THE BATTLE OF THE CAMPER VANS
The bucket-list dream.....and the grim reality: litter, traffic a mobile home from choked roads, vandalism and now an home, joyfully alone in army of wardens keeping the peace the middle of nowhere between campers and angry locals
ALONE camper van sits on the edge of a gorgeous Scottish seascape bathed in the early evening light. Inside, one imagines, its vacationing explorers gaze out in satisfaction at the deserted paradise they have bagged for the night.
This, if you go by the idyllic photographs on the websites, is what holidaying in a camper van is all about: seeking out those scenic treasures at a pace of your own choosing, pitching up at the best of them and making yourself right at home.
Your vehicle is your mobile hotel room; the vistas it offers from its windows on any given evening a matter entirely for you. Fetch the folding chairs, fire up the barbecue, grab some wine from the fridge and drink in the majesty of unspoiled Scotland. Then fall asleep in it.
If that is the dream, then the reality may bring a rude awakening for those planning holidays in motor homes north of the Border this summer.
They may find themselves driving into a cultural battlefield where their mode of transport marks them out as the enemy.
As for the unspoilt Scotland they set out to find, it is now spoiled, indignant rural dwellers may tell them – by convoys of entitled visitors in camper vans.
According to one account from a shaken visitor to the Highlands last month, it no longer matters whether holidaymakers in camper vans behave well or badly. Their vehicles alone are provocation enough. The tourist claimed to have been subjected to intimidation after driving into a designated overnight parking spot for the vehicles in Durness in Sutherland.
Several motorists blared their horns in a sustained protest in the early hours of the morning, alleged the visitor. People jumped out of one car and started kicking the camper van, then got back inside and pressed the horn for five minutes.
It was ‘quite frankly terrifying’, said the tourist, who posted on social media anonymously. ‘I get that people don’t always welcome tourists, but I am really concerned at the level of venom being displayed and the message that no one is welcome.’
Other motor homes have been pelted with eggs and cartons of yoghurt, a couple have had their tyres slashed, and a few years ago, roofing tacks were scattered on a road near the village of Bettyhill in Sutherland in an apparent attempt to sabotage the vehicles.
In social media groups dedicated to exposing the problems caused by thoughtless holidaymakers, no one is more stigmatised than the camper van tourist. Indeed, some in these groups have expressed worries their fellow members are engaged in a witch-hunt, ready to target the innocent as well as the blameworthy. And yet the febrile atmosphere in rural tourist hotspots is testament to the indignation of locals at what they say has become an annual invasion.
Many have tried the polite approach – asking camper van tourists, for example, to move their vehicles off private property or away from groundnesting birds.
‘The usual response came – get a f ****** life,’ reports one local on Facebook.
Outside public conveniences, polite signs have for years asked tourists not to empty camper van toilet cassettes there as they cause blockages.
The problems continued and now the signs are less polite.
‘No dirty campers’ says one outside the Ladies in Avoch in the Black Isle, Ross and Cromarty. This week it emerged these loos may close because the plumbing bills for repairs are unsustainable. Sarah Atkin, a councillor in the Black Isle, says: ‘The Avoch Harbour Trust has done a great job running the toilets these past five years, but I understand they’ve just had enough of the toilets being used for camper van waste.’
She adds: ‘We have two local campsites happy to dispose of waste, for a small charge. That’s what is so frustrating.
‘Camper vans often park in the village overnight, right by the toilets, and say they’re wild campers. A nonsense.’
In April, a man was charged after allegedly emptying the contents of his camper van toilet into a stream near Castlebay on the isle of Barra.
There are reports of human waste being dumped by tourists in popular freshwater fishing spots, such as Loch Eilt in Inverness-shire and, in Ms Atkin’s area, complaints from locals about waste being tipped into garden hedges.
There is, she says, an air of ‘yobbish entitlement’ about some of the camper van fraternity. ‘It feels like it has exploded since Covid.
‘We can’t just keep going with this Wild West approach.’
At Torridon, in Ross-shire, there are several designated motor home parks. Yet many head for a viewpoint car park and bag it for the night. Others pull in to the side of the road or even overnight in passing places – a practice which infuriates locals. Camper vans have been found parked up in schoolyards and in village streets, their occupants pottering around outside in their pyjamas as if it is the most normal thing in the world.
Little wonder, perhaps, their reputation precedes them in rural areas which are determined to preserve ways of life, nature and scenery.
In the North, two factors are seen as the main contributors to the ‘explosion’ in camper van tourism.
The first is the North Coast 500, a marketing innovation now eight years old which presents a circumnavigation of the Highlands’ coastal treasures as Scotland’s answer to America’s Route 66.
It swiftly became a ‘bucket list’ experience and camper van hire companies soon saw its potential as a cash cow.
The second factor was Covid and the surplus of staycationers the pandemic spawned.
In 2021 alone, 2.3million of them were estimated to have holidayed in the Highlands over the summer. Within five miles
‘An air of yobbish entitlement’
of Durness, a village of 350 people, 13,000 motor homes pitched up in the space of two months that year.
The result was convoys of the vehicles on single track roads and growing resentment as locals watched their areas turn into anything-goes playgrounds.
Problems were exacerbated by the fact the infrastructure was not there to cope with such numbers.
