Looking for help on my adventure in the uk

[lyam]

Hi! My name is Lyam and I'm almost 19yo. I've been backpacking around spain for a few months and I want to get a step forward and vagabond in the uk. I've been there before and I loved it.

I don't know anyone there so I can't ask them about the situation and things like this, so I mainly wanted to know people that are living like this there.

Also, I was wondering what's the best place to live like this. I've only been to London(I completely loved it, so I guess I'll go there), so I don't really know.

Any tips or anything would be appreciated! Have a nice day!

 

[Dmac]

if you go to the bar at the top of the page, and click on "members" you can do a member search for people in the area you will be going to. Then you can PM them for info or possible meetups. Hope this is helpful. Have fun in England!

 

[Matt Derrick]

i know we've had some people in the general area of spain lately, so you might have decent luck using the member search.

 

[Tony Pro]

I've spent a lot of time living homeless by choice in the UK. What exactly is your question? What areas are you interested in visiting?
A few basics: hitchhiking is very easy compared to Spain. Wild camping is easy anywhere, although technically it's only legal in Scotland. Food is incredibly chea at places like Tesco or Sainsburys, you can eat for £1/day, or eat well for £3/day. Alcohol is much more expensive than in Spain, unfortunately.

 

[lyam]

I've spent a lot of time living homeless by choice in the UK. What exactly is your question? What areas are you interested in visiting?
A few basics: hitchhiking is very easy compared to Spain. Wild camping is easy anywhere, although technically it's only legal in Scotland. Food is incredibly chea at places like Tesco or Sainsburys, you can eat for £1/day, or eat well for £3/day. Alcohol is much more expensive than in Spain, unfortunately.

I don't really know yet. As I love London, I was planning on going there and then see what to do next, but I'm not sure.
Are that places around england or in big cities? And yeah, sadly, I've been told that beer is soooooo expensive compared to in here.
Thanks for the advices! are there anymore that I should know?

 

[landpirate]

Ok i live in England So I can offer some advice.

First off when you say "living like this" what do you mean? I'm just curious because I don't know if you mean squatting, camping, staying in a hostel or what?

It's bloody cold here right now, if you're planning on sleeping rough or camping then I hope you have warm clothes and a serious sleeping bag. It's minus figures at night.

Personally I hate London and never go there if I can help it. so I don't really have advice on where is good there.

There are a lot of homeless people everywhere at the moment especially in the big cities I have been to in recent months. i lived on the streets for a while a few years back and I have to say that things seem a lot darker and harder than they have ever been. My advice would be to not contribute to this problem anymore than you have to. If you can afford to feed yourself without begging or using homeless services that would be a bonus I'd say. Remember begging is illegal in England so you can get in trouble if you're caught.

Bristol and Brighton are good cities to go to. Other than that I don't really know what kind of place you want to see? Wales is beautiful and scotland has a far more relaxed attitude to wild camping.

What kinds of things are you interested in doing while over here?

you can get food from shop's skips (dumpsters) and although I think food in this country is expensive it might depend on what you're used to. Supermarkets like the ones Tony Pro mentioned are probably the cheapest for food, I think Sainsbury's is more expensive so I'd say shop at Lidl or Asda if you can.

Hitch hiking is really easy in rural places, quite easy long distance on motorways and bloody difficult in cities.

look out for megabuses and megatrains for cheap travel tickets.

It's 5am now and I don't know what else to say but if you ask me any questions you have I will try and answer them.

 

[Odin]

It's bloody cold here right now

::coldfeet::

OP nice... Spain sounds amazing and UK will be awesome I'm sure. Good luck and post stories and pic if you can.
(we dig that here at STP )

 

[Anagor]

It's bloody cold here right now, if you're planning on sleeping rough or camping then I hope you have warm clothes and a serious sleeping bag. It's minus figures at night.

Yep, -5°C/23°F here at the moment.

Bristol and Brighton are good cities to go to.

Second that, I'm in Bristol right now ...

