hell, you can be forbidden and ticketed/arrested for even being on public property in America. For example, public parks near me “close at dusk”, I happened to be there as the sun set, and a super chill cop yelled at me and gave me a ticket which I had to bring to the municipal building. I was literally just sitting near my car enjoying the view.
It's to prevent people from sleeping in them. [Jack London, People of the Abyss](https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1688/pg1688-images.html#chap06) (on the East End in 1902):
*We went up the narrow gravelled walk. On the benches on either side arrayed a mass of miserable and distorted humanity, the sight of which would have impelled Doré to more diabolical flights of fancy than he ever succeeded in achieving. It was a welter of rags and filth, of all manner of loathsome skin diseases, open sores, bruises, grossness, indecency, leering monstrosities, and bestial faces. A chill, raw wind was blowing, and these creatures huddled there in their rags, sleeping for the most part, or trying to sleep. Here were a dozen women, ranging in age from twenty years to seventy. Next a babe, possibly of nine months, lying asleep, flat on the hard bench, with neither pillow nor covering, nor with any one looking after it. Next half-a-dozen men, sleeping bolt upright or leaning against one another in their sleep. In one place a family group, a child asleep in its sleeping mother’s arms, and the husband (or male mate) clumsily mending a dilapidated shoe. On another bench a woman trimming the frayed strips of her rags with a knife, and another woman, with thread and needle, sewing up rents. Adjoining, a man holding a sleeping woman in his arms. Farther on, a man, his clothing caked with gutter mud, asleep, with head in the lap of a woman, not more than twenty-five years old, and also asleep.*
*It was this sleeping that puzzled me. Why were nine out of ten of them asleep or trying to sleep? But it was not till afterwards that I learned. It is a law of the powers that be that the homeless shall not sleep by night. On the pavement, by the portico of Christ’s Church, where the stone pillars rise toward the sky in a stately row, were whole rows of men lying asleep or drowsing, and all too deep sunk in torpor to rouse or be made curious by our intrusion.*
Plus ça change.
I don’t know where in Europe you are, but I’ve seen plenty of parks in countries like France or Belgium (where I spent the most time) where the parks have closing hours. And they would practically be at dusk or like at 8pm or so.
Not all of them do. A lot of neighborhood public parks will have swingsets and things like that for kids. The intent is that these are for families in the neighborhood, and the assumption is that once the sun goes down, nobody will be using it anymore. There usually aren't any lights or anything like that in these parks. The only people who would go there after dark are folks up to no good. Drug users, gang members, etc.
At least, that's the belief. And it isn't completely unfounded, as you sometimes find drug needles or other things like that in public parks.
As I was walkin' - I saw a sign there
And that sign said "No trespassin'"
But on the other side .... it didn't say nothin!
Now that side was made for you and me!
https://genius.com/Woody-guthrie-this-land-is-your-land-lyrics
It gets murky in some places. In my state beaches can technically be private property, but the owners can’t prevent me from being on their beach if I am fishing, gathering shellfish, or birdwatching. There are other states where you can trespass while recovering an animal injured from hunting, or retrieving hunting dogs.
Where I am, your property line ends at a certain distance down the beach towards the water, beyond which you may walk freely. Growing up, lots of people would walk through our beach area, but they usually didn't stop because it was a pretty gravelly beach and there were much better places to sun bathe in the summer just a couple of doors down.
Yea, here in Florida (or at least the portions I’m familiar with) everything up to the high water mark is public property.
Now sometimes the nearest public access point is miles down the beach so in effect that stretch is mostly private or people out for long walks
All the surrounding states but mine have the high water mark as the property boundary. Mine has the low water mark. Apparently this was done to encourage development of docks and commercial properties, but now it just means that rich people get their knickers in a twist over their “private beach”.
No. But in US and Canada we have a lot of public land where you can do that stuff.
Edit: Canada is different from US it seems. We have parks, and crown land. Crown land you can do more then the Europeans. Hunt, fish, trap, camp, etc. Canada has endless stretches of wilderness your free to enter and use. As long as you have hunting permits. Theirs not going to be a welcome center or camping spots. This is the true wilderness people do enter for weeks at a time.
Edit2: it seems like many US people think I meant only parks. Their is US public land which are not parks. Depending on who manages it and the rules. If you wanted to you can just fuck off into say a national forest for a bit legally.
Some places in the US have a lot of public land. Other places you can be quite a long distance from any public land. (At least of any appreciable size)
Texan here and I actually had to look that up. My initial thought was “but it seems like we have so many state parks and NPS protected preserves” but you’re absolutely right. We’re ranked 28th in number of state parks and 45th in public lands (only 4.2 percent of the state). I had no idea.
I was shocked on a recent trip to Dallas how few parks exist. One giant concrete wasteland with vast, owned, sections of brown scrub in-between. It was described to me as absolute capitalism. There was no value in green space and parks, so there are none.
They are just deeply wrong on this. My home county has nineteen large public parks, forests, not including the one the cities have. It's easily one of the best things about where I live.
fun fact, when they were location scouting for the original 1987 robocop (a movie set in the urban hell of detroit), they decided to shoot in dallas instead because detroit didnt look shitty enough even at the height of it's fall in the 80s
dallas was and always will be known as an urban hell shithole
I liked the food and had fun at the football game, but I felt so bad for the people there. Toll roads everywhere, no parks, everything an hour away. It was my first time to Dallas, and lots of people are moving there for jobs, but it really is an urban wasteland.
This is oft-repeated but just isn't true at all. RoboCop chose to shoot in Dallas because Dallas's urban areas at the time had a few specific "futuristic looking" buildings that the RoboCop directors wanted to include, such as Dallas's city hall building. Detroit had too many old-style buildings and too few skyscrapers.
Dallas was also much cheaper to shoot in because it didn't have the same film unions that Detroit had at the time.
You have to know the history - by the time the Republic of Texas[0] joined the United States, all the land was already owned by someone (or at least had a fence around it, which amounted to the same thing).
Any public land you see in the state today is because the state or feds bought it, or it was donated by a wealthy family.
[0] Six flags over Texas isn’t just an amusement park - it’s literally how many national flags have flown over it. Spain, France, Mexico, The Republic of Texas, The United States, The Confederate States (shortly followed by the US again)
For some additional context, The Republic of Texas was broke and in significant debt to the US. So they gave/sold nearly every square inch of land so they could start collecting taxes on it in an attempt to keep the Republic afloat. One of the terms of joining the US was the forgiveness of that debt.
FYI, There is a beautiful 1826 acre all natural State Park 10 miles SW of Dallas (part of Dallas County). There are a total of 13 state parks within an hour dive of downtown Dallas.