And yet, in the heads of the most determined camper van tourists, that need not matter. They were, after all, sorted for overnight accommodation. If the restaurants were full, they had food in the fridge. All of which brought more indignation among those living along the 516-mile route.
One common gripe in social media groups is the charge that camper van tourists contribute little to the economy. Stocking up on beer and barbecue essentials at supermarkets in Inverness, they embark on their odyssey around the North Coast, creating congestion, leaving litter, lighting illegal fires, dumping their waste and parking in inappropriate places – or so the perception goes.
As tensions deepened two years ago, Perth-based motor home hire firm Scottish Tourer began advising customers to avoid the NC500 route. Owner Gordon Murray said complaints from customers about abuse, congestion and crumbling roads had tripled during that summer and that 70 per cent of those who drove the route said ‘never again’. ‘The problem is in the far North and I can understand how some local people feel,’ he said. ‘The problems that have been caused are by the “newbies”.’
But it is not just lack of consideration from inexperienced camper van tourists which riles locals. It is the sheer number of them.
Margaret Meek, who is based in Kinlochbervie, Sutherland, and cofounded the Facebook page The Land Weeps, describes the North Coast 500 route which passes four miles away as ‘a monster’.
‘In general, people are fed up with camper vans,’ she tells the Mail. ‘There are just so many of them and they seem to be everywhere. Everyone is tired of them.
‘Camper van owners see themselves as parking up in quiet spots while, if you live here, the same spots are occupied every day.’
She tells of people cutting down branches for firewood, of burn marks from disposable barbecues in beauty spots, of public toilets blocked by the vans’ chemical waste, of loo paper strewn over roadsides and of ‘grey water’ from sinks and showers dumped on the roadside despite the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency requiring it to be disposed of at chemical waste sites.
She adds: ‘I believe the perception is correct that people are stocking up in the big centres and not spending very much locally. The North Coast 500 is a road trip with a bucket list of stops. People tend to stay one night in each place and do specific things.
‘A couple of craft shop owners have told me that their businesses have fared worse since the start of the NC500. People aren’t in the area long enough to visit their shop, whereas in the past people tended to stay several days.
‘If I had the power,’ she says, ‘I would ban the informal overnight parking of camper vans in settled areas. It sometimes seems like an invasion. People should stay in designated sites.’
The problems are not confined to that coastal route. Camper vans are frequently cited as an annoyance on Skye, particularly around bucket list attractions such as the Old Man of Storr and the Fairy Pools, where dozens of them can be parked at a time on the nearest roadside.
At the West Beach car park in
Lossiemouth, Moray, day-trippers have complained there is nowhere to park because dozens of camper vans pitch up for the night.
The same was true at the Ferry Road car park in Pitlochry, Perthshire, where new signs read: ‘Strictly no overnight sleeping, camping or cooking in the car park.’
This prompted one tourist to post on social media: ‘Fellow motor home/camper van owners, please note … Pitlochry is now the most unwelcoming town in the country. No Overnight Parking signs everywhere.’
It all adds up to a clash of cultures and, indeed, expectations, between the camper van tourists and their nemeses, the locals.
While the tourists may crave the wide open spaces and sense of freedom highlighted on the rental company websites, they find themselves increasingly corralled into designated parking facilities next to dozens of others.
And while locals may hanker after the respect for the countryside that was typical of the traditional staycationer, what they often find is a more boorish variety.
NatureScot, the government body responsible for natural heritage, is aware of the grievances on both sides. This year it has allocated almost £1million from its Better Places fund to employ 62 more seasonal rangers to act as ‘go-betweens’. NatureScot describes them as ‘boots on the ground’ to help manage hotspots in areas such as Shetland, the Pentlands, Loch Lomond, Arran and the North Coast 500 route.
And, while their responsibilities are not limited to calming camper van tensions, it clearly will be a central one.
Recreation manager Bridget Jones tells the Mail: ‘Visitors are often not aware of the cumulative effects of many people gathering in the same place over a concentrated period of time.
‘This is what is being experienced in some of our busiest visitor hotspots. The visual impact is also a factor with large white vans appearing to take over car parks and lay-bys every night.’
She added, however, that in most cases drivers depart the next morning and leave no trace.
Ms Jones said that while all visitors should abide by the Scottish Outdoor Access Code, outdoor access rights did not extend to people sleeping in motor vehicles.
‘So if the public or private landowners restrict or regulate parking on their land, people must comply with these rules.’
That leaves something of a grey area in parts of the country where there is no explicit signage explaining the rules, some of which are local authority dependent or subject to matters not known by the camper van tourist: who owns the land? What is its designation?
The clear message from many locals – one they hope rangers will enforce – is park in a dedicated camper van facility or one of the new privately owned ‘aires’ (smallscale campsites) that are starting to spring up around the country.
For Ken Gowans, chairman of Highland Council’s economy and infrastructure committee, the message must also be that tourists remain welcome.
‘The Highlands couldn’t exist without tourism,’ he says. ‘It’s a major part of our economy, so clearly we very much appreciate people coming here and spending their time and indeed money.’
He added: ‘Part of the problem is the tourist infrastructure is still catching up to the level of camper vans we actually get.’
In the meantime, he said, ‘a level of courtesy and understanding’ on both sides would go a long way.
As the 2023 ‘invasion’ gathers pace, that may seem an increasingly forlorn hope.
‘It sometimes seems like an invasion’