 

[roguetrader]

ok first off wait for the weather to be better before you hit the UK - February is our coldest month and it generally rains heavily throughout March and April especially in the West - sleeping outdoors will be tough in these conditions.... if you get here in May / June you could go to some of the earlier festivals / parties and hopefully meet some like minded people - if you are organised you could apply for work at festivals ; they generally all need casual workers to clean up during / afterwards or stewards to direct people and vehicles about the place. the majority of festivals seem to be in South West England but they happen all over the UK nowadays, depends where you want to go - most festivals have there own website or there are sites that list them week by week for the whole season... as mentioned above Bristol and Brighton have got good alternative scenes as has London, Birmingham, Nottingham, Sheffield, Leeds / Bradford, Oxford, and my favourite city Manchester.....
as @landpirate says you need to explain what you mean by 'living like this' and then we can be of more help - the scene here is not like the American one you hear about on STP - there aren't many crusty backpackers "travelling broke and hungry" here - the majority of homeless you find in cities stay put and most are alcoholics or drug addicts ; not all are bad but be careful around them ! most travelling types in the UK live in either vehicles / caravans / squats / horsedrawn wagons / yurts / cheap housing - few are full time on the streets - partly due to the weather, partly the culture...... personally i could think of better countries to visit than England !

 

[lyam]

Ok i live in England So I can offer some advice.

First off when you say "living like this" what do you mean? I'm just curious because I don't know if you mean squatting, camping, staying in a hostel or what?

It's bloody cold here right now, if you're planning on sleeping rough or camping then I hope you have warm clothes and a serious sleeping bag. It's minus figures at night.

Personally I hate London and never go there if I can help it. so I don't really have advice on where is good there.

There are a lot of homeless people everywhere at the moment especially in the big cities I have been to in recent months. i lived on the streets for a while a few years back and I have to say that things seem a lot darker and harder than they have ever been. My advice would be to not contribute to this problem anymore than you have to. If you can afford to feed yourself without begging or using homeless services that would be a bonus I'd say. Remember begging is illegal in England so you can get in trouble if you're caught.

Bristol and Brighton are good cities to go to. Other than that I don't really know what kind of place you want to see? Wales is beautiful and scotland has a far more relaxed attitude to wild camping.

What kinds of things are you interested in doing while over here?

you can get food from shop's skips (dumpsters) and although I think food in this country is expensive it might depend on what you're used to. Supermarkets like the ones Tony Pro mentioned are probably the cheapest for food, I think Sainsbury's is more expensive so I'd say shop at Lidl or Asda if you can.

Hitch hiking is really easy in rural places, quite easy long distance on motorways and bloody difficult in cities.

look out for megabuses and megatrains for cheap travel tickets.

It's 5am now and I don't know what else to say but if you ask me any questions you have I will try and answer them.

Ok i live in England So I can offer some advice.

First off when you say "living like this" what do you mean? I'm just curious because I don't know if you mean squatting, camping, staying in a hostel or what?

It's bloody cold here right now, if you're planning on sleeping rough or camping then I hope you have warm clothes and a serious sleeping bag. It's minus figures at night.

Personally I hate London and never go there if I can help it. so I don't really have advice on where is good there.

There are a lot of homeless people everywhere at the moment especially in the big cities I have been to in recent months. i lived on the streets for a while a few years back and I have to say that things seem a lot darker and harder than they have ever been. My advice would be to not contribute to this problem anymore than you have to. If you can afford to feed yourself without begging or using homeless services that would be a bonus I'd say. Remember begging is illegal in England so you can get in trouble if you're caught.

Bristol and Brighton are good cities to go to. Other than that I don't really know what kind of place you want to see? Wales is beautiful and scotland has a far more relaxed attitude to wild camping.

What kinds of things are you interested in doing while over here?

you can get food from shop's skips (dumpsters) and although I think food in this country is expensive it might depend on what you're used to. Supermarkets like the ones Tony Pro mentioned are probably the cheapest for food, I think Sainsbury's is more expensive so I'd say shop at Lidl or Asda if you can.

Hitch hiking is really easy in rural places, quite easy long distance on motorways and bloody difficult in cities.

look out for megabuses and megatrains for cheap travel tickets.

It's 5am now and I don't know what else to say but if you ask me any questions you have I will try and answer them.

Hi! thanks for the answer!

My bad. By "living like this" I mean going with almost no money at all, and either camping, squating or getting somewhere to sleep in (when I backpacked around Spain many schools allowed to camp somewhere into the building).

Yeah. When I was there was around this time of the year and it was cold af. I guess I'll go with warm clothes and such.

Oh, I kind of "hate"/dislike big cities because people seems to be douchbags, but it was the first time i went to england, so I guess I like ondon bc of that (also, I was around candem town, which I find to be a cool place). On the other hand, I'd rather go to a smaller city but I don't know any but Liverpool, manchester, London...

