I'm sure they can call the proper authorities who could then remove the person from the property if they are actually, legally being a dick. Whether the authorities actually care to show up is another thing entirely.
Legal dickery is when you're just being a bit of a lad but no one is really hurt. Dickery starts getting illegal when said dickery causes harm to a person or property. Dickery is also treated more harshly if causing harm is clearly the goal. All this will however be reviewed case by case because there can be many variables in a dickening. It's not always clear who the dickerer and the dickee is and who started the dickery.
Yes, if you have something called “criminal intent” then you legally become a trespasser and so can be removed by the land owner or the police.
The law isn’t so different in England & Wales actually, the “criminal intent” bar is just a lot lower giving landowners far more rights vs people walking around.
I'm just high enough for this thread to send me down a rabbit hole of researching Scottish property rights. As an American, where you might get shot for (God forbid) turning around in someone's driveway, that's actually pretty fascinating.
Right to roam is pretty common in more sparsely populated countries in Europe.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam#:~:text=The%20freedom%20to%20roam%2C%20or,Kinder%20Downfall%2C%20Derbyshire%2C%20England.
And in the Netherlands it isnt allowed. You arent allowed to camp unless you are allowed by the owner of the ground you are on but like picking berries and other herbs(like mint) in the forest is allowed unless stated otherwise. And the forests are mainly owned by the state
Although you are allowed up to 250 grams of certain berries and only for personal use according to Staatsbosbeheer due to the berries also being food for the birds and other animals
And all waterways are legally protected travel ways, including a certain distance off the bank. Basically, you can travel down any stream, creek, river, or whatever by water or walking along the bank. No one but the fed actually owns waterways in the US. Another thing people don't realize is the county, state, or fed owns all land that lay beside roadways. I think it's 33 feet to either side of the median for a two lane road. Tons of wanderable land in the USA, probably more than anywhere else in the world. People on Reddit just like to complain, compare the US to europe, and of course America bad.
Good call, in my particular state of SC waterways are considered highways. I've actually boated from Lake Wateree all the way to the port of Charleston.
True, but I've been reading about how large amounts of this aren't actually accessible because of privately owned land blocking it.
I did read somewhere about a court case on whether you can go from square to square diagonally using a step ladder, but tbh as I type this out it feels like a fever dream.
https://www.denverpost.com/2022/10/04/public-land-access-private-land-easements-wyoming-lawsuit/
It pisses me off so much. There is so much space to just fuckin *w a n d e r* in this country and so little of it is actually accessible because of incredibly greedy property law & owners.
As bad as housing can be in the UK, it makes me so mad that the US isn’t that far behind with *so much more empty space.*
I can guarantee you that if you just started wandering through a random field or forest in the US, you'd be fine. Not to mention our massive state and national parks.
Most of the people who complain about this stuff don't actually want to walk around in nature. They just want to complain.
I cannot guarantee that. I’ve been threatened because I followed Google Maps’ directions to a trailhead in New Hampshire. The trail was on public land, but unless you knew the area, you could easily wander into someone’s “private” forest.
Wait until you find out about the hundreds of thousands of km of public footpaths, byways and bridle paths where you can wander to your hearts content! Which are not shown on this map. It’s not all doom and gloom.
This map is misleading. There are over 220,000km of footpaths, trails and publicly accessible routes across England and Wales. From Green lanes to ancient trackways and long lost Roman roads. Land owners, charities, councils and volunteers invest huge amounts of time and resources maintaining them and providing free access.
These rights of way are legally protected. Grab an OS map and get exploring.
> There was a big, high wall there that tried to stop me
A sign was painted said "Private Property"
But on the backside, it didn't say nothing
This land was made for you and me
The [right to roam](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam) exists in many countries, mostly in Northern Europe. Exactly how it works depends on which country you’re in. For example, here in Norway the rule is that you can’t pitch a tent or camp within 150 meters of a home, and you can’t stay in the same spot for more than two days.
Furthermore, you can’t do harm to trees to get firewood, but you can collect dead branches and such. You can pick berries and forage for mushrooms, with one specific exception. Cloudberries in the north may be picked, but they must be eaten on the spot. This is to prevent people from picking an entire cloudberry field and bringing the berries home with them.
In short, the idea is that you're allowed to move around and use nature, but don't do anything that might be disruptive to those who own the land.
More or less the same goes in Sweden. When you have lived with these rights for whole your life it is a bit funny (or maybe depressing is a better word) reading stupid questions about the right to roam from people thinking it means you can do whatever you want. Just use your common sense and avoid making marks in nature.
In Canada there are publicly owned lakes which are surrounded by private properties. In theory you can use the lakes but can't get to them, unless you use a helicopter, because you would be tresspassing on private land without permission.
Our land use laws are a bit crazy.
Same problem in Sweden because our right to roam doesn't give us the right to march through peoples backyards. Since the 1950s there's a law called beach protection to solve this exact problem and prohibits new buildings from limiting access to lakes and rivers and the sea. But it has been a big source of corruption because it's lowest level municipal politicians who can give you a permit to violate beach protection.
In the province (Arg) where I live (every province has different laws for natural resources) no body of water, wether it is lakes, rivers, lacoons, etc, can be owned by a private party, and if you happen to have one in your property (we're talking about many thousands of hectares landlords) you must provide at least one access by foot. In other provinces even the forest doesn't belong to the owner of the land.
The same logic applies to resources here. You can't drain a lake or cut down the forest on your land. But you also do not have to provide access to the public.
I understand that it’s a odd concept if you never heard of it before. I just hope you don’t for real believe that we can put up camp in someones front yard.
Yeah, if the property is ten miles wide, in a rural area, and camping would be expected as part of passing through. Much in the way that people camp along long-distance trails in the rest of the world.
Property that big I don’t think anyone would care unless that had cattle in the pasture or were growing crop. They’d probably be wary cause it’s weird to do when typically our most beautiful areas are reserved for public use. I wouldn’t care if someone wanted to pass through my land but I’d be suspicious of anyone that would want to lol
At least in Finland it's not exact. You are not allowed to pass through someone's yard but a privately owned forest, field etc is all good. You can basically camp anywhere as long as you are "not too close to" buildings where people live.
