to test your gear and most importantly, will test you mentally to see if you can handle stealth camping.

2) Don't camp on any land that looks developed or where there is obvious use. Do not jump fences and no trespassing means no trespassing. that includes marks on trees and such.

3) Do the dog test. If you think you have a good spot, listen for a few minutes and if you can hear a dog barking, 100 percent chance the dog can you hear you camping.

4) Don't look for a spot close to sunset. Took me a while to learn that one. The closer to sunset you start looking, the less likely you will find a good spot.

5) In stealth camping, federal and state parks are not your friends. Either camp legally in those or find a spot where it is not in their park.

6) In the midwest and some other towns, they will allow camping at the town park. If you decide that, try to learn where the water sprinklers are and be prepared for noise.

7) Camp above the road if you can, not below it. Try not to stealth right by water either, unless you enjoy more critters.

8) Leave no litter and no trace other than perhaps a few pine needles squished in the ground.

9) While you want to be invisible to the road, you don't want to be totally invisible away from the road. The reason I say that is you don't want hunters or those coming across you to be overly surprised at your presence. use your bike for this... try to set up your bike so that people can see it if they approaching but can't see it from the road.

There's probably more... cheers.

I have stealth-camped in;

graveyards

golf courses

many city parks(including Beacon Hill park in Victoria,BC)

the Grand Canyon

rural churches

truck stops

rest areas

public beaches

cow fields

oil fields

farmers fields

many a stand of trees or field off the side of the road

First I love that song by Siouxsie and the Banshees. (This wheels on fire.) Listen to it every day while on my bike.

Any how. Stealth cycling is one of my passions. I get away from everyone especially co-workers. This is what I have learned so far. You will need.

1. Get rid of the panniers. Use Revelate gear. Panniers are to heavy when you are jumping barbed wire fences and walls with your bike. Especially when you need to make a fast get away from a crazy person who is shooting at you for trespassing. It's only trespassing if you refuse to leave.
2. Mesquito spray.
3. Dog spray or air plaster.
4. spray all clothing with a polymer protection, so when it rains you stay dry.
5. Small Bivy Tent and Rain poncho, Poncho is used as tarpe over Bivy tent.
6. Small hand (lighter fluid) hand warmers.
7. Survival blanket, so light and retains 90% of body heat.
8. Lots of freezed dried foods, jelly beans, and raw cheekpeas.
9. 4 small Atom camera and power stick by Veho.
10. Swiss mess kit.
11. Water perifying tablets because I had to drink out of puddles in the past and eat cactus.
12. Laminated state map in sections.
13. Bar of lye soap and ziplock bad of paper towels soaked in rubbing alchol. Lye soap is good for bathing and laundry.

Where I have camped.
1. first you need to wait till the sun starts to set, so people don't see you.
2. Cover all reflective surfaces with electrical tap.
3. Cemetary's are my favorite spots, no one enters them after dark. Just make sure you are in the far backside.
4. Along highways where the state has their young trees waiting for transplanting. Perfect little forest.
5. Rest stops, usually they have a sign saying no sleeping on picnic tables, doesn't say anything about underneath.

Things to remember.
1. Always use an enclosed bivy tent, never a tarpe because snakes love to curl up to you during the night because of the warmth. Learned that the hard way her in Texas.
2. Always carry a roll of electrical tap with you. It does wonders for repairing punchered or slashed tires.
3. Always tie your bike to your tent just incase you are a heavy sleeper.
4. You can always ask people if you can camp out on their lawns. Post on craigslist if requesting assistance with camping. I have had quiet a few people offer up assistance. Never accept invitation to sleep inside. If they ask what you look like, don't respond back.
5. If police ask you to leave a particular site, do so without question. It is not trespassing until someone one has asked you to leave.
6. I also make sites on my state map where to camp and places to avoid. I always ask people that have given me assistance if I can mention them on my website. The ones that have offered me assistance and went above and beyond, giving me bottles of water, beef jerky and etc. I always send them something in the mail or offer to help them around their house.
7. I have had a lot of bad experiences with the older gay men that offer lodging assistance. However, I wont go there, you can experience that situation yourself.
8. In the city you usually have 1 or 2 dogs to worry about. In the country you will have 8 dogs on your right and as soon as you out run them, 8 more dogs on your left start chasing you. Thats when an air blaster comes in handy. When it becomes dangerous I stand still and the dogs usually go away. I have even approached owners to talk reason with them, but they always are in denial or insulting. I just show them my scars on my ankle and tell them "see this, I got 10k for that wound." That is why the Veho cameras come in handy. The owners can argue that those dogs arent theirs, but it sure is a strong arguement why they returned to the front door of the house.
9. Most of all develope an accent and pick a language most people dont know. I learned Croatian and Serbian. So when I travel I speak with a broken accent and listen to Colonia or Seka on my boombottle. People always ask me where I am from. I tell them Croatia but lived here for 10 years. No one needs to know you aren't a native.

