Wild Camping: Sweden’s “Right to Roam” Explained

Freedom in Sweden is like pine needles and woodsmoke. It is as though a river rustles in the woods, and it is as though you have just woken up in a gray northern sky. 

This liberty is not without a name, allemansratten, or the right of everyman, and is a law of centuries, according to which anyone may walk, camp and wander almost everywhere in nature. You must experience it to know it and that means to stay in the wild, and have nothing there, but a tent and a camp-fire and the wind.

Airport parking Luton takes the stress out of travel, allemansrätten takes the barriers out of nature. To truly know it, you have to live it: stay in the wild with nothing but a tent, a campfire, and the whisper of the wind.

A Freedom Rooted in Respect

I could not believe it at first, when I heard about allemansratten. You can just camp, anywhere? When fences and no trespassing signs become the order of the day in the world, Sweden is another world. But this freedom does not pertain to ownership, it pertains to harmony. The law affords all persons the freedom to wander.

It means camping without houses, without farmland, without even leaving a crumbpiece. It is easy, leave only photos, only footprints. And there in that simplicity is something very human, trust. Sweden has faith in her people and her people trust her land as friends.

The First Night Under the Stars

I will not be able to forget the wild camping night in Dalarna the first. I came to a small clearing in a lake, among great pines and the gentle buzz of insects. The air was mossy and old, the air smelt. I boiled noodles on a small gas cooker, observed the sunset spread over the water, and heard the forest fall into darkness.

No Wi-Fi, no background noise, no schedule, just the rhythm of nature. It was non threatening when the darkness fell. It enclosed me gently round, like a blanket.

More than Adventure It is a Way of Life.

To Swedes, wild camping is not an activity they carry out on the weekend, but it is an identity. Toddlers are carried by their families on their backs. Young people spend their nights in lakes. Busy urban residents are willing to go to the forest to find peace. This isn't escape, it's return.

Allemansratten moulds not just the way of people, but that of their thoughts, as well. It teaches us to be thankful to have clean air, silent places and even the mere freedom. It is a reminder that nature is not our possession but we are its possession.

Note: Always check Heathrow airport cheap parking and book according to your needs.

I have one Swedish friend who met me on Skane and who explained it like this: The forest is the living room of everyone. You need only take off your shoes before you come in. I laughed, though it would not get out of my mind, this easy and easy mixture of freedom and responsibility.

The Silent Revolt of Trust.

Nature is regulated, commodified, or even shut down in most areas of the planet. The right to roam is radical in Sweden as it is constructed on something weak and uncommon that is trust in one another and the land. And somehow, it works.

When I was walking along the Sarek Mountains, I encountered a team of mountaineering tourists picking up rubbish that other tourists had discarded, not because it was their obligation to do so, but because of love. With us, said one, we have lost it unless we take care of it. It is the silent power of allemansratten that gives strength to men not by laws, but by conscience.

Leaving Nothing But Wonder

On the morning of my journey home as I rolled up my tent the grass under was still lying down, a thin trace of the place where I had slumbered. I shook it out and sprinkled the pine needle, to hide the spot. The lake was a mirror and it reflected slowly floating clouds in the sky.