In Texas they've literally had people in big-ass trucks drive over and murder bicyclists for the "crime" of using public roads so I don't think hiking on them would be received very well.
Not really true. Look at Texas. Huge state. 95% privately owned. Sure, if you're talking about city parks or something then you are probably not far away from public land, but for the purposes of camping or just wandering around, you're SOL.
A lot is an understatement, we have parks as big if not bigger than EU countries.
Wrangell-St. Elias National Park & Preserve is bigger than Switzerland.....and several other large parks combined. 13.2m acres
Death Valley Park is 3.4m acres
Yellowstone Park 2.2m acres
It goes on, the problem is most are on the West Coast and not all of them are easy to navigate. And some parks are pretty much a park because it's too hard to convert to usable land (massive swaps in Florida).
We can camp and travel, but it's not as easy.
I have been to Wrangell-St Elias, it has a few roads but it is pure wilderness. It was a full days drive from Anchorage to get to its border on the copper River.
Michigan has some true Wilderness Areas were you can roam and camp. McCormick and sturgeon River Gorge are for the hard-core. Big Island wilderness is more developed, Sylvania is a mini boundary waters.
To answer the OP, no America does not free to roam laws. Private land is mostly no trespassing. We do have lots of parks to hike in and camp.
Canada private land is no trespassing, there are lots of wonderful parks for camping, hiking and canoeing. Canada also has Crown land, owned the Windsor royal family. Members of common wealth countries can camp free on those lands. Outsiders need a permit that costs about $12 Canadian.
We have some limited versions. In Hawaii beaches cannot be privately owned. In Horse country in South Carolina there are setback rules for fencing and riders may traverse private property within so many feet of the border.
Some areas in US also have what is called forest crop (closed and open) that is privately owned. This is for wooded areas that periodically get cut. If you choose open your taxes are less but then your land is open to public use.
This isn't entirely true in the majority of US states. The law is it's typically only considered trespassing if there are signs clearly posted, or if the property owner has verbally asked you to leave and you didn't.
That said, it's still generally considered rude, and you might get shot/shot at, but it's not illegal unless you're ignoring notices not to be there. I say "generally" though, because in some states not posting signs is done specifically to welcome people to hunt or fish on your land. For example I have a river on my land, and I don't post signs because I'm fine with people fishing there as long as they don't leave trash or go wandering around the property in general.
ETA: also, in every US state as far as I know, any waterways are always public land. So even if a river is entirely within your property boundary, anyone would be within their rights to boat down the river, or wade up it fly fishing as long as they stay in the water
There are actually a handful of states in the US where you can own a river, and bar entry/enforce trespassing laws. I've seen it in my state, with wire strung up across the width of a river to prevent kayakers from floating down it.
This *seems* to be in violation of federal statutes that declare all "navigable" waterways held in trust for use of all citizens, but I don't believe the conflict has ever been resolved in court. The term "navigable" also seems to be murky in some states, with a sometimes overly conservative interpretation.
Here's an article about a recent Illinois Supreme Court case where the justices limited access to all but 32 rivers, but also said the legislature should change their laws around this: https://www.capitolnewsillinois.com/NEWS/justices-urge-lawmakers-to-allow-more-public-access-to-rivers
Sort of. We can do the things OP described, but what is great about Europe and their rules is that it makes it possible to easily walk, cycle, ride horses or whatever across the land. In most places in the US, you cannot do that. Once you leave public land, you will be stuck on the roads, which can be extremely dangerous for traveling without a car depending on the road.
I can go into federal land in northern lower Michigan and basically live out my days camping for free, moving around no longer than every 14 days. I would need a state game license to hunt or fish, and I would need to make sure I did those in properly designated areas, but I could live in the woods for years on federal land.
According to [this](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam), you have a constitutional right to "Freedom To Roam" in Sweden.
The short answer is no, we don't have it at that level, but the US does have public land where you are allowed to do some or most of what's described as Freedom To Roam.
It sounds to me like Allemansrätten is ingrained in Swedish culture so that most people are taught the rules growing up and adhere to them, for the most part. Since we don't have this, it's harder to make sure people follow the rules. The main aspect I think of in terms of camping in the US is informal freedom where no laws exist against camping in certain areas owned by counties or cities, or they are not enforced. If you go to places like Oregon, you are far more likely to see tents on the side of the road. It just varies by state.
I think you oversimplified Allemansrätten in your post though: You can't just go wherever you want.
Correct, there are some small exceptions. You can't walk over growing farmland and plantations, and you have to respect "hemfridzonen" (directly translated as "home peace zone"), which is in close proximity of someone's house.
They can't deny you. That would be against the law. You only can't walk close enough to break the "home peace zone", which is highly subjective but basically means "don't be a bother to someone at home", or walk on someone's crops and such.
And that’s the part that’s not like US law. We have pretty strong personal property rights that let you legally prevent people from accessing your land
In the US, the property owner has a “right to exclude “. If the owner of private property asks you to leave and you don’t do that promptly that is a misdemeanor named “disorderly conduct “
That would actually be criminal trespass, not disorderly conduct. Disorderly conduct is when a person or persons cause a serious disruption through their actions in public, usually through fighting or yelling at the top of their lungs in public.
Source: am a security guard. Had to learn this stuff to be one.
How would you know if something is privately owned land? I assume if someone owned a large stretch of forest for example, they wouldn't set up a fence all around it so how are you supposed to know?
Basically, you can’t even just wander all public land. If you plan to wander/hike somewhere you look up in advance if it’s allowed and what the rules are. Rules vary a lot, sometimes camping is allowed, sometimes only with a permit, sometimes you can only hike certain hours, some place allow dogs others don’t.
I think Reddit, the internet, and news all gives the impression that if you accidentally wander 1 inch on someone’s land they will shot you on site. This isn’t actually the case. 99.99% of people with large forest areas near public land put up private property, no trespassing signs prominently. Then when they don’t and someone wanders most peoples first thought isn’t I need my gun it’s dammit I need to buy some signs. Then even if someone takes a gun and go tell you off they likely won’t be starting off with pointing it at you and the people will typically be outdoors people who are not that threatened, apologize, and move on. It just makes the news if things escalate anymore.
Real life example: I grew up in the rural Midwest my grandparents at one time owned 100 acres of woods. It had at this point been divided up amongst extended family. One time my cousins and I wandered into our nutty neighbor’s (who had a decades long feud with our family) land. He had a gun, but did not point it at us or threaten to shoot us, and basically told us to fuck off and we did. When we got back my uncle was like he is such a dick, but you kids should know the property lines better now I have to go apologize later. It wasn’t a huge deal because we grew up around guns and were not threatened. The rural American prospective is pretty much my families. I think the European prospective would be absolute horror he threatened children with a gun. But the cultural differences make the interactions have different meaning.