Well! hopefully I've given you some ideas.

After one long day I saw a trail and needed a campground so I walked back a bit and found a lake. Threw up my tent and made dinner and got a good night sleep. In the AM I saw the area with new eyes and saw the tree next to my tent had huge claw marks 8 or 10 feet up the tree and I realized I was camped on a well worn grizzly path. The claw marks were fresh and I chuckled. Definitely could have been a problem some other night.

Untrue. If it's posted you are trespassing. In every state I am aware of.

It's better in Scandinavia, they wont shoot first ..

And there can be general catch alls that define an area as posted. Around here ag land, fenced land, fruit trees, etc... The latter is funny because many abandoned farms have fruit trees.

By definition, stealth camping is camping + stealth. So while there are a bunch of things that would be dangers associated with camping, stealth camping should be safer on average as any time you throw stealth in there you have an additional layer of protection against common routine hazards, such as they might be. Stealth camping tends to be on uncommonly camped ground, which is normally a lot more friendly that campsites as far as stuff like mud filled craters called tent sites, and cars driving around your loosely defined site lines in the middle of the night a few sheets to the wind.

The tresspassing aspect of SC, which is just a segment of it, is only more dangerous if you are not in fact behaving stealthily, and you are in an area with people who object to your presence or are on the lookout for you. It also pays to be doing nothing that can be construed as in any way a harm to the property. One thing that is very important if you want to avoid detection is to think of where you will be looked for. On our property we keep a watch on the beach, we never look to see if someone pulled off the HWY in the forest up by the road. If you are on a well travelled path, you may well be looking for a campsite at exactly the same place as hundreds of other people as a result of published itineraries, or natural pacing. They may have all come to the same spot, looked at the same blank area, and wheeled down the same hill to an open area. Something as simple as going in the opposite less desirable direction might be all it takes to avoid detection, though in general there is little reason for concern. These days, most people have their nose in a computer and the number of people out and about in rural areas isn't what it once was. The illegal drug trade is one thing you can bump into. There was a sizeable bust near our little piece of heaven a few weeks back. Big shock given the generally 30s vibe of the place. However, the stuff was being grown indoors, which is less worrisome.

Not that I know, but could it be that both of you are sort of generally correct in a certain way? I could see being guilty of trespassing if you enter an area that's posted. But I could see having a law that's sensitive to differences between posted and unposted areas, by saying that when it's unposted you're not guilty unless you stay after being asked to leave.

It would make sense to me. Is it the law anywhere? I'm not sure.

If it is neither posted nor improved (fenced, cleared, cultivated etc) than you are good to go in NY and probably other states too.

Looks like for my State (Georgia) you have to receive notice to leave in order to be guilty. Whether improved land or not. You just can't be there for an unlawful purpose. This applies to other than land. It seems to say that for actual vehicles, boats, etc. That somebody has to ask you to leave and/or not come back (and you do) in order to be guilty.

I can legally sleep in your car if you don't say otherwise??

https://law.onecle.com/georgia/16/16-7-21.html

2) Enters upon the land or premises of another person or into any part of any vehicle, railroad car, aircraft, or watercraft of another person after receiving, prior to such entry, notice from the owner, rightful occupant, or, upon proper identification, an authorized representative of the owner or rightful occupant that such entry is forbidden; or


Notice from the owner would include a No Trespassing sign.

Makes sense. So if you don't put a no trespassing sign on your car, I can sleep in it as long as you're not trying to drive it somewhere.

Walter for the win!

