Travelling on a budget in the most expensive part of Europe
WORDS & PHOTOGRAPHY: Chris Wise
The first leg of our year-long campervan road trip was always going to be a challenge. We were heading for Scandinavia; the part of northern Europe famed for its freshness, cleanliness, and being stunningly beautiful – but being something of a pain in the wallet.
The big question was could we get a real taste of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark on a total budget of just £60 per day? This was our pocket money from renting out our flat. The rent had to cover all day-to-day expenses on our life-changing adventure.
We pinned our budget-stretching hopes on Scandinavia’s celebrated ‘right to roam’. It’s a principle, rooted deep in Scandi culture, that the wilderness belongs to everyone – and citizens and visitors should have free access to the countryside and be encouraged to enjoy it.
For us, it dangled the exciting possibility that we – at least some of the time – could overnight in remote forests, beside the clear waters of countless fjords and lakes, even clinging to the side of snow-capped mountains – without spending a euro.
There’s no doubt it worked for us. Of the 66 nights we spent in Scandinavia, only 17 were on official campsites. Frankly, we could not have afforded our 7,000-mile round trip to the Arctic Circle if we’d had to pay for lots of campsites.
But, before you dash off to pack your ’van and follow in our tyre tracks, we need to touch the brakes slightly. Overnighting in the Scandinavian countryside is not a wild camping free-for-all. Freedom to access the countryside comes with conditions and caveats. The rules and regulations vary from country to country, and the legal situation is… let’s just say a bit of a grey area.
This is the point where I stress that I am not a lawyer. Reading Essential Law for Journalists decades ago doesn’t cut it. So, what follows is my purely personal, layperson’s experience of how off-grid overnighting in Scandinavia worked for us on this stunning leg of our grand tour – and a taste of some of the amazing locations we discovered.
Our first bombshell was discovering that we had no right to wild camp in our campervan anywhere, ever. Where any countryside access rights do exist, they’re strictly for individuals – not vehicles. They’re aimed at hikers, foragers and tentists; folks who travel light – not those behind the wheels of massive Meet-the-Fockers-style motorhomes.