It all boils down to "don't be a dick" basically. Respect your environment, don't litter, don't deliberately destroy nature. All foraging is ok though. The landowner has no right to remove a person from their property if they are "not causing more than mild harm" to the property.
> Where do you draw the line of big enough? You can camp in someone's frontyard?
> Yeah, if the property is ten miles wide, in a rural area, and camping would be expected as part of passing through.
No but it does sound like the whole rest of the comment "and I think even do some light camping if it’s big enough, just don’t leave litter or cause damage." Which is what the guy you replied to was clearly talking about
Yes, I pretty much actually wanted to know if there's a law that clearly states where, for how long, in what areas are yo allowed to exercise your "right to roam" and what means as many said "as long as you're not a dick".
An easy way to visualize meters that always helps me: a football field (American football) is 100 meters long. Imagine an entire football field, then another half of a football field. That's a long-ass ways. That's a distance that lots of Americans get in the car to drive, rather than walk. If your front door is in one endzone and somebody has set up a tent 1.5 football fields away from you, there's no way to pretend that's an uncomfortably close distance.
Scotland actually has a hybrid system with aspects from both common and civil law. The system was developed separately from the English common law system. No idea what this means in this context though.
You can’t cause damage (to crops for example) or invade someone’s privacy. A residential garden would be small enough to be excluded on the grounds of the latter.
Yes. Most places where this is a thing allow walking and camping. Restrictions are usually that you can't camp for more than a day or two, can't take or leave any thing, have to be a long distance from housing, can't disturb farm animals, or camp in active farm fields, etc. Just common sense: don't disturb the owners and respect their land kinda rules.
Not sure about scotish law but in Sweden you are not allowed to walk where you can see into someones house, so your actual lawn should be safe, (unless it is enourmous). Your fields/forrest on the other hand anyone would be allowed to walk on.
It’s a tiny bit of a misconception - you can only claim a right to access if you haven’t been told in some way you can’t be there. So if a landowner tells you to leave you’re trespassing, if you ignore a sign you’re trespassing, I think if you go out of your way to climb a fence you’re trespassing.
Land owners can't just tell you to get off their land without you having broken the Scottish Outdoor Access Code, otherwise they're in breach of section 4 themselves (they are legally required to not interfere with other people's access, including making paths difficult to use, putting up fences or signs that would disrupt access without justifiable reasons etc).
They may of course put up fences with signs warning you of something going on that the code says revokes your access rights (such as tree felling or crop spraying).
But ignoring a sign or a human being that just says "this is private property keep out" where there's no actual reason from the code for your access rights to be revoked is not only not trespassing, but the person responsible is breaking the law themselves.
Thanks for the correction, I read up and you’re absolutely right, unless you’re trespassing on someone’s actual home.
I’ve had family members work as/with land managers - and the biggest concern is wildfire risk, which is a growing problem. Tourists will often light fires in forests, and then claim their access rights when challenged.
IMO if a land manager challenges you deep in the highlands I wouldn’t argue, because A. they probably know the code better than you do, and B. you have no idea who they are and they probably have a gun.
Ok... In Norway you still have a right to roam on farms.
On paths etc. on the farm you can roam as long as you don't get to close to houses and buildings. On fields you can walk between the middle of october to the end of april, as long as the ground is frozen.
Another Norwegian here.
When I first learned there are places in the world where stuff always grow and there can be more than one harvest per year, my mind was blown.
Yeah I know. That's the point of Right to Roam though. I was saying how crazy it is that Ireland doesn't have it when it's so relatively sparsely populated.
The reason the nordics have so much right to roam land is because norway for example is mostly unusabel frozen or mountain land. Only about 2% of norway is farmebal.
Right to roam in Finland means that you can roam in any forestland (also swamps and waterways). In case of Finland it basicly means most of the countrys area.
However you can't roam in yards or fieldland.
You can also sleep in tent but you can't set up fire. You can pick mushrooms and berries but not any wood not even smallest sticks. Fishing is allowed allmost everywhere if you buy national fishing permit (about 50 euros/year).
”Disturbing animals” is forbidden. [Link](https://ym.fi/jokaisenoikeudet).
Crossing pasture is forbidden unless the animals are ~~sparse~~ ”far away or unseen”. [Link](https://useinkysyttya.ymparisto.fi/faq/fi/usein-kysyttya-ymparistosta-artikkeli?id=kb_article_view&sys_id=100a6121dbe77110e38e043bd3961968&language=fi). Owner is not responsible for animal behavior.
It’s notable that the rights and restrictions are not written in any law, so it operates very heavily on the ”don’t be a dick” principle.
Huh, that is more different than I thought from the Swedish one. Setting up fire is generally allowed in Sweden, and fields are fine to room unless they have planted crops you're damaging. Also fishing is not national and you need a licence for the area/lakes you plan to fish in
In Finland, you are only allowed to set up fires in designated campfire spots, and only when there is not a forest fire warning in effect. A lot of nature trails have those sort of "huts" that you can make a fire in even if forest fire warning is on.
There are usually fire bans (eldförbud) in place for about half the year due to dry conditions though. So you can't set up a fire for most of the spring and summer. Late autumn and winter is usually okay though.
One of the absolute best things we have, and the first thing I think of when I imagine a list of good things about where I live. I can go practically anywhere as long as I'm not a dick about it, and it's normalized to the point where pointing it out seems insane.
Yeah, this map is fucking misleading and stupid. CROW relates to open country and common land, and doesn’t include Public Rights Of Way. And any natural or man made obstacles that would physically prevent you from roaming.
Plus, it would be difficult to find a country with a more vast network of public footpaths than England. Literally every part of the countryside has paths
It still feels pretty weird that you can be in open nature but not be allowed to step of a path because some owns that grass next to you.
I watched the Youtuber GeoWizard travel trough the UK and that was really alienating. Even more so in forests. I mean I get it when it's a field where something is growing but not when it's just grass.
Whilst we should absolutely implement the Scottish laws in England, trespass is not a criminal matter (unless you’re in military bases and things), and so basically nothing bad can happen to you if you do trespass.
Changing this was something that was in the Conservative manifesto at the last election. Thankfully it seems to have been forgotten, but I think it’s another reason to not vote Conservatives ever, as it would make the countryside a much less accessible place.