I had never camped before in my life until last summer. In August I went across Canada and I camped 33/40 days. Here are some of the highlights:

Pemberton, BC: After cycling all day from Vancouver it was late, according to googlemaps there was a hostel nearby but I couldn’t find it. So somebody I talked to suggested I set up near the tennis courts in a housing complex. So I did.
First thing that went wrong was there was a dog in one of the houses that kept barking, I actually went to tell the owner I was there, good thing he was okay with it.
At around 1am I found out that right behind the bush there were train tracks… I hear all the loud sound and get up wondering WHAT WAS GOING ON…
To top it off, at 4am the sprinklers came on… good thing I had my rain fly on.
So I learned 3 lessons: Don’t camp near rail tracks, If the grass is too green: there are probably sprinklers and don’t trust google maps so much!

Near Quesnell, BC: I had been looking for camping spots for the last 30mins, it was getting dark I saw somebody walking by the road and asked him if he would mind if I can just set up between the street and his fence, he invited me to go in his backyard. That was great! They had a dog which made me feel safe from bears (I was very scared of them at that time!).

Rest stop at 26km on Cassiar Highway, BC: There were no camping signs, but I reasoned that if somebody approaches me I can explain that I prefer to camp there because I can stash my food in the bear containers. During the night I saw headlights and barely remember somebody saying “This is crazy” or something like that.


Next day I hit another rest stop, 220km down the road. I got great sleep and woke up to this (see image above). Nobody bothered me at night even though I can be seen from the road.



I arrived at Iskut and saw that there was a music festival (Sacred Headwaters Music Festival), I decided to go see it. I was so tired so that I decided to camp there. After watching the dance competition I went to sleep right away, despite the loud music. It was beautiful area and I saw people still playing songs at 8am! (pic above)



Alaska Highway, KM 1024: I saw this nice ridge and decided to camp there, I learned the importance of camping on Level ground the hard way. I was too tired to move so I just fell asleep like that (good thing I did not roll down the hill, haha). Pic above



Top of the World Highway, Yukon: I was on top of fairly rough gravel, but the view was spectacular (I was right on the edge of a steep drop off). I was about 5m from the road, but luckily the border crossing does not operate after 8pm. I had this wonderful spot to myself!



~KM 120 (Dempster Highway, Yukon): Have you ever walked through the Tundra? Its tough, now imagine pushing/carrying a fully loaded touring bike through it, for 1km. The view was worth it.



Sleeping on a cloud! (or as close to doing that as I'll get). After exhausting day in sun/rain/mud and bad road.


I saw the forecast at Eagle Lodge: 50km/h sidewind (70 gusts), sadly I will be turning to face it head on at some point. But I decided to go anyway. Wearing all the clothing that I own (2 sweathers and a rainjacket - well it was August), I was freezing. I spent about 2-3 hours on the climb up the Richardson Mountains where I cross the continental divide for the 3rd and final time. While hiding in the cover of the "Welcome to Northwest Territories" sign, somebody pulled over and told me there was a bear down the road. There were also flurries, but accelerated to 50+km/h they aren't so nice. I wanted to pass the bear and set up camp down the road, but it was too cold so I just took my chances. There were no trees or any cover (I decided not to go too close to the river to avoid wildlife encounters). Just before I set up I saw a caribou leg, not a pretty sight but I did not have time or energy to go back to the road and move.
After 4 frigid hours, I remembered that somebody gave me an emergency blanket in British Columbia, that, for all I know saved my life. I was able to fall asleep with it.
I did not expect snow in the middle of august and below zero temperatures (but then again, I wasn't planing to go so far north)


The next one is interesting, I saw the police pickup at one of the rest stops before Inuvik. I asked them where I can camp so they said anywhere. That night I set up at a park on the river in town. Nobody saw me aside from a person walking his dog in the morning. The RCMP station at Inuvik had a police RV, never seen that before (sadly I did not take a photo of it )


Not too proud of the next one, on my second day back in BC (I hitchhiked back to where I made a turn 25days ago, so I can cycle back to Ontario) I set up at a rest area in Glacier National Park, the rest area (and trailhead) was closed, there were warnings about a grizzly and her cubs, but there was literally no other spots to camp on the trans-canada highway. I vaguely recall car lights facing my tent (and because the area was closed and locked, it must have been park rangers or police?). Luckily they did not say anything.
Now, I was there without a park permit and camping at a rest area, I would not recommend doing those but I had no money at the time (long story).