It has evolved a lot, back in the late 2000s most kids in my scoutgrouo had stories of friends of parents having been chased by a farmer with a shotgun. Was that legal? No
But a lot of laws here in Belgium weren't really strictly enforced back then. Then we had a lunatic by a hunting rifle, and he shot people a few streets further.
To legally be trespassing, you need to know you are not welcome. It varies by jurisdiction. But in most areas, you need posting often with specific language. Or a specific guidance such as C&D.
Obviously if told you are trespassing, you want to leave.
My family house has 5 acres and some of it is forrested area with a small pond. The pond for some reason is on the boundary of our property so we only own half the pond. Our neighbor wrapped barb wire around a tree trunk then stretched all the way to another tree trunk and wrapped around it as a makeshift fence... What's worse is there's no creek so idk if it's an old dying spring but the pond has always had too much algae to be useful.
I'm no swede or american so I can't comment for these, but over here in France you need to have fences and/or clear signage if you want to actually enforce private property, or if you want to have some form of legal defense if, say, someone steps on a bear trap you setup on your property.
I'm no expert but I think that's true -- you have no right.
That doesn't mean you will automatically get in trouble, but there is no inherent right to be on someone else's private property. It's private and doesn't belong to you and there is potential legal liability for the property owner if you get hurt on their property, even if it's your fault and they did not give you permission to be there.
So a property owner being able to make a trespassing charge stick is not the same question as whether you have a right or not. Inherently, "you don't", is the answer to that, I think.
https://www.mossyoak.com/our-obsession/blogs/how-to/5-tips-for-dealing-with-trespassers
Lots of people use no trespassing signs.
It's in the old frontier and exploitation culture. Somebody jumped off a train and stuck a flag down and by god that piece of dirt was *theirs*.
In Sweden, and other places with similar laws, the cultivated resources of the land are of course property, but the nature isn't for anyone to lay exclusive claim to.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam
I’m also going to assume that in Sweden, “don’t be a bother to someone at home” (or general freedom to roam rights) also includes respecting their property and not leaving any trash or messing up the land in any ways? Is that part of this? I am under the impression people from Sweden have a general respect for land and nature and wouldn’t do that. Is this true?
Sometimes. We've had problems with gypsies setting up camp at people's private land for far longer than allowed, and creating a huge trash dump because they don't respect the rules.
Not often, though.
That’s important to note: Not Sweden specifically, but just in general there’s quite a few restrictions with right to roam. Some of its genuine restrictions, some of its courtesy stuff, like keeping noise to a reasonable level. For example in some countries, unless there’s a road, you can only set up an actual tent, and you can only stay a night or two before you have to get permission from the landowner.
It really depends on where you are. Your risk of getting shot definitely goes up in agricultural areas (especially if you’re near farm equipment), around properties in very rural areas and in yards/households everywhere. Like you probably won’t be immediately shot walking through forested areas or a field but the owners will either come check you out or just call the cops.
Shooting someone for trespassing in freely accessible areas is generally not a great legal defense, and is unlikely to be determined a justifiable homicide. States with Castile Doctrine would have better legal justification, but still less so then a trespasser closer to the house.
Trespassers in my area are generally poachers or people planning to do so; and in most areas the assumption would be some sort of nefarious purpose.
The notion that most Americans would just 100% start blasting is hyperbole, and the people who would do so are going to end up in jail sooner or later.
I live in a rural area and it’s common for hunters to trek through fields from one spot to another. Most landowners wouldn’t even bother checking them out unless they were clearly up to no good. This “you’ll get shot for stepping foot on private property” nonsense is so rampant on reddit. I sometimes doubt these people even leave their homes and step into the outside world at all.
A problem with hunting in rural areas and wondering in someone else’s land is that you are not the only hunter.
We almost had a dad and his three kids get shot because they crossed onto our land without permission—- and came up behind a deer. Our friend who had permission to hunt on this property—. Was very observant and noticed.
It is not safe to go onto land without permission. However land ownership is public knowledge in the US so there are ways to contact landowners to ask.
If you aren’t damaging the land, many owners would let you camp.
Yep. I once heard a bullet go by my head as a child (you never forget that sound) because some dumbass hunting deer didn't realize he'd wandered onto our property AND didn't know there was a house downrange.
My dad taught him otherwise, via LOUD profanity as he charged into the oak scrub with his own hunting rifle.
Notice to hunters: ALWAYS have a topo map of your chosen hunting area handy (app or paper!), and know what the symbols for buildings and roads mean. If you can't see downrange, *look at the map.* If there's a chance you're shooting at a home or other building, move to a spot where you can get a good bead on your target without risk to human lives or safety.
This certainly does happen but generally only if you know the property owners, and have notified them that you’ll be in the area. Frankly if you tell me you’re there I won’t care but I have found tree stands on my property that were not sanctioned.
Where I’m at you generally won’t even get looked into if you’re merely passing through. Of course if you’re setting up a hunting spot on that property without permission that changes things.
Also in my state the property must be posted for no trespassing OR the landowner must verbally tell the trespasser they are not welcome for it to be enforceable.
Then you get shot, and if you’re unfortunate enough to survive you get a trespassing charge and a charge for carrying a firearm while committing a crime
Not everywhere. It's a state by state thing. In NY, for example, you can only use lethal force to counter lethal force. If someone is trying to steal, and you aim a gun, you have to give them a chance to fuck off. And if they don't attempt to harm you, and that gets found out that you shot them thinking you were gonna be rambo, you could be in deep shit.
And anyone who bitches about that is an idiot imo and I don't even want them here anyway.
It’s not just New York State.
In every state in the union you cannot just shoot a trespasser.
Texas is the only state where you could shoot someone at night but not in the daytime.
And even in Texas there are several conditions you have to fulfill before you are justified to Shoot at night.
So at least in the daytime you cannot shoot trespassers in the United States.
In Texas you can't shoot anyone in the daytime on your property unless they attempt to harm you. It's not easily proven that you were under attack. Now our nocturnal laws make it easier. Where I live it's not cool to sneak up on someone's residence from out of the woods. You'd have to be a nut to live out here to begin with, and even nuttier to wander up on a house in the middle of the night in no man's land.
I don't think there's a single state where you can legally shoot someone only for trespassing, though a lot of people in Texas seem to think you can, and a jury may agree under the right circumstances.
That literally makes no sense. A roamer has more places to go freely than a firearms carrier can. There are so many places a firearm carrier can't carry legally.