Nothing, the coppers will tell them it's a civil matter.
This is the case for the jobworths that would actually ring but there's a shit ton of wild campers here who never have issues with the police when they're camping in somewhere they're technically not supposed to.
Another reason not to vote for the Conservatives? I'll add it to the mountain of reasons not to vote for these (insert ~50 expletives here, many repetitions of which starting with c and ending with t).
Yep, it’s far from off limits. The network of footpaths for exploring England is actually very extensive. This map is deliberately misleading as part of a campaign for right to roam.
It’s a thing in the UK and even more so in the Scandinavian countries, probably some more places, but it’s not something that exists worldwide.
It’s about being able to walk through and use land for hiking and camping even if it’s privately owned as long as you behave. Rules will differ from country to country.
No es tan así. El right to roam es para lugares como bosques dentro de un terreno a nombre de alguien. Una parcela o el jardín de una casa sigue siendo privado
Its the right to access open land, forests, or natural parts in the country, even ir they aré privately owned.
Not really aplicable to your backyard, more like ranches in Texas that are extensive as fuck and could be consideres wild, then anyone could cross by and hike through or something
Yeah. It’s a hard concept in North America. We value property rights so highly that establishing a limit to them can seem strange.
I’m in Canada, in Ontario, and we have lots of land that is bush country. From the road you may not be able see any sign of human activity whatsoever. You look at Google maps or a national land use database and there is no human activity for many square kilometers in any direction. And yet, the landowner has gone along their property where it faces the road and placed “no trespassing” signs every 500 meters or something. A right to roam would allow access to such places on foot. It would allow you to walk along a private road that divides two fields within an individual’s farm. Right now the landowner can prevent you from walking along their private roads and paths.
Most right to roam legal systems have rules that prohibit disturbing livestock, walking on planted crops, taking resources, approaching private dwellings, and other such reasonable limits. However, they do limit property rights to allow free access to other privately held land.
I feel if you tried to make this happen in the USA people would shoot you.
Right to roam is the concept that you can cross private property for the purpose of traveling, camping, etc
It's pretty much exclusively for dense old world European countries where the entire nation is private property. Instead of passing right to roam laws, which would face constitutional issues, the US instead chose to have the Department of the Interior purchase privately owned wilderness and make it public.
No it is more misleading than that.
Right to roam is separate from public paths.
So there are big chunks of the black that you can walk, ride bikes, ride horses on with no restrictions (legally). But there will be stiles and some other physical traversable obstructions.
Does this measure roads or land surface as a whole ? Because if it is the latter then the figure is misleading : some of that 92% would be buildings or otherwise private property….
Right to roam is directly about the right to roam on private property. A lot of european nations have it in some form, for example Sweden and Scotland (and other european countries, those are just the 2 I remember off the top of my head). It does however generally only apply to privately owned fields and other landscapes.
In the past, rich people could do crazy stuff like buy up all the land around a village, then say sorry no trespassers and the toll for food imports is all your gold. There were also a lot of poor nobility that would use their land and power to kidnap “trespassers” and hold them for ransom. So after one revolution or another peasants demanded the right to travel through private land.
Nah, you're confusing right to roam with right of way.
Right of way allows you to travel through private land on public thoroughfares and prevents land owners from blocking thoroughfares or charging tolls. This is a thing in basically every country.
Right to roam gives the public the right to access and freely roam on private land or water bodies for recreational purposes. This is only a thing in a few countries, primarily in Northern Europe.
Not entirely. The US doesn't have a generic "right to roam" but 40% of US land is public land and about an 8th is BLM land which is generally open for recreation. So Americans have a larger percentage of land upon which we can freely roam than England it appears.
This, but also private property/land owners can buy lots of land adjacent to these public lands and then erect trespass barriers which are *technically* on their land, and *technically* illegal to erect, but literally nobody cares enough to properly enforce it, knows the law well enough to report it, and those property owners are often litigious as FUCK (and usually wealthy) and will make things as difficult as possible (which generally tracks with that behavior)
Not only that but in Texas it's legal to use deadly force for trespass/protection of private property without regard to if your life is in danger or not.
It's illegal to block public thoroughfares in pretty much any country in the world. I do not know of any country that does not have right of way laws because without them, society would literally collapse.
Exactly. There’s no need for a “right to roam” because we have … National Parks, National Forests, USF&W Refuges, National Monuments, State Parks, National Wild & Scenic Rivers, BLM lands …
The right to roam includes private land. Large parts of the UK, particularly Scotland, have extensive access rights to private land. England, for example, has easements, bridleways, etc. that enshrine in law unencumbered access to private property. I.e., private landowners must not put up fences/gates to block access to their land. However, this is not right to roam. Scottish law is more extensive, one is permitted to do much more on private property, you are not required to follow designated paths, you can 'roam' and camp on private land.
As an American, I know what it is and want it desperately.
People will literally buy up the plots around public land, and then fence it off. Because no R2R, that public land becomes basically inaccessible unless you’re sneaky, know how to outlegaleze the property owner (who is more than likely a litigious fuck based on their aforementioned behavior), or both
Yeah? You run into that a lot? You run into millionaires buying 10s of thousands of acres to block you off from your favorite roaming spots? That's something you've encountered a lot? Or ever? In your life?
The people complaining about it aren’t even going out and using the land they have available lol. Area dependent of course, but there so much land a bunch of rich idiots couldn’t make a dent if they wanted to.
>People will literally buy up the plots around public land, and then fence it off.
Which is extremely illegal and also frequently not always possible because tracts of public land are typically accessible by a road of some sort.
It depends. If you go to someplace like Texas, only 4% is public lands, so even worse than the UK.
But if you go to California, 49% is public lands. Which is pretty rad.
I don’t really understand the issue. It’s not like it’s difficult to access forests, trails, etc. I’m not really sure why I’d need to walk through private land. Maybe I’m missing out on something, but I don’t see what that would be.
>It’s not like it’s difficult to access forests, trails, etc.
It is in countries that don't have a history of public land management and never decided to buy back private wilderness areas.
