Question by the dude of awsomeness: how do i travel in the usa?
i want to go backpacking across the usa and i think a lot of the time i will be living in a tent. what i want to know is if it is legal to just set up tent anywhere. or if there are specific spots for tents only. i also want to know if is okay to hunt in the forest or if i need a license of some kind.
Best answer:
Answer by Verity
Sorry to burst your foreign bubble but backpacking across the USA from one tourist destination to another isn’t recommended because our country just isn’t conducive to that sort of thing. For one thing it’s just too darn big. People go on driving or motorcycle or maybe bicycle tours from city to city, but only hobos, bums, and otherwise homeless people backpack from city to city. Backpacking in the US is done in the wilderness and there are huge National Parks and Wilderness Areas and to a lesser extent National Forests each with up to hundreds of miles of trails going every which way. There are also three major long trails in the US, the rugged Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada through California, Oregon and Washington state, the newest and least used Continental Divide Trail running from Mexico to Canada through the desert southwest, the Rockies, and on to Glacier National Park in Montana, and the very social Appalachian Trail running from Georgia to Maine. But I don’t think that’s what you had in mind. Those backpacking trips require wilderness skills and equipment, maps and compass, resupply packages from home or a supply service or hiking out to grocery stores every week or so, and keep you miles from any civilization.
To answer your specific questions, no, it’s usually illegal to pitch a tent anywhere but a private campground, National Forest campground or dispersed camping away from roads and houses, or after obtaining a usually free permit, a Wilderness Area or National Park. National Parks also charge entry fees. People who try to camp in a city or park are assumed to be homeless people and can be arrested for vagrancy not to mention the culture of the hobo in America is rife with drugs and violence.
Hunting in the US is strictly regulated everywhere by each state and you’d have to obtain a hunting license for a foreigner, the requirements and fees for which would be prohibitive I suspect, and you could only hunt specific animals, in season, in very specific areas, usually National Forests and some Wilderness Areas. Bringing a firearm into the US in the first place would present its own problems. If you wanted to hunt for sport your best bet would be to find a private reserve where you can rent a firearm, hire a guide, and obtain a license and tag for deer, elk, bear or pig, the usual big game, in season. Seasons for those animals usually take place in the autumn. Hunting for food on public land is just not feasible anywhere in the US unless you were planning to stay in one spot for some time and obtain a hunting license and hunt only the specific animals allowed without many restrictions such as squirrels or crows.
Please email if you have further questions because you probably can do what you want to do but it’s going to require a lot of planning and some adjustment to reality.
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