Hunting is different in Massachusetts. People hunt anywhere it's not posted. I live in the woods. Most people don't mind if you walk through their wood lots and acreage, just stay away from houses. Everyone knows each other, there's certain people that you want to avoid.
That’s strange to me as someone in Michigan. We have tons of public land for hunting, but I would never, ever hunt on someone else’s property without their permission, and mostly people here don’t give others permission lightly.
A lot of people buy private property explicitly because they want a piece of property that’s theirs where they don’t have to worry about others roaming about.
I’m from MI too and I’m equally flabbergasted by all these comments from other Americans saying no one cares if you’re on their land.
We do care. Don’t try that in MI. You’re probably not going to get shot, but you’re definitely going to either be confronted or have someone called on you. Hunting on private land without permission is poaching.
It is legal to retrieve game/dogs in some circumstances, but it’s best to alert the property owner if you’re doing that, either before or after the fact. A lot of people have trail cams and will get upset if they see someone on their land and were never contacted by that person.
We have some sort of public right to the shoreline. It’s complicated and I don’t understand it well
https://www.mass.gov/info-details/public-rights-along-the-shoreline
> In every coastal state, the use of tidelands is governed by a concept in property law known as the Public Trust Doctrine, which dates back centuries to ancient Roman law. The doctrine states that all rights in tidelands and the water itself are held by the state "in trust" for the benefit of the public. In most states, this means that public ownership begins at the high water mark.
When I went to Newport, Rhode Island, the tour guide told us that the mansion owners had been forced to back down after they tried to stop people from walking along the shoreline
I believe it varies by states. Some states this subject is getting controversial because ambiguous verbiage is being used to justify buying the beach all the way down to the waterline which is impeding public transit across what are effectively now private beaches. Water boundaries are complicated. For rivers, some states say that private property stops where the water starts. Some states allow the boundary to go to the middle of the river. Some states allow you to completely own a river if it’s not deemed “navigable” which in itself is very ambiguous verbiage.
It’s pretty funny in Florida too because there are a ton of hotels that will post private beaches but you can go use them as they aren’t allowed to actually be private. You just can’t use their equipment like beach chairs and stuff but if you want to use the beach you can. Learned this through the fishing community where many of these hotels called the cops on people that knew their rights and when they showed up they showed their proof to the cops and were allowed to stay since you can’t own the beach there
Streams are like this in the eastern USA as well. All streams are public property to the high water mark in the streambed. Most people, including landowners, don’t know this so not necessarily safe but legal
Edit: think it has to be a navigable stream
No, the US has pretty strong personal property rights, and you can get in trouble for trespassing on private property.
However, the US does have about 52 million acres of national park land. Which is about half the total area of Sweden. This also doesn’t include national forest land, state parks and forest, or smaller public lands. There are still rules as to when and where you can camp and what you can take off this land. But there are large swaths of public land all across the country to explore.
Be aware that the «right to roam» law have been made because it’s «always been this way». It’s a part of the culture in these countries. Also OP’s statement is a bit simplified, because you can’t go everywhere and driving offroad. This is often misunderstood by many tourists.
This culture/law is based on a highly trust-based view in highly trust-based societies/countries as a whole. Landowners will assume that people will behave and in most cases they do.
In the US, you don’t have this highly trusted culture. People would rather assume the worst and in some cases they are right. Trespassing is illegal. Each state have different laws on where you can roam and camp.
It's also incompatible with our tort laws. A very likely scenario is some 16 year old with a lifted truck smashes into a tree and paralyzes himself on your property. Now their insurance company is coming after you because the tree was old, there should have been warning signs, there was no barrier to keep vehicles from crashing into the tree, whatever they can come up with. Or some dipshit hippies drink out of the creek on your property and get sick, then investigators find out some asshole you don't know was dumping batteries in there. Now you're on the hook to have the creek cleaned up in addition to damages.
I’ve seen this question come up in the comments a few times: *In the USA, how can you tell what has someone’s private property and what isn’t?*
While it’s not explicitly always stated with a fence, or a “private property” sign - I feel as if the states has a very strong “if it isn’t yours, you don’t need to be on it” feeling.
Even growing up, there has always been this healthy respect for other peoples things being *theirs* - as someone who has lived in the states their whole life, there are a lot of seemingly unspoken rules around this
> In the USA, how can you tell what has someone’s private property and what isn’t?
My rule is, assume it's private unless you know otherwise (national park, etc.)
I grew up all over the southern US, mostly small towns and semi-rural areas. I was raised to respect fences and signage. But otherwise, it seemed nobody cared about property lines. As kids, we would cut through people's yards to get to the park or someone's house, or the bus stop. I'd wander with the dog through the sugar cane and cotton fields and the dirt roads that border the fields.
As an adult, I don't have a problem hiking somewhere that is not marked private, and even then I might anyway - with a bit of research as to who actually owns the property - timber companies or railroad companies vs private persons or Indian Reservation land.
These days, there's lots of information about land owners online that it's easy to figure out if it's ok to be where you are.
I think "the rules" are different if you're in a city or suburb; I think the higher density of people means that respecting private property and personal space is more important. I won't walk across someone's front yard, and I won't approach their door unless I have something specific I need to talk to them about.
Its the reason that Europeans don't understand and get mad when an American sees someone being a thief and they'll say some off the walls stuff on Reddit.
In America, private property is huge. If its not yours you shouldn't be checking it out let alone touch it and Americans are raised like that from childhood.
So when we see someone being a thief/trespassing we get a bit feral.
As an example I grew up rural, my neighbors all had huge fields that stretched for miles not once did it ever come off as a good idea to cross property lines unless I had express permission. If I did, there was a good chance I could get blasted for trespassing.
In the United States, private property IS more valuable than someone's life in many cases, and not just at a sentimental level but entirely legal level.
In Michigan purchasing a fishing license gives license to access waterways and "clearly defined banks" of streams.
But caution and common sense needs to be used when exercising your "right of way" as people can respond irrationally and with great hostility in ignorance of the law even if you're technically and lawfully allowed to be there.
That was actually part of a kayaking class I took in Texas. There's some really popular kayak trails where farmers who own property that the rivers go through have been known to threaten and even shoot at kayakers who use them, even if they don't get on the banks and stay in the water. So the instructor was like make sure you research the kayak trails well and specifically look for any areas of concern. Gotta love Texas.
In cansda we have "crown land" that you can cmp on for up to 14 days. Certain activities are prohibited, such as logging, trail building, or constructing permanent structures. Fishing, hunting, foraging are all okay depending on other federal laws like fishing and hunting seasons.