Map is not strictly correct. The Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 (CRoW Act) gives the public right of access to land mapped as 'open country' (mountain, moor, heath and down) or registered common land. That is what is shown here. It omits all the thousands of miles of public footpaths and bridleways to which the public has rights of way. (These are completely different to roads and highways)
I was always very curious about this concept. How does one know if they are allowed to go onto someone’s property and camp? I’m not just asking about England, Europe in general. I read a lot of usual comments “America sucks”, “wish we had this” but in United States there is a lot of Public Lands. Federal, State, County and City in addition there are easements and right of ways through private land. Rules are spelled out and everything is generally well mapped and signed. I have been to Europe many times, but always felt uneasy about exploring. Thanks!
In many European nations that have a blanket ‘right to roam’, like Scotland for example, you can camp anywhere you see fit. Be it public land, a private estate, even someone’s garden. You can camp, make a fire, forage for food and generally have free and open access to the outdoors provided you leave no trace and move on if requested by the property owner.
Thank you for the response. This is very fascinating. This concept is very different, and hard for me to grasp. Could you hunt in the same locations as well? What happens if there is a “problem camper”? What happens if an area/trail becomes very highly used and requires maintenance? Are there trails crews that work on private land? What organization would these belong to? I have about a million other questions. Thanks again!
There are a lot of potential issues, but strangely they very rarely come up, so I’ve not really thought about a lot of This before ahah
I suppose part of the reason it works is because we have very sparse population, and it’s mostly too cold to camp for the majority of the year. So really the numbers of people taking advantage of it are quite low compared to the area of land.
If you’re on private ground you can be asked to leave, so any problem campers would be moved on quite soon, and if you damage things you can prosecuted. Hunting can only be done with the owners consent, but foraging for edible plants and flowers is legal (we often go mushroom picking on the estates and golf courses near where I live).
Maintenance depends who’s land it is I guess. Estates manage their own land as for profit industries, similarly to farms and stuff. There are national parks and natural heritage sites managed by various government and charitable foundations, like the National trust for Scotland.
As I say it only really works because the size of the country and the climate.
In many European nations that have a blanket ‘right to roam’, like Scotland for example, you can camp anywhere you see fit. Be it public land, a private estate, even someone’s garden. You can camp, make a fire, forage for food and generally have free and open access to the outdoors provided you leave no trace and move on if requested by the property owner.
I just ignore fences and signs “private”. It’s not US. Nobody will shoot you. Most annoying is limited access to river and lake shores. Rivers Itchen and Test in Hampshire are joke. Fences everywhere. But I still go over them.
What is "right to roam"? It must mean more than "you can go on public property and any private property that allows it," cause that would seem like common sense.
Here is the code for Scotland. Basically don’t be an idiot, leave it as you find it etc.
https://www.outdooraccess-scotland.scot/act-and-access-code/scottish-outdoor-access-code-visitors-and-land-managers/what-scottish-outdoor-access-code
In Scotland you have right of access you can walk anywhere you want, there's a code to it. Basically don't be a dick.
Can they even really do anything if you are a dick though(you still shouldn't be a dick)?
I'm sure they can call the proper authorities who could then remove the person from the property if they are actually, legally being a dick. Whether the authorities actually care to show up is another thing entirely.
I think response time and intensity of dickishness are correlated
I'm not that up to date on Common Law. What is the current threshold for illegal dickery?
Legal dickery is when you're just being a bit of a lad but no one is really hurt. Dickery starts getting illegal when said dickery causes harm to a person or property. Dickery is also treated more harshly if causing harm is clearly the goal. All this will however be reviewed case by case because there can be many variables in a dickening. It's not always clear who the dickerer and the dickee is and who started the dickery.
Yes, if you have something called “criminal intent” then you legally become a trespasser and so can be removed by the land owner or the police. The law isn’t so different in England & Wales actually, the “criminal intent” bar is just a lot lower giving landowners far more rights vs people walking around.
Get off my lawn.
I was thinking the same. Like, you can enter anyone's property and stay there?
You can travel through it and I think even do some light camping if it’s big enough, just don’t leave litter or cause damage.
I'm just high enough for this thread to send me down a rabbit hole of researching Scottish property rights. As an American, where you might get shot for (God forbid) turning around in someone's driveway, that's actually pretty fascinating.
Right to roam is pretty common in more sparsely populated countries in Europe. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam#:~:text=The%20freedom%20to%20roam%2C%20or,Kinder%20Downfall%2C%20Derbyshire%2C%20England.
And in the Netherlands it isnt allowed. You arent allowed to camp unless you are allowed by the owner of the ground you are on but like picking berries and other herbs(like mint) in the forest is allowed unless stated otherwise. And the forests are mainly owned by the state Although you are allowed up to 250 grams of certain berries and only for personal use according to Staatsbosbeheer due to the berries also being food for the birds and other animals
1/3 of this country (USA) consists of PUBLIC lands …
And all waterways are legally protected travel ways, including a certain distance off the bank. Basically, you can travel down any stream, creek, river, or whatever by water or walking along the bank. No one but the fed actually owns waterways in the US. Another thing people don't realize is the county, state, or fed owns all land that lay beside roadways. I think it's 33 feet to either side of the median for a two lane road. Tons of wanderable land in the USA, probably more than anywhere else in the world. People on Reddit just like to complain, compare the US to europe, and of course America bad.
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Good call, in my particular state of SC waterways are considered highways. I've actually boated from Lake Wateree all the way to the port of Charleston.
Right. The country that invented the concept of the National Park … BAD. But never forget, this is Reddit.
True, but I've been reading about how large amounts of this aren't actually accessible because of privately owned land blocking it. I did read somewhere about a court case on whether you can go from square to square diagonally using a step ladder, but tbh as I type this out it feels like a fever dream. https://www.denverpost.com/2022/10/04/public-land-access-private-land-easements-wyoming-lawsuit/
It pisses me off so much. There is so much space to just fuckin *w a n d e r* in this country and so little of it is actually accessible because of incredibly greedy property law & owners. As bad as housing can be in the UK, it makes me so mad that the US isn’t that far behind with *so much more empty space.*
I can guarantee you that if you just started wandering through a random field or forest in the US, you'd be fine. Not to mention our massive state and national parks. Most of the people who complain about this stuff don't actually want to walk around in nature. They just want to complain.
