As a queer woman in my early thirties, I’m not a stereotypical wild camper: neither a solo man nor half of an outdoorsy heterosexual couple. I never camped as a child on family holidays and the first time I put up a tent was last year at the Knepp Rewilding Project in Sussex.
But camping sans toilets and a designated site with electricity, rubbish bins and clean water has been a fascination of mine since reading Raynor Winn’s The Salt Path during lockdown. In the book, Winn documents wild camping with her husband along the South West Coast Path from Somerset to Dorset. It wasn’t just me gravitating to the great outdoors either, as post-pandemic Mintel research found that 4.5 million Brits went camping for the first time when restrictions eased.
I’ve wanted to wild camp since then with my girlfriend, but she was hesitant. Was it safe in the wild for people like us? Only anecdotal evidence exists for LGBT+ camping, and few UK wild camping statistics are on-hand, bar a 2022 study by the Scottish Government that found 4 per cent of Brits had wild camped and were likely to be male and under 55.
Being in a minority, I was determined to pave a way. With the company of a female friend in lieu of my girlfriend, the question stood: can two women in their mid-thirties safely embrace the wild?
Dartmoor National Park is the only place in England where you can legally wild camp without a landowner’s permission
(Maryann Wright)
It’s worth knowing that in England we only have the legal right to wild camp across designated areas of Dartmoor National Park in Devon, while you can request permission from landowners elsewhere. The same law applies in Wales and Northern Ireland, but wild camping in Scotland carries no restrictions at all and offers more freedom.
Living in London, my pal and I plumped for Dartmoor, and we set off at dawn on a very rainy Saturday. Keen to make the most of the weekend, we intended to drive to Dartmoor after work the day before, but yellow weather warnings and the idea of pitching a new tent for the first time in darkness on a boggy moor canned that plan.
Picking a camping spot takes proper planning, with daylight hours and hiking routes to be considered
(Maryann Wright)
Unlike with a traditional campsite, picking a hiking route and camping spot in the vastness of Dartmoor takes proper planning. The ever-shrinking…
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