Wild camping is one of the great pleasures of the British hills. There is nothing quite like watching dusk settle over a Lakeland tarn or waking to mist in a Cairngorms glen with nobody else for miles. But our uplands are small, heavily visited and slow to heal. A single badly placed pitch can leave a scar that lasts a decade, and a carelessly buried toilet stop can pollute a burn that people downstream drink from. The good news is that leaving no trace is not about hardship or guilt — it is mostly about small, deliberate habits. In England and Wales, wild camping generally requires the landowner's permission, with a few well-known exceptions; in Scotland, the right of responsible access extends to wild camping in most unenclosed places. Either way, that freedom rests on us behaving well.

Plan Ahead and Pitch on Durable Ground

Most damage happens before you even open your rucksack, so choose your pitch with care rather than settling for the first flattish spot at dusk.

• Aim for ground that is already worn: bare rock, gravel, sand, dry tussocky grass or an obvious established pitch.
• Avoid fragile surfaces — moss, lichen, dwarf willow, heather on thin soil, and the delicate arctic-alpine plateaus found on our highest ground, where a bootprint can last decades.
• Keep at least 30 metres from lochs, tarns, streams and springs, and stay out of sight of paths, roads and buildings.
• Never dig drainage channels, clear vegetation or build stone windbreaks. If the ground is not flat enough, move on twenty paces.
• Arrive late, leave early, and do not stay more than a night or two in the same spot.

Keep Fires Off the Fell

An open fire in the uplands is usually a bad idea. Peat can smoulder underground for days and resurface as a wildfire long after you have driven home, and heather and bilberry take years to recover. Many national parks and access areas ban open fires outright, and seasonal restrictions are common in dry spells. Check before you go, and assume the answer is no on the open hill.

A stove is lighter, faster and far less damaging. Use it on rock or bare ground rather than grass, keep the flame away from dry vegetation, and never leave it unattended. Disposable barbecues are the worst offenders — they scorch the ground they sit on and are frequently abandoned. If you are somewhere fires are genuinely permitted, such as a beach or an established campsite, use a raised fire bowl or tray, burn only dead wood found on the ground, keep it small, and scatter the cold ash afterwards. Do not build a ring of stones; it leaves a permanent mark.

Bury Human Waste Responsibly — or Carry It Out

This is the part nobody enjoys discussing and the part that causes the most lasting harm.

• Choose a spot at least 30 metres from any water, path or campsite, and well away from archaeological features.
• Dig a hole 15–20 cm deep with a proper trowel — not a boot heel — and cover it thoroughly afterwards.
• Do not bury in peat, in shallow soil over rock, or anywhere the soil is waterlogged. Waste in these places does not break down; it simply sits there.
• In busy areas such as the Lake District, Snowdonia or the Cairngorms, the best option is to carry it out in a sealed bag, double-bagged, and bin it at home.
• Pack out toilet paper too. Burying it is unreliable, and "biodegradable" wet wipes are not — they do not rot in the ground.
• Urinate well away from water, pitches and paths, and avoid doing it repeatedly in the same spot.

Carry hand sanitiser and use it. It is worth the few grams.

Cook and Wash Without Leaving a Mark

Food scraps and soapy water are quiet pollutants. Strain your washing-up water through a cloth or fine sieve, then pack the food particles out with your rubbish rather than scattering them. Wash yourself and your pans at least 30 metres from any water source, carrying water to the spot rather than washing in the stream. Use as little soap as possible — even biodegradable soap harms aquatic life — and never tip dirty water directly into a tarn or burn. Store food securely and hang or seal anything smelly away from your tent; it protects your sleep and stops wildlife learning that camps mean easy calories.

Take Every Piece of Litter Home

Anything you carry up the hill, you carry down. That includes the things people convince themselves are harmless: orange peel, apple cores, banana skins, tea bags, nut shells and the last inch of a flask of coffee. None of it belongs in the hills, and all of it takes years to disappear. So do bottle tops, zip ties, hair bands, cigarette ends, tent pegs and the tiny scraps of foil and tape that escape a rucksack.

Before you leave, do a slow circuit of the pitch and look back from twenty paces. Crouch down and check at ground level, where the small stuff hides. Leaving a bothy or a pitch cleaner than you found it — picking up one piece of someone else's litter — takes seconds and makes a real difference.

Leave Wildlife, Livestock and Other People in Peace

Give ground-nesting birds a wide berth, particularly between March and July, and never approach deer or other animals to photograph them. Sheep and cattle wander freely on most open hill ground; keep your distance, close gates behind you, take your dog only where it is welcome and keep it under proper control. Camp quietly, keep music and voices low, and be conscious that a headtorch and a bright tent can spoil someone else's summit dawn as easily as theirs can spoil yours. Do all of this, and the wild places we love will still feel wild for the next person who climbs up behind you.