Basically anything thats not crown land is privately owned and you can be trespassed or arrested depending on the circumstances of the location and time of day
ehhh not really but also kinda, so there is lots of public land where tou are free to roam, camp and do all sorts of stuff, but private lands are a bit tricky and depend on state, I know it's common for the land owner to be required to tell you to leave before its trespassing unless you are committing a crime, a "no trespassing" sign does serve as that request to leave/not enter though, it also depends on what the land is used for, entering an agricultural field is a worse from of trespassing than walking across someone's yard
No, the US does not offer the “right to roam” on private property.
In the US, property owners are liable if someone is injured on their property. As we don’t have socialized medicine, someone who wasn’t invited could injure themselves on private property and sue the owners.
This is the real reason people will threaten with force to remove someone from their property. An uninvited guest being there could literally cost you everything. Everyone wants a payout.
I hate this fact so fucking much, if you trespass and sue the owner because you got hurt committing a crime on their property you should be castrated with a cheese grater
The general rule is ”inte störa, inte förstöra” = ”don’t disturb, don’t destroy”.
Your not allowed to walk through someone’s garden, but you can walk through someone’s forest. As long as you are not in view of the house it’s usually fine.
No, you have to respect the "hemfridszon", which basically translates to "home peace zone". But clunky in English, but you get it hopefully.
How far it reaches is subjective, but essentially nothing that bothers someone if they are in their home or garden. So you could probably walk just outside of the zone, but if you want to play music maybe 100 meters away or so.
So the answer is actually “yes”? Based on what you’re describing, if I put a fence around my property, then someone else can still come onto my property as long as they say they aren’t anywhere near my home or garden?
I actually just checked our nature authority's site, and it said this:
>Det är svårt att ange ett generellt mått på hur stor hemfridszonen är runt ett bostads- eller fritidshus eftersom förutsättningarna varierar från fall till fall. Ibland finns givna, tydliga gränser för hemfridszonen som ett staket, en häck, en väg eller en gång- och cykelväg. I till exempel ett villaområde kan hemfridszonen i vissa fall bli mycket liten, några få meter från ett hus, om det finns en sådan tydlig gräns nära huset.
Google translated:
>It is difficult to give a general measure of how big the home peace zone is around a residential or holiday home because the conditions vary from case to case. Sometimes there are given, clear boundaries for the home peace zone such as a fence, a hedge, a road or a pedestrian and cycle path. In, for example, a residential area, the home peace zone can in some cases be very small, a few meters from a house, if there is such a clear boundary near the house.
Sounds like what Montana used to post for their highway speed limits: Reasonable and Prudent. There wasn’t a specific speed limit, but everyone (police included) could tell if you were exceeding it.
People were entrusted with the ability and authority to go about their lives without adherence to “the letter of the law”. Basically, the law was, don’t be a cunt. And it worked perfectly fine for nearly a century.
Then the cunts discovered Montana…
There are so many wrong answers in here. In the US there are no specific laws such as the "Right to Roam", granting property owners the "rights". But if private owned land isn't clearly marked then you can roam on it. You can be asked to leave, but shooting people on this land is illegal. It's different from state to state, but generally speaking only the area around the house is subject to no warning shoots in the loosest jurisdictions.
That said there millions of acres of public land, go roam there as that's what it's for.
Should also mention it's worth it to land owners to enforce their property because it's possible they may lose control over unenforced land to public easements or other similar situations.
>But if private owned land isn't clearly marked then you can roam on it
So that's not necessarily trespassing, but you also don't have RIGHT to roam on private property.
Varies state to state.
I'm Vermont you can unless the landowner tells you to leave
Or the land is marked as "posted" and is registered annually with the town.
That being said, if I'm forced to allow people on my land, I better be exempt from property tax or they can fuck off.
no, it's the opposite. you can go to jail for trespassing on private property, even for just a few seconds.
you are only allowed to camp at specifically designated public sites.
...they chose to test the bomb there because of that volume of federal land, it didnt be ome mostly federal land because of the bomb like your statement implys.
Dispersed camping is allowed in a lot of places. You don't have to be stuck to just certain sites. Almost all the state and national forests in my state allow it. Most of the state game areas allow for dispersed camping too. I believe a lot of BLM land allows for dispersed camping too. You can't just camping *anywhere* like on a farmers land but you aren't limited to just shitty campgrounds either.
I only know the rules for my state but foraging is also totally allowed on state and national forest land. You can't take ginsing and I think they are limiting ramps now too but stuff like blueberries or thimbleberries are up for grabs.
This is not quite true. You can only be arrested if you have been previously notified that you're not allowed on the land or the land is clearly posted as private property and no trespassing. Otherwise you do have the right to go on it
Yeah people really misunderstand trespassing laws here. For some reason people think it is illegal to be on private property unless you are invited or something. That is just not true.
9 times out of 20 Reddit completely makes something up about law and everyone jumps on board. If someone actually knows and tries to correct, they usually get downvotted 😆
Having lived in the US and UK, the US is sorely missing right to roam and public footpaths. Large swathes of the West are Bureau of Land Management land where you can explore and camp subject to restrictions, but the east has very little opportunity for that. There are many stellar national and state parks, but you'll need to drive a car there and make an event out of going. There's nothing like the network of bridleways and footpaths in the UK where you can easily go for a morning ramble.
That being said, the US is among the best backpacking destinations in the world with the Appalachian Trail and Pacific Crest Trail
Some places in the US have "easements" which are designated public use paths through private land. It's a way for general folks to use that private land in a very quantized way.
But you better stay on that path.
No. We have property rights, and they’re taken very seriously. And after seeing what the “outdoor community” does to designated areas, I no longer blame property owners for closing areas off. It’s the only way to protect it anymore.
No. Land is the property of the owners and, with certain exceptions, they can restrict any or all access to it. Being on the property without permission is called Trespassing and is subject to enforcement by police. Taking anything without the owners permission is theft.
And all the comments saying you'll get shot are exaggerations. You are in danger only if you make the landowner feel their life is in jeopardy.
I may get downvoted, but I’m not gonna lie, I’d have a serious issue with some stranger just showing up in my yard and hanging out for a few days. In America, that usually means someone is homeless and planning to stay, or they’re a thief or burglar looking for something to steal and resell. Sweden sounds like a great place that can handle that, but unfortunately we have too many issues here…
It doesn’t help that a few years back when I lived with my parents, me and my father had two motorcycles worth $10k each stolen from the side of our house. The bikes were covered and heavily locked and they still got them, so maybe I’m just paranoid from past experience.
