A Home Away From Home

Words and photos by Jacob Martin

A home away from home.

Maybe it’s a tent, a bivi bag, or if we’re lucky, a hut out in the mountains.

That wonder of “where will I sleep tonight?” is for me one of the most exciting parts of bikepacking—not knowing where I will put my head down that night or what view I will wake up to in the morning. Over the many adventures I have done, there have been many spectacular spots, beautiful lakeside pitches, quiet beaches all to ourselves, and remote huts deep in the mountains.

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Maybe others are more organised than me and my friends. Maybe you plot out or even book a place to stay for the night before you start out for the day. That probably feels nice and comfortable and removes a worry from the day ahead, though I quite like the uncertainty. I quite like the excitement and the ability to stop as soon or as late as I like. I like that the perfect camp spot could be hiding right around the next corner, or I might bump into a local with the best recommendation. It’s the safe and comfortable option but it comes with so much possibility, which is one of the reasons I’m out here in the first place.

We don’t always win with this game, however, and sometimes have less desirable nights of sleep. They can be cold, wet, or just plain uncomfortable. We can head miles off route looking for a safe spot to pitch up, camping mats can go flat, or as my mate Hugo found out the hard way, we can forget our bivi bag on a rainy night under just a tree in a park. Without these nights, the excitement of finding that perfect camp spot and great sleep while bikepacking wouldn’t be the same—it would be boring if it was guaranteed. It’s kind of weird that we leave our comfortable lives to potentially have an unpleasant night, and maybe this is a moment to recognise how lucky and privileged many of us are. We go out in search of this, choose to do it, and can turn around and go home to comfort whenever we please. We’re incredibly fortunate in that way.

Still, as much as I don’t understand it, a part of me does: the reward of a good camp spot is like no other. It’s my medal I get at the end of the day, the high five or the pat on the back for getting up and over all those hills. And it’s also more. It’s where I will sit with my friends and laugh over the tales of the day, and where I’ll cook dinner and relax. For a short time, it’s where I’ll call home.

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We all have our own setups for camping when we bikepack, our own little packaway lives. Some of us use tents, some bivi out under the stars, and there’s a few people in the mix who seem to throw themselves in a ditch and hope for the best. We’re all aiming to have a great night’s sleep, to be fresh and ready to enjoy the next day’s adventure. With all our methods, we are signing up—knowingly or otherwise—to a fundamental of bikepacking: the lighter you pack, the worse you sleep, and the heavier you pack, the better you sleep. Like a see-saw, as one goes up, the other goes down. We are all, in our own ways and with our unique camping setups, finding the balance point that works for us.

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I saw a sew-on patches once that says “Travel Light Freeze at Night,” which sums it up perfectly really. I immediately bought one for my mate Max after he brought an astonishingly small amount of things on a trip that started well within the Arctic Circle. He had the ideal setup during the day but certainly regretted it at night.

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All that said, there is no real right or wrong way of doing it. We take more in the winter and less in the summer. We want to rest better on longer trips and are happier to “rough it” a little on the shorter ones. Sometimes, we get lucky, or on the rare times I’ve planned ahead, there is the luxury of a bothy, a cabin, or a mountain refuge. It’s even more a treat on a particularly wet night when you can get out of the elements and start to dry your things or when you can escape the midges or mosquitoes on a summer evening. I remember the relief of not being in our tents one night in the Jura Mountains in France a couple of summers ago—we fell asleep to the sound of the thunder and lightning crashing outside, feeling cosy and comfortable with a roof over our heads.

We’re not here for luxury, however. We’re here to be closer to the elements. Just close enough, not all in, but close enough to feel and hear and suffer a little every now and again. It’s imperfect, but I’ve always thought perfect isn’t perfect. We’d never get that same feeling in a clean and comfortable hotel room.

There’s something skirted around, avoided addressing by name, and only implied here so far: wild camping. A bit of an elephant in the room of the bikepacking world that’s obviously done but not so much shouted about. To me, it boils down to a line between what is legally wrong and what is morally wrong. These are very different things, and in wild camping, many of us tread along this line. Wild camping is illegal in much of the world, but this nearly universal bikepacking activity relies on it sometimes; we wouldn’t be able to go the places we wanted to go and see the places we wanted to see if we stuck to every legal rule in the strictest sense. Regardless of how we camp, staying within moral boundaries and leaving no trace should be at the core of it.

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One of my favourite ways to find camp spots is to ask the locals in the area we’re cycling through if there is anywhere to camp nearby—you find out things that no app or website will ever tell you. One evening deep in the boiling hot summer in Spain, my friend Anna and I were looking for a place to stay. We met a kind man sitting outside his house by the side of the road who offered to fill our water bottles up before telling us about a great place to camp nearby. This led to a night by a beautiful lake where we could also swim in and cool off and a view of the sunset we would never have seen had we continued looking along our route.

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On the subject of locals, we are all locals to our own home areas and therefore know these places well. We know the most fun trails to ride and where to find the nicest views, and we also know the best places for a little overnight camp. I’ve enjoyed many camps not far from home here in Wales, some in the hills and some by the sea. One of my favourites near me and one of the most adventurous camps I’ve stayed at was one my friend Myrddyn and I went to for the Good Night 2023 camp out. Tucked away on the coast, there is a little cave overlooking the sea. It’s a precarious scramble down, but once we were there, we had the ideal dry and sheltered night that we will certainly remember for a few years to come.

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Finding camp spots can take a good bit of work. We can ride for hours longer than we planned looking high and low for anywhere to put our head down for the night; not everywhere has a great view, and sometimes there is that lump in the ground right under your back that you just can’t get away from all night. However, it’s a game I love to play, and when all the pieces of the jigsaw come together, the four walls of my tent, the warmth of my sleeping bag, the roar of my stove on the boil, and the light fading away as I feel my sore muscles slowly recover feels for a few short hours like a little slice of home.

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