The short answer
There is no general right to camp in England, Wales or Northern Ireland. Almost all land has an owner, and pitching without their permission is trespass. Open access land under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000grants a right of access on foot for walking and similar recreation, and camping is specifically excluded from what that right covers.
Scotland is different, and it is the only part of Britain that is. If you are heading north, the position there is set out in theScottish wild camping guide.
What trespass actually means here
Trespass in England and Wales is normally a civil matter, not a criminal offence. You are not generally committing a crime by pitching a tent on someone's land, and the police will usually treat it as nothing to do with them. That is the grain of truth behind most of the confident advice you will read.
It is not the same as being allowed. A landowner can ask you to leave and you have to go. Refusing is where it changes character, because aggravated trespass and public order offences are criminal, and a civil wrong you decline to put right can become something a court takes more seriously. In practice the distinction matters most at the moment somebody knocks on the tent.
Dartmoor, and the judgment that settled it
The Dartmoor Commons are the exception, and they are the only place in England and Wales where the public have a right to wild camp. The right comes from section 10 of the Dartmoor Commons Act 1985, which gives the public a right of access to the commons for open-air recreation.
Whether that included camping was litigated, and the answer changed twice. The High Court held in January 2023 that it did not. The Court of Appeal disagreed later that year. On 21 May 2025 the Supreme Court decided the question unanimously inDarwall v Dartmoor National Park Authority [2025] UKSC 20, holding that section 10 does grant a right to camp on the commons.
Two limits are worth being precise about. The right covers thecommons, which are the areas of unenclosed moorland, and not the whole of the national park. And a great deal of content published between 2023 and 2025 reported the position as it stood at the time and has never been corrected, so an article confidently telling you wild camping on Dartmoor is banned is probably just old. The park authority publishes the map of where camping is permitted, and that map is the thing to check.
Common land is not public land
This trips people up reasonably often, because the name suggests otherwise. Common land in England and Wales is privately owned. What makes it common is that specific people, the commoners, hold rights over it, such as grazing or taking wood. Those rights belong to them and not to the public.
Many commons also carry a public right of access on foot, and that is genuinely useful. It still does not imply a right to camp. Dartmoor is the exception precisely because Parliament passed an Act about Dartmoor, and that Act does not apply anywhere else.
Tolerated is not the same as allowed
In the Lake District, in Eryri and in parts of the Peak District, camping high on the fells well away from roads and walls is widely tolerated by custom. That is worth understanding exactly, because the word doing the work is tolerated.
It means landowners generally do not object to people who arrive late, pitch small, light no fire, and are gone at dawn having left nothing behind. It does not mean you have a right to be there. If somebody asks you to move, you move, and the fact that a hundred people did the same thing last weekend is not an argument. Several areas have tightened up precisely because that pattern broke down.
Camping from a vehicle
If you are travelling by van, bike or 4x4 then the legal footholds are narrower still, and most guidance goes quiet here. Driving off a public road onto land you do not own is trespass in the same way pitching a tent is, and a vehicle is harder to describe as lightweight recreation.
Sleeping in a vehicle on a public road or in a layby is governed by local byelaws and traffic regulation orders rather than by access law. Many councils prohibit it, particularly in coastal and national park areas. Signage is the usual indicator, and the absence of a sign is not consent.
What reliably works is asking
Permission is the mechanism that actually exists in England, and it works far better than its reputation. Farms, pubs with car parks, estates and the smaller certificated sites will frequently say yes to one tent or one vehicle for one night. A phone call ahead or a knock at a door turns the hardest part of a trip into the easiest.
It is also how most good overland travel in Britain actually runs. The romantic version, pulling off a track and pitching where you like, is mostly not lawful here, and the version that works is a short conversation at a gate.
Planning around where you can stop
Because permission decides where you sleep, a route in England is planned backwards from the stopping points rather than forwards from the driving. Overlandi plans across tarmac, gravel and track together, grades every section from 1 to 10, and scouts fuel, water and phone signal against your line, so the day fits between the places you have arranged.
It will not tell you whether a pitch is permitted. That is the landowner's answer, and the point of this page is to tell you when to ask.
This page explains the general position and is not legal advice. Byelaws differ by authority, national parks set their own rules, and responsibility for camping lawfully rests with the person pitching the tent. Check the relevant council and national park before you travel.
Common questions
Is wild camping legal in England?
No, not as a general right. Almost all land in England has an owner, and pitching a tent without their permission is trespass. Open access land under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 gives a right of access on foot, and camping is specifically excluded from it. The Dartmoor Commons are the exception.
Is wild camping illegal, or just trespass?
Trespass in England and Wales is normally a civil matter rather than a criminal offence, so you are not usually committing a crime by pitching a tent. That is not the same as it being allowed. A landowner can require you to leave, and refusing can turn a civil matter into a criminal one through aggravated trespass or public order offences.
Where in England can you legally wild camp?
The Dartmoor Commons. In Darwall v Dartmoor National Park Authority, decided on 21 May 2025, the Supreme Court held unanimously that section 10 of the Dartmoor Commons Act 1985 grants the public a right to camp there. It covers the Commons rather than the whole national park, and it is the only place in England and Wales with such a right.
Can you camp on common land?
Not as a rule. Common land in England and Wales is privately owned, and the rights held over it belong to specific commoners rather than to the public. A right of public access does not imply a right to camp. Dartmoor is the exception, and it is an exception created by its own Act of Parliament.