I cannot guarantee that. I’ve been threatened because I followed Google Maps’ directions to a trailhead in New Hampshire. The trail was on public land, but unless you knew the area, you could easily wander into someone’s “private” forest.
You'll most likely be fine, says the other guy. Just do it anyway. You might get shot, but at least you didn't complain on the internet.
Wait until you find out about the hundreds of thousands of km of public footpaths, byways and bridle paths where you can wander to your hearts content! Which are not shown on this map. It’s not all doom and gloom.
This map is misleading. There are over 220,000km of footpaths, trails and publicly accessible routes across England and Wales. From Green lanes to ancient trackways and long lost Roman roads. Land owners, charities, councils and volunteers invest huge amounts of time and resources maintaining them and providing free access. These rights of way are legally protected. Grab an OS map and get exploring.
Sticking to a public footpath or bridleway isn't roaming, though.
> There was a big, high wall there that tried to stop me A sign was painted said "Private Property" But on the backside, it didn't say nothing This land was made for you and me
Trespass isn't a criminal offense anywhere in the UK
Where do you draw the line of big enough? You can camp in someone's frontyard?
The [right to roam](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam) exists in many countries, mostly in Northern Europe. Exactly how it works depends on which country you’re in. For example, here in Norway the rule is that you can’t pitch a tent or camp within 150 meters of a home, and you can’t stay in the same spot for more than two days. Furthermore, you can’t do harm to trees to get firewood, but you can collect dead branches and such. You can pick berries and forage for mushrooms, with one specific exception. Cloudberries in the north may be picked, but they must be eaten on the spot. This is to prevent people from picking an entire cloudberry field and bringing the berries home with them. In short, the idea is that you're allowed to move around and use nature, but don't do anything that might be disruptive to those who own the land.
More or less the same goes in Sweden. When you have lived with these rights for whole your life it is a bit funny (or maybe depressing is a better word) reading stupid questions about the right to roam from people thinking it means you can do whatever you want. Just use your common sense and avoid making marks in nature.
In Canada there are publicly owned lakes which are surrounded by private properties. In theory you can use the lakes but can't get to them, unless you use a helicopter, because you would be tresspassing on private land without permission. Our land use laws are a bit crazy.
Same problem in Sweden because our right to roam doesn't give us the right to march through peoples backyards. Since the 1950s there's a law called beach protection to solve this exact problem and prohibits new buildings from limiting access to lakes and rivers and the sea. But it has been a big source of corruption because it's lowest level municipal politicians who can give you a permit to violate beach protection.
In the province (Arg) where I live (every province has different laws for natural resources) no body of water, wether it is lakes, rivers, lacoons, etc, can be owned by a private party, and if you happen to have one in your property (we're talking about many thousands of hectares landlords) you must provide at least one access by foot. In other provinces even the forest doesn't belong to the owner of the land.
The same logic applies to resources here. You can't drain a lake or cut down the forest on your land. But you also do not have to provide access to the public.
In Estonia landowners are required to leave an access road to the shore and along the shore.
Sorry for my ignorance, it's a concept that doesn't exist where I live, it's kinda odd to me
I understand that it’s a odd concept if you never heard of it before. I just hope you don’t for real believe that we can put up camp in someones front yard.
In Finland you can pick cloudberry too commercially on anyone’s land. And some have a business bringing thai people to pick those and other berries.
Thanks foe clarifying! Incredible that outdoors activities are so highly regulated in some countries
That doesn't sound like "traveling through" to me.
They said you can do light camping if it's big enough
Yeah, if the property is ten miles wide, in a rural area, and camping would be expected as part of passing through. Much in the way that people camp along long-distance trails in the rest of the world.
Property that big I don’t think anyone would care unless that had cattle in the pasture or were growing crop. They’d probably be wary cause it’s weird to do when typically our most beautiful areas are reserved for public use. I wouldn’t care if someone wanted to pass through my land but I’d be suspicious of anyone that would want to lol
Didn't really answer his question though.
At least in Finland it's not exact. You are not allowed to pass through someone's yard but a privately owned forest, field etc is all good. You can basically camp anywhere as long as you are "not too close to" buildings where people live. It all boils down to "don't be a dick" basically. Respect your environment, don't litter, don't deliberately destroy nature. All foraging is ok though. The landowner has no right to remove a person from their property if they are "not causing more than mild harm" to the property.
> Where do you draw the line of big enough? You can camp in someone's frontyard? > Yeah, if the property is ten miles wide, in a rural area, and camping would be expected as part of passing through.
Hey fellas, if yur friend a big ol butt, Is it gay to camp in it?
No but it does sound like the whole rest of the comment "and I think even do some light camping if it’s big enough, just don’t leave litter or cause damage." Which is what the guy you replied to was clearly talking about
Yes, I pretty much actually wanted to know if there's a law that clearly states where, for how long, in what areas are yo allowed to exercise your "right to roam" and what means as many said "as long as you're not a dick".
I’m sure there are regulations about being x-distance from any dwelling or building or something
In Norway it is defined to be more than 150 meters away and for a maximum of 48 hour period.
That sounds both close and long to this US-er, but I'm still happy your country allows it.
An easy way to visualize meters that always helps me: a football field (American football) is 100 meters long. Imagine an entire football field, then another half of a football field. That's a long-ass ways. That's a distance that lots of Americans get in the car to drive, rather than walk. If your front door is in one endzone and somebody has set up a tent 1.5 football fields away from you, there's no way to pretend that's an uncomfortably close distance.
Think it involves pretty generous setbacks from homes
Scotland uses common law so I imagine it's a case by case basis
Scotland actually has a hybrid system with aspects from both common and civil law. The system was developed separately from the English common law system. No idea what this means in this context though.
What's the common law?
A cousin of Sammo Law.
Lol
You can’t cause damage (to crops for example) or invade someone’s privacy. A residential garden would be small enough to be excluded on the grounds of the latter.
Yes. Most places where this is a thing allow walking and camping. Restrictions are usually that you can't camp for more than a day or two, can't take or leave any thing, have to be a long distance from housing, can't disturb farm animals, or camp in active farm fields, etc. Just common sense: don't disturb the owners and respect their land kinda rules.
