Wild Camping: The Most Expensive "Free" Thing You’ll Ever Do

Wild camping on Midsummer Hill, Herefordshire 

People often say wild camping is free. You pitch up in your chosen spot, sleep under the stars and then wake up to views money can’t buy. Technically, that’s true. No one’s charging you £150 a night to kip in your tent on a public hilltop. But there's something I’ve discovered the hard and expensive way: wild camping might not cost you in hotel bills, but your bank account will still feel it, and it will hurt.

It starts innocently enough. You buy a tent. Nothing fancy. Just something small and “lightweight”. Then you realise that lightweight doesn’t mean light enough when you’re lugging it uphill for hours. Before long you’re eyeing up a tent that costs more than a long weekend in a luxury hotel. And that’s just the beginning.

A good down sleeping bag? That’s another few hundred quid gone mate, but you’ll justify it because “this thing will last for years”. It probably will to be fair. Well, at least until you want an even warmer one. Then there’s the sleeping mat. If you’ve ever spent a night on a roll-mat when temperatures dip towards freezing, you’ll quickly learn what an R-Value is, and why a decent mat with a high one costs almost as much as your monthly heating bill at home.

Of course, you’ll need to eat. That’s when you discover the world of fast boiling camping stoves and those miraculous dehydrated boil in the bag, high calorie meals. “Just add boiling water and enjoy” they say. Later, you’re tucking into some pasta that tastes like salted cardboard and for some reason is crunchy. For the price of your stove and an awful meal to cook on it, you and your partner could have gone out for a slap up dinner at a nice Italian restaurant and you wouldn’t have had to eat it crouched over rabbit droppings.

Then there’s the kit obsession. Wild camping is addictive. Once you’ve watched the sun come up after your first night, you’ll definitely be hooked. You’ll want lighter, stronger, warmer everything. Hiking poles that weigh less than a Mars bar, waterproof jackets made of some space age fabric, merino wool base layers that promise to keep you toasty because your £500 sleep system might not be quite warm enough.

I did a rough costing exercise on some of the higher end equipment I see a lot of people using on wild camping groups on Facebook. I included a Hilleberg Soulo tent, a Therm-a-rest NeoAir XLite NXT mat and Ohm 20F sleeping bag, an Osprey 55 litre backpack, a Jetboil stove and a Flextail Max 3 pump/light. It came to around £1800 in total, which will obviously get you a lot of nights in a decent hotel room. It also doesn't include all the other stuff like suitable clothing, consumables etc. Also bear in mind that most people that wild camp regularly have generally upgraded most of their kit a number of times, and will often buy lighter options for long hikes and summer camping. 

And yet, despite all this, and despite spending enough to fund several hotel holidays, I absolutely would not trade it for anything. I’ve stayed in hotels all over the place through my job in sales and our family travels, from budget chains to coastal resorts. I’ve woken up in rooms with views of world renowned beaches in Thailand or overlooking New York City. But none of it compares to unzipping my tent at dawn, perched on a hilltop, watching the world wake up beneath a sky streaked with pink and gold.

That’s the thing about wild camping. It might empty your wallet, but it fills something far more important. It gives you freedom, peace, and a sense of fulfilment and achievement that no room service, fresh cotton sheets or views from a hotel window can match. Unless of course, you fancy building your own hotel on top of a mountain.