What is Stealth Camping?

Stealth Camping is the act of sleeping in non-conventional areas without trace or discovery. Either you in foot expedition, bicycle touring or motorbike adventure.

Though it may sound illegal, stealth camping, by definition, does not imply an illegal activity. Instead, stealth campers take advantage of  free or extremely low cost sleeping areas where other campers never think to stay. Proper stealth camping is an art and requires forethought, consideration of the property owner, and safety consciousness in order to keep it legal, safe, and comfortable. Stealth camping is legal in many areas, but not everywhere. Many locations have specific trespassing laws which limit those areas that you can legally stealth camp. Please use these links as a starting point in your research about the laws in your area

Stealth camping takes on many forms and there are very few confining definitions on what constitutes stealth camping.  If you have ever taken a long journey in your car and stopped at a rest stop or a fast food parking lot for an extended nap you have stealth camped without even knowing you were doing it.  Though sleeping in your car for a few hours at a Plus Highway R&R may not be considered hard core by the most experienced stealthers, car camping in public parking lots is one of the more sedate forms of stealth camping.

If parking lots are too tame for you, don’t write off stealth camping as only for losers who would rather sleep in their cars than shell out money for a hotel bed and a hot shower. Remember, stealth camping takes on many forms. The more exciting forms of stealth camping will have you stringing a hammock & flysheet between two trees in a secluded wooded area on the outskirts of a big city or pitching a one-man bivy shelter within earshot of a westbound train or in a tucked away corner of a farmer’s pasture land.

The Unwritten Rules:

• Never leave a trace. Do not break branches, or cut firewood. No campfires, no moving rocks, no altering the landscape. It might be okay to soften your bed with a bit of leaves, but you should spread them back out before you leave. It should not be evident that anyone was there. Leave NO trace. 
• Try to leave the location cleaner than the way you found it. The creators of this site believe in removing a few pieces of litter from each location visited. This is our way of thanking the owner, and nature. 
• You can try to plan ahead, but you will eventually be stuck in a rural area without a restroom. If you must empty your bowels in the woods, be sure to dig a hole, and then bury it. Usually you can plan around these things, but it will happen to everyone eventually. 
• Trust your instincts. If the area looks like a location where you should ask permission, do so. We believe you should always ask the owner if the area has a clear and immediately obvious owner. 
• If asked, be friendly and truthful about your adventure. Most people would rather share in your journey than cause you problems. Your actions will greatly impact how future adventurers are treated. Do not claim you were not trying to hide if your tent is camouflage. 
• Make stealth camping one of several options. If there is a cheap or free campground nearby that equally suites your needs, it might be best to use it. This is a judgement call that is left to the reader. 
• If confronted by the property owner, explain your position, and that you would happily pay a typical camping fee for use of the land. A friendly smile goes a long way; in a remote area the landowner will understand the limitations and challenges of your adventures. 
• Stealth camping with groups often doesn't work. It works best when solo. When in a group we often let our guard down, talk, and are easier to see. If you are in a group, it is best to find a landowner who can give you permission to camp. 

Stealth Mode!

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The Year 2012 is Come! Why We Need to 'Survive'?

I believe the Western world is today more vulnerable to both natural and man-made catastrophes than at any time in our past due to our dependence on a complicated system of systems. My goal is to present a strategic view of why our civilization is so vulnerable, along with a tactical view of how to prepare for it.

There are several big picture factors to consider that work together in a dangerous way:

Economics
The U.S. national debt is a long-term threat to the nations economy and current levels of government spending are unsustainable. Most of European is no better and many nations in the European Union are in far worse shape. Still, governments spend, though it is unlikely future generations will be able to pay these debts. In short, our nation is in danger of bankrupting itself. Compounding this issue are our dwindling manufacturing and tax bases, aging infrastructure, declining educational system, and absolute dependence on foreign oil. In the U.S. and abroad, legislatures seems determined to spend us into oblivion in the name of saving us.

Resources

Whether Peak Oil theory is correct or not, fossil fuels are becoming more difficult to extract and will become more expensive over time. The U.S. cannot be energy independent given current oil and gas reserves, or at least cannot maintain current living conditions. China and India are growing and so are their energy needs. Green energy sources cannot fill the void. Unfortunately, modern civilization is based on access to cheap fossil fuels, and world governments seem to be oblivious to the need to prepare (e.g., start building hundred of nuclear reactors now) for the future.

Demographics

The U.S., Europe, and some Asian (China and Japan) societies are rapidly aging, meaning there will be less workers, less paying taxes, and more retirees using those lesser resources, at the very time the opposite will be needed. This issue compounds the economic problem above.

International Threats

U.S. status as a super power will be challenged in the future as China and perhaps Russia gain power. Those nations and others, however, will also face demographic and resource issues that will make them competitors for trade and scarce recourse, increasing the potential for conflict. Non-state actors such as Al Qaeda will continue to be a challenge as well as a budgetary drain. All countries remain vulnerable to the threat of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack.

Wild Cards

This includes natural disasters, plagues and pandemics, earthquakes, asteroids, etc. – all those things completely beyond the control of humans that could wreak havoc upon civilization by destroying key infrastructure (dams, power grid, etc.).

Society has faced many of these issues in the past, the difference being that contemporary Western civilization has become dependent upon technology to a degree unsurpassed in history – a gross over reliance that is our Achilles heel. While there is a level of redundancy that provides some robustness, there is point when failures in one systems cause something like shock waves that will cause failures in related systems. We have lost many of the vital non-technical skills our grandparents generation had.

As our society becomes more dependent on increasingly complex technologies, the potential effect of large scale catastrophes is magnified by the probability of cascade failures in those technologies.

As Robert Heinlein said in his essay, How to be a Survivor, “it’s worth planning for.”

The right to make a copy for personal use is part of most existing publishing agreements. This right is recognized as an important right for the author. Because the right is attached to the author and in most cases well defined, personal use won’t harm the publisher.