Wild Camping for Beginners: Your First Night on a Hill

26 June 2026 · The Hillbagger Team

If you already spend your weekends bagging hills, wild camping lets you stay out overnight instead of racing the daylight back to the car. You carry your sleep kit up, pitch high, and wake already on the mountain. It also puts remote tops within reach that are too far for a single day.

This guide is for walkers who are comfortable on the hill in daylight and want to start staying out overnight. It assumes you can already navigate and look after yourself on the hill, and focuses on what changes when you sleep out: the kit, the pitch, the etiquette, and planning a first trip. If you're new to hills altogether, get some day-walk experience behind you first.

Why bother carrying a tent up a hill?

The payoff is the parts of the day most walkers miss. You get sunset and sunrise from high ground, a quiet camp once everyone else has gone home, and access to hills where the walk-in alone would eat most of a day trip. The cost is extra weight on your back and a handful of new skills, both of which are easy enough to pick up.

Is wild camping legal?

The rules depend on where you are, and they differ across Britain and Ireland:

Scotland gives a genuine right to wild camp on most unenclosed land under the access legislation, provided you follow the access code. A few honeypot areas have seasonal byelaw exceptions.
England and Wales have no general right to wild camp; it usually needs the landowner's permission. Dartmoor is the exception, where a right has been upheld.
Ireland and Northern Ireland are permission-based, and access depends largely on landowner goodwill.

The details change and vary by location, so check the current guidance for the area you're heading to before you go:

A common rule of thumb across the UK uplands is "high, light, and out of sight": camp well above the last enclosed field, arrive late, leave early, and pitch where you won't bother anyone. That's etiquette rather than a legal guarantee, so when in doubt, ask, or pick Scotland for your first trips.

The kit

Gear advice dates fast and the "best" tent changes every season, so it's worth learning the decisions behind a purchase rather than copying a shopping list. Get those right and you can buy sensibly at any budget.

Start with the "big four": shelter, sleep system, pack, and cooking. Together they account for most of your pack weight, and everything else is comparatively minor.

Shelter

The first choice is three-season versus four-season. For spring-to-autumn hill camping a three-season tent is lighter, cheaper, and plenty. Save four-season (and its extra weight and cost) for winter, when you need to shed snow and stand up to serious wind.

After that, weigh up two trade-offs:

Freestanding versus trekking-pole shelters. Freestanding tents pitch almost anywhere and forgive bad ground. Pole-supported shelters are lighter but need good pitching technique and solid pegging, so start freestanding while you learn.
Weight versus liveability. A roomier tent is nicer when you're stuck inside on a wet morning but heavier on the climb. For a first overnight, a bit of comfort is worth a few hundred grams.

Sleep system

This is what keeps you warm, and it's the part beginners most often skimp on. It has two halves, and both matter:

Sleeping bag: down versus synthetic. Down is lighter and packs smaller for the same warmth but loses its insulation when wet. Synthetic is heavier and bulkier but still works damp, which is why a lot of first-timers prefer it in the wet UK hills. Match the bag's comfort rating to the temperatures you'll actually meet, and bear in mind it gets colder the higher you camp.
Sleeping mat: check the R-value. The ground takes more heat off you than the air does. A mat's R-value measures how well it insulates you from the cold ground, and a higher number means warmer. Around 3 is fine for three-season hill use. A warm bag on a thin mat will still leave you cold.

Pack

Once you know the volume of your shelter, sleep system, food, and layers, pick a pack that holds it comfortably. For a first overnight that's usually 45 to 65 litres. Don't buy a huge pack "to be safe", because a bigger bag only tempts you to carry more. Fit and a proper hip belt matter more than raw capacity, as the weight should sit on your hips rather than your shoulders.

Cooking

Keep it simple. A small gas canister stove boils water quickly, weighs little, and is hard to get wrong. Most of the time you only need hot water, for a dehydrated meal in the evening and a brew in the morning. In cold conditions stoves work harder, so carry a bit more gas than you think you'll need.

The smaller essentials

Don't leave these behind: map and compass and the skills to use them (don't rely on a phone), a head torch with spare batteries, a first-aid kit, enough water or a way to treat it, warm layers, and waterproofs. None of them become optional just because you're only out for one night.

Choosing a pitch

Finding a good spot is a skill, and it makes the difference between a comfortable night and a miserable one. Look for:

Flat, firm ground clear of obvious water channels. Avoid the bottom of a hollow, where cold air pools and rain collects.
Shelter from the wind. A slight rise, a boulder, or a fold in the ground takes the edge off a gale. Don't pitch on an exposed summit if weather is coming in.
Water nearby but not next to you. A running stream a short walk away is ideal. Camping right beside still water invites midges and damp.
Durable ground. Pitch on rock, gravel, or hardy grass rather than fragile vegetation or boggy moss.

For high pitches the rule is arrive late, leave early. Reach your spot near dusk, be packed and away soon after dawn, and you leave the hill much as you found it. It keeps a low profile where camping is permission-based, and it gets you moving before the day's weather builds.

Leave no trace

Wild camping stays welcome only where campers look after the ground they use. The standard is straightforward: leave your pitch so nobody can tell you were there.

Take everything out. Litter, food scraps, and every tent peg. If you carried it in, carry it out.
Deal with toilet waste properly. Go well away from water and paths, bury it in a small hole, and pack out your toilet paper.
Don't light fires. Open fires scar the ground for years and are a real wildfire risk on dry moorland. Cook on your stove and leave the campfire out of it.
Keep groups small and quiet. A lone tent or two, pitched discreetly, is the spirit of wild camping. Big, noisy groups are how access gets lost for everyone.

Looking after your pitch protects both the hills and the freedom to camp on them.

Planning your first trip

The usual beginner mistake is taking on too much. A first wild camp should be a short, low-commitment outing where you're testing your kit and your nerve rather than your endurance.

A sensible first overnight looks like this:

Pick a modest, accessible hill, ideally in Scotland where the legal picture is clearest, with a short walk-in and an easy way off if the weather turns or your gear lets you down.
Camp within reach of the car. An hour or two from the trailhead means a bad night is an inconvenience rather than an emergency.
Watch the forecast and pick a calm, settled window. Leave the dramatic conditions until you have a few nights behind you.
Tell someone your plan, including where you're going and when you'll be back.

It helps to see the detail of a hill before you commit to it: its height, location, and what else is nearby. You can browse hills on Hillbagger to find a sensible first target and plan a route in to it. The route planner also shows a crowdsourced parking layer, so you can see where other walkers have managed to leave the car at the trailhead. After that it's mostly a matter of waiting for a good forecast.

A first night out is always a bit nerve-racking, and almost always worth it. Pack sensibly, pitch with care, and leave no trace, and you'll soon be planning the next one.