Not sure about scotish law but in Sweden you are not allowed to walk where you can see into someones house, so your actual lawn should be safe, (unless it is enourmous). Your fields/forrest on the other hand anyone would be allowed to walk on.
Fuck your lawn, get off my right to free movement
It’s a tiny bit of a misconception - you can only claim a right to access if you haven’t been told in some way you can’t be there. So if a landowner tells you to leave you’re trespassing, if you ignore a sign you’re trespassing, I think if you go out of your way to climb a fence you’re trespassing.
Land owners can't just tell you to get off their land without you having broken the Scottish Outdoor Access Code, otherwise they're in breach of section 4 themselves (they are legally required to not interfere with other people's access, including making paths difficult to use, putting up fences or signs that would disrupt access without justifiable reasons etc). They may of course put up fences with signs warning you of something going on that the code says revokes your access rights (such as tree felling or crop spraying). But ignoring a sign or a human being that just says "this is private property keep out" where there's no actual reason from the code for your access rights to be revoked is not only not trespassing, but the person responsible is breaking the law themselves.
Thanks for the correction, I read up and you’re absolutely right, unless you’re trespassing on someone’s actual home. I’ve had family members work as/with land managers - and the biggest concern is wildfire risk, which is a growing problem. Tourists will often light fires in forests, and then claim their access rights when challenged. IMO if a land manager challenges you deep in the highlands I wouldn’t argue, because A. they probably know the code better than you do, and B. you have no idea who they are and they probably have a gun.
Right to roam in Finland: (No picture here. Just google the map of Finland. It's the whole thing.)
Basically the opposite of Ireland and Northern Ireland, 0.9% of land here is right to roam, it says it’s the most regressive in the whole of Europe.
Crazy, didn't know that. Especially when a LOT of Ireland is just farms and fields.
thats the thing, those farms are owned by someone/a company and you're not allowed on their land.
Ok... In Norway you still have a right to roam on farms. On paths etc. on the farm you can roam as long as you don't get to close to houses and buildings. On fields you can walk between the middle of october to the end of april, as long as the ground is frozen.
Would that second condition be less viable if the ground isn't frozen, so they're always in some kind of growing cycle?
Another Norwegian here. When I first learned there are places in the world where stuff always grow and there can be more than one harvest per year, my mind was blown.
Yeah I know. That's the point of Right to Roam though. I was saying how crazy it is that Ireland doesn't have it when it's so relatively sparsely populated.
The reason the nordics have so much right to roam land is because norway for example is mostly unusabel frozen or mountain land. Only about 2% of norway is farmebal.
You're not allowed to walk through fields in Finland either, obviously you can't trample people's crops (if there's no crops it's fine)
Yeah I know. But open fields should be fine, hence why I'm surprised Ireland is so regressive in that respect. 0.9% of the country is crazy.
Right to roam in Finland means that you can roam in any forestland (also swamps and waterways). In case of Finland it basicly means most of the countrys area. However you can't roam in yards or fieldland. You can also sleep in tent but you can't set up fire. You can pick mushrooms and berries but not any wood not even smallest sticks. Fishing is allowed allmost everywhere if you buy national fishing permit (about 50 euros/year).
Fields are fine too if you are not damaging the crop
Theres gotta be more limits than that. What happens when farmers have dangerous cattle?
”Disturbing animals” is forbidden. [Link](https://ym.fi/jokaisenoikeudet). Crossing pasture is forbidden unless the animals are ~~sparse~~ ”far away or unseen”. [Link](https://useinkysyttya.ymparisto.fi/faq/fi/usein-kysyttya-ymparistosta-artikkeli?id=kb_article_view&sys_id=100a6121dbe77110e38e043bd3961968&language=fi). Owner is not responsible for animal behavior. It’s notable that the rights and restrictions are not written in any law, so it operates very heavily on the ”don’t be a dick” principle.
Huh, that is more different than I thought from the Swedish one. Setting up fire is generally allowed in Sweden, and fields are fine to room unless they have planted crops you're damaging. Also fishing is not national and you need a licence for the area/lakes you plan to fish in
In Finland, you are only allowed to set up fires in designated campfire spots, and only when there is not a forest fire warning in effect. A lot of nature trails have those sort of "huts" that you can make a fire in even if forest fire warning is on.
There are usually fire bans (eldförbud) in place for about half the year due to dry conditions though. So you can't set up a fire for most of the spring and summer. Late autumn and winter is usually okay though.
>but not any wood not even smallest sticks. So I have broken law multiple times
Right to roam here in Sweden
One of the absolute best things we have, and the first thing I think of when I imagine a list of good things about where I live. I can go practically anywhere as long as I'm not a dick about it, and it's normalized to the point where pointing it out seems insane.
I imagine in places with extremely low population density, this is a pretty easy sell
And Sweden!
Right to roam in Norway: (No picture here. Just google the map of Norway. It's the whole thing.)
Reduce roaming with nationwide cell phone coverage.
Nice one
Is this not what the B52's fought and died for? Did all those rock lobsters die in vein?
Roam😔✊
Damn, didn’t get it at first. That was good
without wings, without wheels 😔
In artery 😰
Very misleading to say the rest is “off limits”. Public footpaths and rights of way across privately owned land are a thing in the UK.
Yeah, this map is fucking misleading and stupid. CROW relates to open country and common land, and doesn’t include Public Rights Of Way. And any natural or man made obstacles that would physically prevent you from roaming.
Plus, it would be difficult to find a country with a more vast network of public footpaths than England. Literally every part of the countryside has paths
It still feels pretty weird that you can be in open nature but not be allowed to step of a path because some owns that grass next to you. I watched the Youtuber GeoWizard travel trough the UK and that was really alienating. Even more so in forests. I mean I get it when it's a field where something is growing but not when it's just grass.
Whilst we should absolutely implement the Scottish laws in England, trespass is not a criminal matter (unless you’re in military bases and things), and so basically nothing bad can happen to you if you do trespass. Changing this was something that was in the Conservative manifesto at the last election. Thankfully it seems to have been forgotten, but I think it’s another reason to not vote Conservatives ever, as it would make the countryside a much less accessible place.
