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Wild Camping In North Scotland

Q. My friend and I are planning a wild camping trip in Scotland this Spring/Summer.

I want to go somewhere in Sutherland, apparently this is the "real" wilderness in Scotland.

Can you advise me of the best places to head for?

Basically we would like to avoid seeing any trace of mankind for a week, is this possible?!

Kind regards,

Rob Western, York

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A. You should head up towards the far north, Ben Hope area. Then head southwest, basically towards Ben Stack. I did this last May and it was fantastic. I started out from Tongue. You will find complete wilderness and of course no problems with just stopping somewhere and camping with an open fire. My advise is don't go when there are any holidays, ie summer, both because of the human factor and the insects. make sure you take proper survival gear, the weather can turn really bad and the terrain can change from minute to minute.

David Wall, Portsmouth

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NB. Wild Camping and The Law in England, Scotland and Wales.

Tents cannot be pitched just anywhere because every piece of Britain is owned by some individual or some organisation and according to the strict letter of the law permission must be obtained prior to pitching tent and camping.

In practice however, this is often impractical and wild camping is usually tolerated in the more remote areas - typically, more than half a day's walk from an official campsite or other accommodation providing you:

Keep groups small
Camp as unobtrusively as possible
Leave camp as you found it
Remove all litter (even other people's)
Carry out everything you carried in
Carry out tampons and sanitary towels (burying them doesn't work as animals dig them up again)
Choose a dry pitch rather than digging drainage ditches around a tent or moving boulders
Toilet duties should be performed 30m (100ft) from water and the results buried using a trowel
At all time, help preserve the environment
And if you are in any doubt about what you're doing, find out more

In Scotland, the current access legislation (which came into effect in early 2005) is explicit about your right to wild camp on hill land.

There appears to be an exception to this with respect to camping in Dartmoor National Park where the right to wild camping is actually enshrined in the National Parks & Access to the Countryside Act, 1949 amendment Dartmoor Commons Act, 1985 - see Wild Camping in the UK for more details.

For the definitive answer with respect to wild camping in Scotland see the answer supplied by the Scottish Natural Heritage

NB. go4awalk.com cannot offer any advice on suitable locations for wild camping - but click here for walks from exisiting campsites.

Hope this helps

Mike (Editor)

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Wild Camping In North Scotland