Wild Camping Near Edinburgh

Can you actually wild camp near Edinburgh?

Edinburgh is the harder city for this, and it is worth being straight about it. Unlike Glasgow, there is no Trossachs on the doorstep — the hills within easy reach are the Pentlands, Moorfoots and Lammermuirs, which are Regional Park or heavily farmed, with little water, few discreet pitches and a genuine culture of "please don't". You can legally camp responsibly on the open hill under the access code, but the nearest places where it actually feels right and works well are an hour or more west. Plan to drive, or take the train, rather than expecting a wild pitch on the city's edge.

Where to go

• Pentland Hills Regional Park

  20–30 minutes

  Access rights apply, but camping is discouraged and reservoirs are off-limits

  The nearest hill ground, and the most compromised. It is a busy Regional Park ringed by the city, with water-supply reservoirs and farmland; wild camping is legally possible on the open tops but genuinely frowned upon and hard to do out of sight. Fine for an experienced, minimal-impact bivvy high on Scald Law late in the day — not a place to pitch a big tent by a loch.

• Moorfoot & Lammermuir Hills

  45 minutes – 1 hour

  Standard rights on open hill; much is grouse moor and farmland

  Bleak, rolling, empty grouse-moor country south of the city. You can find solitude, but water is scarce on the tops, the ground is tussocky and boggy, and estates are sensitive during the shooting season (roughly August–December). For hardy self-sufficient campers who want quiet over scenery.

• The Trossachs (via the M9)

  ~1 hour 15 minutes

  Permit-free lochs west of Aberfoyle (mind the Loch Lomond zones)

  The nearest properly good wild camping from Edinburgh is the same Trossachs ground Glasgow uses — Loch Chon, Loch Ard Forest, Loch Arklet. It is further for you than for Glaswegians, but it is the honest recommendation: sheltered lochside pitches, no permit, an hour and a quarter up the M9.

• Southern Uplands / Tweedsmuir Hills

  ~1 hour 30 minutes

  Standard access rights on open hill

  South-west into the Borders, the Tweedsmuir and Culter hills give genuine, quiet wild camping — the Talla and Megget reservoir road, Broad Law, the Manor hills. Rounded, grassy, big-sky country with far fewer people than the Highlands and real remoteness for the distance.

Getting there

For the Pentlands, Lothian Buses reach Hillend and Flotterstone in half an hour — a rare car-free hill option. For anything better you are looking at a car, or the train: ScotRail to Stirling or Dunblane opens the southern Highlands, and the Borders Railway to Tweedbank puts you within reach of the Moorfoots and the Border hills. Realistically, most Edinburgh wild campers drive west or south for the weekend rather than camping locally.

Midges & season

The eastern hills — Pentlands, Moorfoots, Lammermuirs, Borders — are drier and breezier than the west, so midges are a far smaller problem here than in the Trossachs or Highlands; a still, damp summer evening by a burn can still get busy, but you will rarely be driven off the hill. If you head west to the Trossachs, though, full midge precautions apply from late May to September.

Current conditions

Frequently asked questions

Can you wild camp near Edinburgh?

Legally, yes — Scotland's access rights let you camp responsibly on most open, unenclosed hill ground, and that includes the Pentlands, Moorfoots and Lammermuirs. But be realistic: those hills are Regional Park or farmed grouse moor with little water and few discreet pitches, and camping is discouraged in the Pentlands. The nearest genuinely good wild camping is an hour or more away in the Trossachs or the Border hills.

Can I wild camp in the Pentland Hills?

It is legally possible under the access code, but strongly discouraged and hard to do well: the Pentlands are a busy Regional Park ringed by the city, with water-supply reservoirs (no camping at the water's edge) and farmland. If you do, it should be an experienced, minimal-impact, late-pitched bivvy high on the tops, out of sight, gone early — not a tent by a reservoir.

Where is the nearest good wild camping to Edinburgh?

For lochside pitches with no permit, the Trossachs west of Aberfoyle (Loch Chon, Loch Ard Forest) are about an hour and a quarter up the M9. For quiet, remote hill camping closer in, the Tweedsmuir and Moorfoot hills to the south-west are 45 minutes to an hour and a half, though water is scarcer and estates are sensitive in the shooting season.

Do I need a permit to wild camp near Edinburgh?

Not for the Pentlands, Moorfoots, Lammermuirs or Border hills — standard access rights apply. Permits only bite if you travel west into the Loch Lomond & The Trossachs camping management zones (the east and south shores of Loch Lomond and some Trossachs lochshores) between March and September. The permit-free Trossachs lochs west of Aberfoyle avoid that.