Wild camping
Also known as: Boondocking, Dispersed camping, Free camping, Wild pitch
Free overnight stays outside organised campgrounds — out in nature, with no facilities and no fees.
Wild camping (boondocking) means spending the night outside a campground: on a riverbank or lakeshore, in a forest, on the steppe, on a mountain pass. Legally, in Russia it’s allowed almost everywhere except protected areas, private land and border zones.
For RV travellers it’s the main way to travel. Fuel consumption and motorhome depreciation are high enough that without boondocking the trip budget simply falls apart. The top areas are the Karelian coasts, the Kola Peninsula, Altai, Tuva and the Russian Far East.
CAMPLY is a community-built map of wild camping spots: travellers add coordinates with notes on access, how level the ground is, firewood nearby and phone signal. The community moderates entries through reviews and photos.
Leave-no-trace rules for wild camping: leave it as you found it — pack out your rubbish, don’t light fires where it isn’t allowed, don’t dump grey water into rivers, and don’t leave human waste within 50 m of water.
- ✓Free — the main argument
- ✓Total solitude — no neighbours for miles
- ✓The most beautiful places — where tourist roads don’t go
- −You need full self-sufficiency — water, gas, batteries
- −Grey water is a problem — you have to find a dump point
- −No security — theft is rare but possible
See it in the catalogue
Community spots for wild camping