also called free camping · stealth camping (related) · stealth parking · urban stealth camp
Camping outside formal campsites, legality varying from fully allowed to restricted or banned by place.
Wild camping means sleeping outside official campsites, out on land rather than in a paid pitch. Whether it is allowed swings wildly by place: some countries welcome it, others restrict it to certain areas, and some ban it outright. The danger is treating it as a universal right, because in the wrong spot it means fines or an angry landowner rather than a free night.
You pull off a long drive and pitch up somewhere quiet, assuming nobody minds. In this particular region it is banned, and you wake to a fine or a knock from the landowner instead of the free night you counted on.
Can save money on long road trips, but fines, landowner rules, and local bans make it high-risk if you assume it is always legal.
The difference is the whole point, so here is each one in a line.
These split by whether you have facilities and permission.
Boondocking and wild camping both mean staying without paid hookups, boondocking usually on public land and wild camping's legality varying by place.
Hookups are the campsite connections for power, water and sewer; a dump station is where you empty waste tanks; and an aire is a simple European motorhome stop with fewer facilities than a full campsite.
aire · boondocking · dump station · hookups
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