Also, I don't like begging/asking for money. I was planning on working for food or somewher to sleep in.

I'm pretty sure someone in reddit told me about Bristol and Brighton, and I found that cool. I planned on going whenever the road got me or carrying a map, and get people to tell me where to go next.

If I get to find people to squat with I'll try to find an anarchist group nearby and help as much as I can.

Again, thank you for answering. Rn i don't know what to ask.

 

[lyam]

::coldfeet::

OP nice... Spain sounds amazing and UK will be awesome I'm sure. Good luck and post stories and pic if you can.
(we dig that here at STP )

EDIT: already know what STP means. I'm so stupid .

Hi! Yeah! Backpacking around Spain was so cool, but i didn't find anyone living like that. I was alone all the time on the road, but the people I got to talk with was pretty nice. Sadly I don't have any pics because I did it without my phone, but I'll be sure I bring it when going to England!
I'll post some pics and stories I get to live, and I'll try to kind of record things, But I'll see.
What's STP?

 

[roguetrader]

STP Squat The Planet

 

[roguetrader]

when you leaving for England @lyam ?

 

[lyam]

ok first off wait for the weather to be better before you hit the UK - February is our coldest month and it generally rains heavily throughout March and April especially in the West - sleeping outdoors will be tough in these conditions.... if you get here in May / June you could go to some of the earlier festivals / parties and hopefully meet some like minded people - if you are organised you could apply for work at festivals ; they generally all need casual workers to clean up during / afterwards or stewards to direct people and vehicles about the place. the majority of festivals seem to be in South West England but they happen all over the UK nowadays, depends where you want to go - most festivals have there own website or there are sites that list them week by week for the whole season... as mentioned above Bristol and Brighton have got good alternative scenes as has London, Birmingham, Nottingham, Sheffield, Leeds / Bradford, Oxford, and my favourite city Manchester.....
as @landpirate says you need to explain what you mean by 'living like this' and then we can be of more help - the scene here is not like the American one you hear about on STP - there aren't many crusty backpackers "travelling broke and hungry" here - the majority of homeless you find in cities stay put and most are alcoholics or drug addicts ; not all are bad but be careful around them ! most travelling types in the UK live in either vehicles / caravans / squats / horsedrawn wagons / yurts / cheap housing - few are full time on the streets - partly due to the weather, partly the culture...... personally i could think of better countries to visit than England !

Hi! thanks for the answer!
I know, I was there around this time of the year and it was cold af. But the harder it is, the funnier it gets

And by "living like this" I mean camping/squating or finding somewhere to sleep in. And yes, I love main europe because I could go from country to another, but i like England and I'd like to improve my English, so :/

 

[lyam]

when you leaving for England @lyam ?

I have to renovate (I don't know if it's said like that) my ID the 29th, so I was planning on doing it around feb, even tho the cold it is. Also, I was thinking on vagabonding around here while waiting, but I dont like it as much as doing it around England.

Also, thanks for answering my doubt on STP!

 

[spare part]

Check out some bothies I think that's how you spell it if you go to rural scotland or wales and maybe england as well there basically huts that are left open for walkers to sleep in for free with log burners in them and and maybe a table and bunk depending on which one it is

 

[landpirate]

Yes Bothies! Totally forgot about them. Here's the Mountain Bothies Association website that lists them.
http://www.mountainbothies.org.uk/locationmap.asp
I thought it was just a Scotland thing but by the looks of the Map they do have them in Wales and Northern England.

on a side note this is a really nice BBC documentary about bothies
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b06s1762/bothy-life

 

[lyam]

Bothies are pretty cool! thank you guys, didn't know about them!

 

[Tony Pro]

Bothies are fantastic. I proposed to my fiancee in the Seamus a' Ghlinne bothy near Oban, and lived there for three weeks the following summer when I couldn't afford rent.
I think there are over a hundred in Scotland; many aren't listed on that website because they're not maintained by the MBA. Some are just empty rooms with no furniture, some have libraries and are supplied with firewood. They're all so remote they aren't very practical for accommodation; the real fun comes with finding the damn things, especially when it's foggy.
I've only stayed in one in Wales and it was very nice. Shame there aren't more in England.

 

[Dmac]

@Tony Pro, Do you have any pictures of them that you can share? They sound like such a cool thing. We couldn't have this in the US because some kids would come along and trash them. And cover them with crappy graffiti like they do to everything else.