{"id":3613,"date":"2015-04-24T11:46:09","date_gmt":"2015-04-24T11:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/martinblack.com\/?p=3613"},"modified":"2016-11-09T17:19:00","modified_gmt":"2016-11-09T17:19:00","slug":"how-i-find-great-wild-camping-sites-for-microadventures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/2015\/04\/how-i-find-great-wild-camping-sites-for-microadventures\/","title":{"rendered":"How I find wild camping sites"},"content":{"rendered":"

For some first-time wild campers, finding a pitch for a night under the stars can feel\u00a0like a difficult task. Recently\u00a0on twitter I was asked if I knew any wild camping sites\u00a0in the Leeds area. I always try to answer\u00a0with something helpful, though it’s hard to do it justice with 140 characters.<\/p>\n

So, I decided with this post to try and answer the question in some detail, just to give a sense of how I approach finding wild camp pitches in the UK<\/p>\n

Firstly…I’d ask myself:<\/p>\n

“What do I know about the countryside around Leeds?”<\/p>\n

Off the top of my head (I’m a southerner who has been to Leeds once or twice, but mainly stayed in the cosy confines of pubs and curry houses), what do I know about Leeds and the surrounding countryside?<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. It’s a city in Yorkshire<\/li>\n
  2. Yorkshire has an abundance of hills, woodland, moors, dales, rivers and coastline<\/li>\n
  3. It should be really easy to find a great spot for a cheeky wild camp near to Leeds<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Next step…get mapping!<\/p>\n

    Bing maps is my\u00a0friend<\/h2>\n

    Google maps might be better known but Microsoft’s Bing maps (www.bing.com\/maps<\/a>) is always my first port of call as it has an Ordnance Survey<\/a> (OS) layer, which is exactly what I need for the job..<\/p>\n

    \"My<\/p>\n

    Top Tip:<\/strong> Get yourself a Microsoft account<\/a> (you can use any email account to do this) so you can use the handy ‘My places’<\/strong> widget that comes with Bing maps.<\/p>\n

    I use it for all my initial wild camping, microadventure and hiking planning. You can mark-up maps, pin locations, measure distances and generally keep track of things.<\/p>\n

    To find my wild camp spot near Leeds I go to Bing Maps and type ‘leeds’ into the search box and click the ‘Zoom’ link…<\/p>\n

    \"Zoom<\/a><\/p>\n

    Then I click the ‘Road’ tab, followed by clicking ‘Ordnance Survey Map’ to activate the OS layer:<\/p>\n

    \"bing
    Use this to switch between views<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    And here’s Leeds city centre on the OS map, pretty, eh? Don’t worry, lush countryside is not far away!<\/p>\n

    \"Leeds
    Leeds city centre on the OS map<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    Start hunting<\/h2>\n

    My next step is to choose a direction, click on the map, and start dragging the map out of the city centre. \u00a0In this case I’ll move in a north-easterly direction (though it could be any old direction). \u00a0I might zoom out a little to make the dragging quicker.<\/p>\n

    I’m a sucker for wild camping in woods and alongside rivers, so that is what I look out for.<\/p>\n

    After a little bit of hunting to the north-east of Leeds I find…<\/p>\n

    \"carthick
    We have a wood, and a river!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    Wow, a wood by a river, one of my favourite things. \u00a0The green dotted line is a public footpath, this is generally a positive\u00a0sighting as it means easy access with (probably) no fences or other barriers.<\/p>\n

    This is a good moment to mark the wood\u00a0on the map\u00a0via ‘My places’ so I can find it again.<\/p>\n

    I click the ‘My places’ link on the top left of the page…<\/p>\n

    \"My<\/a>
    My places widget<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    …and then click the blue marker icon next to the arrow icon.\u00a0 Finally, I click on the map to place the marker (no.1) and give it an title when prompted.<\/p>\n

    \"Carthick
    Making my mark on the My places widget<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    Next I want to see how it looks\u00a0‘in real life’. \u00a0I do this by switching\u00a0the map view from ‘Ordnance Survey Map<\/strong>‘ to ‘Bird’s Eye<\/strong>‘ and then ‘Aerial<\/strong>‘.<\/p>\n

    This is Carthick Wood as seen by a bird:<\/p>\n

    \"Carthick
    Carthick Wood as seen by a bird<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    My next step is to find the nearest village or town.<\/p>\n

    This is so I can:<\/p>\n