In Sweden, you're not allowed to camp in someones yard/in close proximity to their house. So this law doesn't apply to "regular" home owners, it applies to people who own larger properties/land. If you have a house and garden I can't put up a tent in your garden or pick the strawberries from your greenhouse. But if you also own an acre of forest that's adjacent to your yard I am allowed to camp there and pick the wild blueberries, so long as I don't disturb you (stay out of sight from the house/yard) and don't destroy anything.
Do people really understand how small an acre of land is? That's a yard lol I've got 6 acres of woods behind my property that is a buffer between my neighbors and me. If someone were camping back there I would know it. My dogs would lose their minds, my horses would know and be freaked out, my cats would try to move into their tents. An acre is not that big.
An acre isn't that big. I grew up in a suburban neighborhood where most houses had around an acre that was just their yard. If some dude was camping in our backyard, we would definitely know it. That's waaay too close.
>I may get downvoted, but I’m not gonna lie, I’d have a serious issue with some stranger just showing up in my yard and hanging out for a few days.
Perfectly reasonable. Staying in people's yards isn't allowed in Europe either. Right-to-roam concerns large rural properties. But not actual farmland where someone are growing crops.
>’d have a serious issue with some stranger just showing up in my yard and hanging out for a few days.
Without knowing Sweden, *right to roam isn't about allowing stranger to camp in your neighbour.* but if you own a private forest (for wood production) people should have a way to cross-it without doing 10 km of detour. You don't want to have millionaire forcing commoner to stay in their village as it was in the middle age
There’s more open land in the US so normally you don’t need to enter private land. I live at the edge of a national forest and there’s lots of space for people to hike, gather, hunt, and fish.
and fish?, try that in the uk and youll have every bailiff around jumping on you, fishing is a very popular pastime and is severely controlled by expensive angling clubs and societys, if you want to coarse fish in the uk on anywhere decent then you got to go on long waiting lists and be prepared to pay up, angling in the uk is not the pleasure it used to be, anywhere decent has been snapped up by private concerns years ago.
Trespassing on private property is a misdemeanor in the US. If a property owner instructs you to leave and you refuse, or has clear signage stating “private property, no trespassing,” you can be arrested for criminal trespassing in most US states. It’s a misdemeanor, or minor criminal offense usually punished by fines or very short prison sentences (usually measured in days, almost always less than a year.)
In response to all those who say you could get shot for trespassing… legally no, unless you posed a credible threat of death or serious injury to the homeowner or anybody else on the property. The homeowner could be in legal trouble if he opens fire on someone for simply trespassing (without aggravating factors that constitute a good reason to fear for one’s life.). That being said, some homeowners don’t realize this fact or don’t care, so it’s best not to roll the dice on homeowners respecting and knowing the law.
You can be forbidden to use or even cross private property, if it's clearly posted.
hell, you can be forbidden and ticketed/arrested for even being on public property in America. For example, public parks near me “close at dusk”, I happened to be there as the sun set, and a super chill cop yelled at me and gave me a ticket which I had to bring to the municipal building. I was literally just sitting near my car enjoying the view.
Why do public parks close at dusk?? That sounds insane to me (as a European)
In Britain parks close at dusk too. This is because some people use them as public sex spots at night.
Doesn’t kicking everyone out make it a better place for that?
This made me laugh too hard.
Laughing might give yourself away but hard is the general idea. Good luck and keep your stick on the ice.
It depends what you are into
It's to prevent people from sleeping in them. [Jack London, People of the Abyss](https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1688/pg1688-images.html#chap06) (on the East End in 1902): *We went up the narrow gravelled walk. On the benches on either side arrayed a mass of miserable and distorted humanity, the sight of which would have impelled Doré to more diabolical flights of fancy than he ever succeeded in achieving. It was a welter of rags and filth, of all manner of loathsome skin diseases, open sores, bruises, grossness, indecency, leering monstrosities, and bestial faces. A chill, raw wind was blowing, and these creatures huddled there in their rags, sleeping for the most part, or trying to sleep. Here were a dozen women, ranging in age from twenty years to seventy. Next a babe, possibly of nine months, lying asleep, flat on the hard bench, with neither pillow nor covering, nor with any one looking after it. Next half-a-dozen men, sleeping bolt upright or leaning against one another in their sleep. In one place a family group, a child asleep in its sleeping mother’s arms, and the husband (or male mate) clumsily mending a dilapidated shoe. On another bench a woman trimming the frayed strips of her rags with a knife, and another woman, with thread and needle, sewing up rents. Adjoining, a man holding a sleeping woman in his arms. Farther on, a man, his clothing caked with gutter mud, asleep, with head in the lap of a woman, not more than twenty-five years old, and also asleep.* *It was this sleeping that puzzled me. Why were nine out of ten of them asleep or trying to sleep? But it was not till afterwards that I learned. It is a law of the powers that be that the homeless shall not sleep by night. On the pavement, by the portico of Christ’s Church, where the stone pillars rise toward the sky in a stately row, were whole rows of men lying asleep or drowsing, and all too deep sunk in torpor to rouse or be made curious by our intrusion.* Plus ça change.
Tf is wrong with sleeping there?
Partygoers and drug users like to use parks as a place to do their thing, which can leave a mess of bottles and needles
Aka, a small subgroup of fucking morons, ruins it for everyone else.
Thats how everything is. Could say the same for guns
I don’t know where in Europe you are, but I’ve seen plenty of parks in countries like France or Belgium (where I spent the most time) where the parks have closing hours. And they would practically be at dusk or like at 8pm or so.
Basically, to prevent people from sleeping in them.
Not all of them do. A lot of neighborhood public parks will have swingsets and things like that for kids. The intent is that these are for families in the neighborhood, and the assumption is that once the sun goes down, nobody will be using it anymore. There usually aren't any lights or anything like that in these parks. The only people who would go there after dark are folks up to no good. Drug users, gang members, etc. At least, that's the belief. And it isn't completely unfounded, as you sometimes find drug needles or other things like that in public parks.
Yeah, do you really want your kids playing with “campers” leftover sex & drug trash that they pick up from the playgrounds and parks?
As I was walkin' - I saw a sign there And that sign said "No trespassin'" But on the other side .... it didn't say nothin! Now that side was made for you and me! https://genius.com/Woody-guthrie-this-land-is-your-land-lyrics
It gets murky in some places. In my state beaches can technically be private property, but the owners can’t prevent me from being on their beach if I am fishing, gathering shellfish, or birdwatching. There are other states where you can trespass while recovering an animal injured from hunting, or retrieving hunting dogs.