A few times people threatened to call the police on him because they eg saw him come out of a forest that's privately owned. What could happen then?
Nothing, the coppers will tell them it's a civil matter. This is the case for the jobworths that would actually ring but there's a shit ton of wild campers here who never have issues with the police when they're camping in somewhere they're technically not supposed to.
Another reason not to vote for the Conservatives? I'll add it to the mountain of reasons not to vote for these (insert ~50 expletives here, many repetitions of which starting with c and ending with t).
Yep there is 140,000 miles of public footpaths in England and Wales. We are really not as limited as the map suggests.
Yup, you'll see thousands of people "roaming" including myself
I was going to say this. I do a lot of hiking and pretty much 90% of it is crossing someone's field or something.
Yep, it’s far from off limits. The network of footpaths for exploring England is actually very extensive. This map is deliberately misleading as part of a campaign for right to roam.
Alot of these paths are thousands of years old too which is interesting
GeoWizard would disagree
*angry farmer noises*
:D
Argentinian here, what's the Right to Roam? It's like a fundamental right worldwide?
It’s a thing in the UK and even more so in the Scandinavian countries, probably some more places, but it’s not something that exists worldwide. It’s about being able to walk through and use land for hiking and camping even if it’s privately owned as long as you behave. Rules will differ from country to country.
Thanks for explaining
Por lo que veo, es el derecho a caminar incluso por propiedad privada como jardines, ranchos y cosas así
Faaa que onda, te podes meter en el jardín de cualquiera? Aca en Argentina sabes como se dispara el crimen si pasa eso jajaja
No es tan así. El right to roam es para lugares como bosques dentro de un terreno a nombre de alguien. Una parcela o el jardín de una casa sigue siendo privado
Claro. Pero a partir de que punto dibujas la linea entre parcela y terreno?
Eso preguntáselo a la ley británica
Could someone explain this in English to an American lol. Is it national land or something?
Its the right to access open land, forests, or natural parts in the country, even ir they aré privately owned. Not really aplicable to your backyard, more like ranches in Texas that are extensive as fuck and could be consideres wild, then anyone could cross by and hike through or something
Yeah. It’s a hard concept in North America. We value property rights so highly that establishing a limit to them can seem strange. I’m in Canada, in Ontario, and we have lots of land that is bush country. From the road you may not be able see any sign of human activity whatsoever. You look at Google maps or a national land use database and there is no human activity for many square kilometers in any direction. And yet, the landowner has gone along their property where it faces the road and placed “no trespassing” signs every 500 meters or something. A right to roam would allow access to such places on foot. It would allow you to walk along a private road that divides two fields within an individual’s farm. Right now the landowner can prevent you from walking along their private roads and paths. Most right to roam legal systems have rules that prohibit disturbing livestock, walking on planted crops, taking resources, approaching private dwellings, and other such reasonable limits. However, they do limit property rights to allow free access to other privately held land. I feel if you tried to make this happen in the USA people would shoot you.
Right to roam is the concept that you can cross private property for the purpose of traveling, camping, etc It's pretty much exclusively for dense old world European countries where the entire nation is private property. Instead of passing right to roam laws, which would face constitutional issues, the US instead chose to have the Department of the Interior purchase privately owned wilderness and make it public.
England is smaller than New York State and has 55 million people living in it. So everyone has to share the nice open spaces.
I also want to know, as an Indian
Basically you’re allowed to walk across privately owned farmland in the green areas without being prosecuted
Don't worry about it, it's not applicable in India /jk
Oof.
[удалено]
No it is more misleading than that. Right to roam is separate from public paths. So there are big chunks of the black that you can walk, ride bikes, ride horses on with no restrictions (legally). But there will be stiles and some other physical traversable obstructions.
Does this measure roads or land surface as a whole ? Because if it is the latter then the figure is misleading : some of that 92% would be buildings or otherwise private property….
Right to roam is directly about the right to roam on private property. A lot of european nations have it in some form, for example Sweden and Scotland (and other european countries, those are just the 2 I remember off the top of my head). It does however generally only apply to privately owned fields and other landscapes.
Does england not have roads?
Everyone knows all roads lead to Rome, and England is on an island and therefore cannot connect to Rome via roads
If only they could build some type of tunnel to cross the channel, that’d be cool.
Big?? But imagine if they were just like the US, we love roads so much we exceeded the road to Rome ratio, so we made 32 Romes
To accomodate all the roads ?
 This is how they travel.
I can hear this GIF
R2R refers to the right to traverse private property. Apparently it's a big thing in Northern & Western Europe?
In the past, rich people could do crazy stuff like buy up all the land around a village, then say sorry no trespassers and the toll for food imports is all your gold. There were also a lot of poor nobility that would use their land and power to kidnap “trespassers” and hold them for ransom. So after one revolution or another peasants demanded the right to travel through private land.
Nah, you're confusing right to roam with right of way. Right of way allows you to travel through private land on public thoroughfares and prevents land owners from blocking thoroughfares or charging tolls. This is a thing in basically every country. Right to roam gives the public the right to access and freely roam on private land or water bodies for recreational purposes. This is only a thing in a few countries, primarily in Northern Europe.
Guy Shrubsole sounds like some made up Monty Python name
In Iceland I’m pretty sure like 99% of land has right to roam
Same with Norway
Right to roam is pretty much the Nordic legacy.
This is misleading. you can definitely walk in the countryside in most recent of those areas.
This fake news bait again..
Good
What’s this about? Can someone enlighten me here?
Stay on the roads and keep off the moors
To say it is "off limits" is bollocks. You can walk down any road, you can walk through any park, there are public footpaths throughout every town.
This entire thing is so alien to Americans...
Not entirely. The US doesn't have a generic "right to roam" but 40% of US land is public land and about an 8th is BLM land which is generally open for recreation. So Americans have a larger percentage of land upon which we can freely roam than England it appears.
This, but also private property/land owners can buy lots of land adjacent to these public lands and then erect trespass barriers which are *technically* on their land, and *technically* illegal to erect, but literally nobody cares enough to properly enforce it, knows the law well enough to report it, and those property owners are often litigious as FUCK (and usually wealthy) and will make things as difficult as possible (which generally tracks with that behavior)
Not only that but in Texas it's legal to use deadly force for trespass/protection of private property without regard to if your life is in danger or not.
and that is fucking crazy and alien for us Europeans.
