Wondering how to find a place to sleep in a van or camper van? What are the rules for wilderness bivouacs on your road trip? You’ve come to the right place!
After a tour of Southern Europe and Scandinavia, during our many months in the motorhome, we had to look for around 250 places to sleep! Naturally, we set up strategies to find the right spot as quickly as possible.
We give you all our tips and tricks below, which apps to download, which filters to apply…
Our long trips in a converted vehicle
To give you an idea of who we are and our history as “campingcarists” / “vanlifeur”, we bought our converted vehicle in 2021, then we made several long trips :
- 10 months in Southern Europe (Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Austria, Germany)
- 4 months in Scandinavia (Denmark, Sweden and Norway)
- Several weeks’ vacation in France, including Brittany, the north-east and the region around Lyon
Before 2021, we tended to travel by backpack, and even did a round-the-world trip in 2016 and 2017.
After the birth of our daughter in 2020, the purchase of a motorhome seemed an obvious choice for our family vacations with a young child.
Indispensable applications for finding a bivouac where to spend the night
-
Park4Night
This is the app to have on your phone, listing places where you can park for the night, with comments and ratings from other users.
With the paid option (around €2/month or €10/year) we can add filters to our search, and look for spots around us via the “Around me” button. - Google maps: another must-have in our opinion, satellite maps are super useful for finding places to sleep.
- France Passion, Agricamper (in Italy)… these applications, in return for a small monthly or annual subscription fee, enable you to find free pitches with producers. We stayed with winegrowers, a farmer, a saffron producer and an olive grower. It’s a guarantee of great encounters!
- iOverlander: it works very much like Park4night, but honestly, we don’t use it much.
The different types of pitches
We’ve tried to categorize the different types of pitches we’ve stayed at to give you a clearer idea of what to expect on your road trip:
- Out in nature: that’s the category we’re all looking for. We’ve found some stunning locations, by the sea or in the heart of nature, in Greece, Sweden and Romania.
The most complicated country for bivouacs was Italy, where we slept many nights in unglamorous parking lots.
| + | – |
| Free of charge Sleeping in nature | Not always easy to find Possibility of being woken by cows or other animals (this happened to us on 2 occasions). |
- Parking lots: we try to be as discreet as possible in these areas. We avoid parking lots too close to the road (we like a quiet place to sleep), restaurants, especially at weekends, and busy areas so as not to disturb other drivers, especially the locals.
| + | – |
| Free of charge Sleeping in the heart of the city or close to points of interest | Often noisy |
- The communal areas (many town halls play the game) are often packed in like sardines, so it’s not at all Instagrammable, but for one night, it’s more than enough. Green logo “free CC. stat. area” on the Park4night app.
We found them mainly in France, Spain, Austria and Germany. The services are generally free and since parking is allowed, we could sleep without fear of being disturbed or woken up in the middle of the night, what more could we ask for?
| + | – |
| It’s free and authorized Nearby playground / sports field | Often roadside parking |
- From growers: this is an option we really like, with growers offering a piece of their land via the France Passion app or directly on Park4night.
In most cases, you’ll be able to test their products and buy some if you wish.
| + | – |
| Authorized and secure parking Nice meeting | Paid subscription |
- Homestay: private individuals can rent out one or more pitches. We only did this once in Stockholm, as the campsites around capital cities are generally not very good.
| + | – |
| Authorized and secure parking Nice meeting | Paying |
- Campsite or caravan park: this is an option we like a lot, where we stop to do the machines, take showers with a good flow, and generally in Scandinavia campsites are equipped with a kitchen.
| + | – |
| Authorized and secure parking Numerous services (washing machine, swimming pool, playground…) Cleanliness | Some are expensive for the services offered |
Our methodology for finding a free place to sleep in a van or camper van
After numerous spot searches, we have developed a methodology that allows us to find our happiness quickly:
As you can imagine, the aim is to spend as little time as possible on this task while sleeping peacefully and in a cool place.
1. Find out about parking permits by country
In the country where you will be vacationing, try to find up-to-date information, as regulations can change.
In most of the countries we visited, outside the natural parks and protectedareas, we found free and authorized bivouacs for motorhomes and vans 90% of the time.
In our view, the countries with specific regulations in Europe are at least: Portugal, Slovenia and Croatia. Feel free to add countries in the comments if we’ve missed any.
2. Application search
We open our Park 4 night application and start our search with several filters:
– rating higher than 4/5
– free CC stat. area
– The “playground” was ideal for keeping our daughter busy and meeting other children.
Then we look around the point of interest/geographical area we’re targeting for the night.
You can also create lists to organize all your spots by country or geographic zone. We’ve just realized that we no longer have access to it with the free option.
3. Reading notices
A very important point to avoid unpleasant surprises is to read the reviews carefully and check their publication date. We usually take spots with at least 3 months’ notice.
4. Spot location on Google maps in satellite view
This is very important, as you can set your Park 4 Night map directly to satellite mode (top right).
This allows us to study the environment, for example, if you notice a freeway next to the spot, run away… Avoid sleeping in the immediate vicinity of dwellings.
Here’s a snapshot of the same location in a classic Google view and in a Google satellite view, and the change is obvious. We slept in the parking lot north of Capitaine Marée.
5. Rendezvous at your day bivouac
This advice seems obvious, but in reality it’s not so easy to follow. It’s always best to see the environment around your wilderness bivouac by day.
6. Trust your instincts!
Once you’ re there, if you have any doubts, don’t hesitate to drive a few kilometers further to find something else.
In Greece, we had found a spot next to an abandoned building that seemed to be squatted regularly, with food and drink left over, so we preferred to look for something else so as not to potentially be disturbed in the middle of the night.
Our final tips
Our latest tips for finding a dream wilderness bivouac :
- Choose locations away from main points of interest
- Off-season travel
- Ask locals if it’s possible to park overnight
- Sharing good spots with other travelers
- Respecting the environment for future travellers
Have you ever slept in a wilderness bivouac with your vehicle? Do you have any other advice for travelers?
Feel free to leave us a quick note or 5 stars below, ask any questions you may have, below or on Instagram we’ll get back to you with great pleasure.