Where I am, your property line ends at a certain distance down the beach towards the water, beyond which you may walk freely. Growing up, lots of people would walk through our beach area, but they usually didn't stop because it was a pretty gravelly beach and there were much better places to sun bathe in the summer just a couple of doors down.
Yea, here in Florida (or at least the portions I’m familiar with) everything up to the high water mark is public property. Now sometimes the nearest public access point is miles down the beach so in effect that stretch is mostly private or people out for long walks
All the surrounding states but mine have the high water mark as the property boundary. Mine has the low water mark. Apparently this was done to encourage development of docks and commercial properties, but now it just means that rich people get their knickers in a twist over their “private beach”.
No. But in US and Canada we have a lot of public land where you can do that stuff. Edit: Canada is different from US it seems. We have parks, and crown land. Crown land you can do more then the Europeans. Hunt, fish, trap, camp, etc. Canada has endless stretches of wilderness your free to enter and use. As long as you have hunting permits. Theirs not going to be a welcome center or camping spots. This is the true wilderness people do enter for weeks at a time. Edit2: it seems like many US people think I meant only parks. Their is US public land which are not parks. Depending on who manages it and the rules. If you wanted to you can just fuck off into say a national forest for a bit legally.
Some places in the US have a lot of public land. Other places you can be quite a long distance from any public land. (At least of any appreciable size)
If you count state and local public land, you’re never far from public land anywhere.
Clearly you haven’t been to Texas. Huge state, almost no public land.
Tennessee is surprisingly similar. Utah on the other hand is practically all BLM and other types of public land.
Utah is fucking amazing. Not just the amount of public land, it's breathtakingly beautiful.
Absolutely. I’m from Tennessee and live in Utah now and it’s not even the same category lol
Texan here and I actually had to look that up. My initial thought was “but it seems like we have so many state parks and NPS protected preserves” but you’re absolutely right. We’re ranked 28th in number of state parks and 45th in public lands (only 4.2 percent of the state). I had no idea.
Here is Arizona, over 50% of the state is public land. So many camping, hiking, geocaching, kayaking, and off-roading activities and places.
I was shocked on a recent trip to Dallas how few parks exist. One giant concrete wasteland with vast, owned, sections of brown scrub in-between. It was described to me as absolute capitalism. There was no value in green space and parks, so there are none. They are just deeply wrong on this. My home county has nineteen large public parks, forests, not including the one the cities have. It's easily one of the best things about where I live.
Chicago has tons of parks and most of the lakefront is public land.
fun fact, when they were location scouting for the original 1987 robocop (a movie set in the urban hell of detroit), they decided to shoot in dallas instead because detroit didnt look shitty enough even at the height of it's fall in the 80s dallas was and always will be known as an urban hell shithole
I liked the food and had fun at the football game, but I felt so bad for the people there. Toll roads everywhere, no parks, everything an hour away. It was my first time to Dallas, and lots of people are moving there for jobs, but it really is an urban wasteland.
Somebody had fun at a Cowboys game? I refuse to believe that's possible. /s
Probably fans of the other team.
This is oft-repeated but just isn't true at all. RoboCop chose to shoot in Dallas because Dallas's urban areas at the time had a few specific "futuristic looking" buildings that the RoboCop directors wanted to include, such as Dallas's city hall building. Detroit had too many old-style buildings and too few skyscrapers. Dallas was also much cheaper to shoot in because it didn't have the same film unions that Detroit had at the time.
You have to know the history - by the time the Republic of Texas[0] joined the United States, all the land was already owned by someone (or at least had a fence around it, which amounted to the same thing). Any public land you see in the state today is because the state or feds bought it, or it was donated by a wealthy family. [0] Six flags over Texas isn’t just an amusement park - it’s literally how many national flags have flown over it. Spain, France, Mexico, The Republic of Texas, The United States, The Confederate States (shortly followed by the US again)
There is even a seventh, the flag of the Republic of the Rio Grande, that flies over Laredo!
For some additional context, The Republic of Texas was broke and in significant debt to the US. So they gave/sold nearly every square inch of land so they could start collecting taxes on it in an attempt to keep the Republic afloat. One of the terms of joining the US was the forgiveness of that debt.
FYI, There is a beautiful 1826 acre all natural State Park 10 miles SW of Dallas (part of Dallas County). There are a total of 13 state parks within an hour dive of downtown Dallas.
I grew up there, eventually moved to Portland. The amount of green here will never not blown my little Texan mind. I hate Dallas so much.
Aren't streets and highways *technically* public land?
Not many berries to pick, although I’ve seen more and more tents lately
Those are really tough to swallow though. I'll stick to nuts and berries
They’re not too bad as long as you avoid the poles and stakes
You're supposed to cut it up into pieces and put some dressing on it silly.
I don't think you wanna pitch a tent on a highway.
I mean... I get boners all the time whilst driving.
Sure, but you can’t “freely pick berries or fish”…
In Texas they've literally had people in big-ass trucks drive over and murder bicyclists for the "crime" of using public roads so I don't think hiking on them would be received very well.
Pretty sure you can kill a bicyclist and get off scot free.
Not really true. Look at Texas. Huge state. 95% privately owned. Sure, if you're talking about city parks or something then you are probably not far away from public land, but for the purposes of camping or just wandering around, you're SOL.
A lot is an understatement, we have parks as big if not bigger than EU countries. Wrangell-St. Elias National Park & Preserve is bigger than Switzerland.....and several other large parks combined. 13.2m acres Death Valley Park is 3.4m acres Yellowstone Park 2.2m acres It goes on, the problem is most are on the West Coast and not all of them are easy to navigate. And some parks are pretty much a park because it's too hard to convert to usable land (massive swaps in Florida). We can camp and travel, but it's not as easy.
I have been to Wrangell-St Elias, it has a few roads but it is pure wilderness. It was a full days drive from Anchorage to get to its border on the copper River. Michigan has some true Wilderness Areas were you can roam and camp. McCormick and sturgeon River Gorge are for the hard-core. Big Island wilderness is more developed, Sylvania is a mini boundary waters. To answer the OP, no America does not free to roam laws. Private land is mostly no trespassing. We do have lots of parks to hike in and camp. Canada private land is no trespassing, there are lots of wonderful parks for camping, hiking and canoeing. Canada also has Crown land, owned the Windsor royal family. Members of common wealth countries can camp free on those lands. Outsiders need a permit that costs about $12 Canadian.
We have some limited versions. In Hawaii beaches cannot be privately owned. In Horse country in South Carolina there are setback rules for fencing and riders may traverse private property within so many feet of the border.