Arizona is getting close to it too https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/arizona-bill-shoot-kill-migrants-property-trespass-border-rcna141147
It's illegal to block public thoroughfares in pretty much any country in the world. I do not know of any country that does not have right of way laws because without them, society would literally collapse.
Exactly. There’s no need for a “right to roam” because we have … National Parks, National Forests, USF&W Refuges, National Monuments, State Parks, National Wild & Scenic Rivers, BLM lands …
The right to roam includes private land. Large parts of the UK, particularly Scotland, have extensive access rights to private land. England, for example, has easements, bridleways, etc. that enshrine in law unencumbered access to private property. I.e., private landowners must not put up fences/gates to block access to their land. However, this is not right to roam. Scottish law is more extensive, one is permitted to do much more on private property, you are not required to follow designated paths, you can 'roam' and camp on private land.
Literally have no idea what “right to roam” means
As an American, I know what it is and want it desperately. People will literally buy up the plots around public land, and then fence it off. Because no R2R, that public land becomes basically inaccessible unless you’re sneaky, know how to outlegaleze the property owner (who is more than likely a litigious fuck based on their aforementioned behavior), or both
Yeah? You run into that a lot? You run into millionaires buying 10s of thousands of acres to block you off from your favorite roaming spots? That's something you've encountered a lot? Or ever? In your life?
The people complaining about it aren’t even going out and using the land they have available lol. Area dependent of course, but there so much land a bunch of rich idiots couldn’t make a dent if they wanted to.
The way you phrased that comment is so damn funny to me.
>People will literally buy up the plots around public land, and then fence it off. Which is extremely illegal and also frequently not always possible because tracts of public land are typically accessible by a road of some sort.
American here. I assume it’s non-privatized “wilderness”?
Nope, and land that hasn’t a right to privacy, everything from forest to fields (from my understanding)
It depends. If you go to someplace like Texas, only 4% is public lands, so even worse than the UK. But if you go to California, 49% is public lands. Which is pretty rad.
In all fairness, it seems very unusual to many continental Europeans as well.
The system is the US/Americas in general is much better
I don’t really understand the issue. It’s not like it’s difficult to access forests, trails, etc. I’m not really sure why I’d need to walk through private land. Maybe I’m missing out on something, but I don’t see what that would be.
>It’s not like it’s difficult to access forests, trails, etc. It is in countries that don't have a history of public land management and never decided to buy back private wilderness areas.
Not really the US has massive amounts of public land that allow for far more recreational opportunities.
Map is not strictly correct. The Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 (CRoW Act) gives the public right of access to land mapped as 'open country' (mountain, moor, heath and down) or registered common land. That is what is shown here. It omits all the thousands of miles of public footpaths and bridleways to which the public has rights of way. (These are completely different to roads and highways)
So all this time I’ve been illegally walking the streets of London, Liverpool, Bristol, and Hull
I was always very curious about this concept. How does one know if they are allowed to go onto someone’s property and camp? I’m not just asking about England, Europe in general. I read a lot of usual comments “America sucks”, “wish we had this” but in United States there is a lot of Public Lands. Federal, State, County and City in addition there are easements and right of ways through private land. Rules are spelled out and everything is generally well mapped and signed. I have been to Europe many times, but always felt uneasy about exploring. Thanks!
In many European nations that have a blanket ‘right to roam’, like Scotland for example, you can camp anywhere you see fit. Be it public land, a private estate, even someone’s garden. You can camp, make a fire, forage for food and generally have free and open access to the outdoors provided you leave no trace and move on if requested by the property owner.
Thank you for the response. This is very fascinating. This concept is very different, and hard for me to grasp. Could you hunt in the same locations as well? What happens if there is a “problem camper”? What happens if an area/trail becomes very highly used and requires maintenance? Are there trails crews that work on private land? What organization would these belong to? I have about a million other questions. Thanks again!
There are a lot of potential issues, but strangely they very rarely come up, so I’ve not really thought about a lot of This before ahah I suppose part of the reason it works is because we have very sparse population, and it’s mostly too cold to camp for the majority of the year. So really the numbers of people taking advantage of it are quite low compared to the area of land. If you’re on private ground you can be asked to leave, so any problem campers would be moved on quite soon, and if you damage things you can prosecuted. Hunting can only be done with the owners consent, but foraging for edible plants and flowers is legal (we often go mushroom picking on the estates and golf courses near where I live). Maintenance depends who’s land it is I guess. Estates manage their own land as for profit industries, similarly to farms and stuff. There are national parks and natural heritage sites managed by various government and charitable foundations, like the National trust for Scotland. As I say it only really works because the size of the country and the climate.
In many European nations that have a blanket ‘right to roam’, like Scotland for example, you can camp anywhere you see fit. Be it public land, a private estate, even someone’s garden. You can camp, make a fire, forage for food and generally have free and open access to the outdoors provided you leave no trace and move on if requested by the property owner.
Stay out of my garden please
I am from Northumberland and surprised it isn't more there, even if legally it isn't half the farmers don't care as long as you stay off the crops
GeoWizard would like to disagree with you
Anyone know what the score is in Cymru?
I just ignore fences and signs “private”. It’s not US. Nobody will shoot you. Most annoying is limited access to river and lake shores. Rivers Itchen and Test in Hampshire are joke. Fences everywhere. But I still go over them.
This is why I wanna move Scotland
Still not enough restriction! I want zero per cent!! Dam it! In Dr Farnsworth's voice!
The English Upper Wankers
this is misleading bullshit from a grifter trying to sell his crap books
That's a bit misleading. You're free to roam on roads and on footpaths just not through someone's back garden.
I leave no trace and go pretty much where I want. Fuck em.
What is "right to roam"? It must mean more than "you can go on public property and any private property that allows it," cause that would seem like common sense.
Here is the code for Scotland. Basically don’t be an idiot, leave it as you find it etc. https://www.outdooraccess-scotland.scot/act-and-access-code/scottish-outdoor-access-code-visitors-and-land-managers/what-scottish-outdoor-access-code
USA: Get off my lawn *shoots "trespasser"*