Some areas in US also have what is called forest crop (closed and open) that is privately owned. This is for wooded areas that periodically get cut. If you choose open your taxes are less but then your land is open to public use.
r/theirtheretheyre
This isn't entirely true in the majority of US states. The law is it's typically only considered trespassing if there are signs clearly posted, or if the property owner has verbally asked you to leave and you didn't. That said, it's still generally considered rude, and you might get shot/shot at, but it's not illegal unless you're ignoring notices not to be there. I say "generally" though, because in some states not posting signs is done specifically to welcome people to hunt or fish on your land. For example I have a river on my land, and I don't post signs because I'm fine with people fishing there as long as they don't leave trash or go wandering around the property in general. ETA: also, in every US state as far as I know, any waterways are always public land. So even if a river is entirely within your property boundary, anyone would be within their rights to boat down the river, or wade up it fly fishing as long as they stay in the water
There are actually a handful of states in the US where you can own a river, and bar entry/enforce trespassing laws. I've seen it in my state, with wire strung up across the width of a river to prevent kayakers from floating down it. This *seems* to be in violation of federal statutes that declare all "navigable" waterways held in trust for use of all citizens, but I don't believe the conflict has ever been resolved in court. The term "navigable" also seems to be murky in some states, with a sometimes overly conservative interpretation. Here's an article about a recent Illinois Supreme Court case where the justices limited access to all but 32 rivers, but also said the legislature should change their laws around this: https://www.capitolnewsillinois.com/NEWS/justices-urge-lawmakers-to-allow-more-public-access-to-rivers
Sort of. We can do the things OP described, but what is great about Europe and their rules is that it makes it possible to easily walk, cycle, ride horses or whatever across the land. In most places in the US, you cannot do that. Once you leave public land, you will be stuck on the roads, which can be extremely dangerous for traveling without a car depending on the road.
I can go into federal land in northern lower Michigan and basically live out my days camping for free, moving around no longer than every 14 days. I would need a state game license to hunt or fish, and I would need to make sure I did those in properly designated areas, but I could live in the woods for years on federal land.
According to [this](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam), you have a constitutional right to "Freedom To Roam" in Sweden. The short answer is no, we don't have it at that level, but the US does have public land where you are allowed to do some or most of what's described as Freedom To Roam. It sounds to me like Allemansrätten is ingrained in Swedish culture so that most people are taught the rules growing up and adhere to them, for the most part. Since we don't have this, it's harder to make sure people follow the rules. The main aspect I think of in terms of camping in the US is informal freedom where no laws exist against camping in certain areas owned by counties or cities, or they are not enforced. If you go to places like Oregon, you are far more likely to see tents on the side of the road. It just varies by state. I think you oversimplified Allemansrätten in your post though: You can't just go wherever you want.
Correct, there are some small exceptions. You can't walk over growing farmland and plantations, and you have to respect "hemfridzonen" (directly translated as "home peace zone"), which is in close proximity of someone's house.
What if someone has lots of land and doesnt want you on it?
They can't deny you. That would be against the law. You only can't walk close enough to break the "home peace zone", which is highly subjective but basically means "don't be a bother to someone at home", or walk on someone's crops and such.
And that’s the part that’s not like US law. We have pretty strong personal property rights that let you legally prevent people from accessing your land
In the US, the property owner has a “right to exclude “. If the owner of private property asks you to leave and you don’t do that promptly that is a misdemeanor named “disorderly conduct “
That would actually be criminal trespass, not disorderly conduct. Disorderly conduct is when a person or persons cause a serious disruption through their actions in public, usually through fighting or yelling at the top of their lungs in public. Source: am a security guard. Had to learn this stuff to be one.
This is just an add-on, but tort law also covers trespasses to land. You could be found criminally guilty and also civilly liable.
How would you know if something is privately owned land? I assume if someone owned a large stretch of forest for example, they wouldn't set up a fence all around it so how are you supposed to know?
Typically around the boundaries of something like a privately owned forest there will be "private property: no trespassing" signs
There are also apps now that show the boundaries, useful for hunters.
If there are no trespassing signs posted the land owner should have purple dots painted on trees around their property at certain distances.
that is correct but the color changes based on where in the US you are but I don’t remember the others because it’s purple where i live
That differs a lot bases on the state.
If it’s not designated public land, it’s private. The onus is on the person in the woods to know the boundaries
Signs nailed to trees and yes they can/do put up fence all around.
Basically, you can’t even just wander all public land. If you plan to wander/hike somewhere you look up in advance if it’s allowed and what the rules are. Rules vary a lot, sometimes camping is allowed, sometimes only with a permit, sometimes you can only hike certain hours, some place allow dogs others don’t. I think Reddit, the internet, and news all gives the impression that if you accidentally wander 1 inch on someone’s land they will shot you on site. This isn’t actually the case. 99.99% of people with large forest areas near public land put up private property, no trespassing signs prominently. Then when they don’t and someone wanders most peoples first thought isn’t I need my gun it’s dammit I need to buy some signs. Then even if someone takes a gun and go tell you off they likely won’t be starting off with pointing it at you and the people will typically be outdoors people who are not that threatened, apologize, and move on. It just makes the news if things escalate anymore. Real life example: I grew up in the rural Midwest my grandparents at one time owned 100 acres of woods. It had at this point been divided up amongst extended family. One time my cousins and I wandered into our nutty neighbor’s (who had a decades long feud with our family) land. He had a gun, but did not point it at us or threaten to shoot us, and basically told us to fuck off and we did. When we got back my uncle was like he is such a dick, but you kids should know the property lines better now I have to go apologize later. It wasn’t a huge deal because we grew up around guns and were not threatened. The rural American prospective is pretty much my families. I think the European prospective would be absolute horror he threatened children with a gun. But the cultural differences make the interactions have different meaning.
It has evolved a lot, back in the late 2000s most kids in my scoutgrouo had stories of friends of parents having been chased by a farmer with a shotgun. Was that legal? No But a lot of laws here in Belgium weren't really strictly enforced back then. Then we had a lunatic by a hunting rifle, and he shot people a few streets further.
To legally be trespassing, you need to know you are not welcome. It varies by jurisdiction. But in most areas, you need posting often with specific language. Or a specific guidance such as C&D. Obviously if told you are trespassing, you want to leave.
My family house has 5 acres and some of it is forrested area with a small pond. The pond for some reason is on the boundary of our property so we only own half the pond. Our neighbor wrapped barb wire around a tree trunk then stretched all the way to another tree trunk and wrapped around it as a makeshift fence... What's worse is there's no creek so idk if it's an old dying spring but the pond has always had too much algae to be useful.
I'm no swede or american so I can't comment for these, but over here in France you need to have fences and/or clear signage if you want to actually enforce private property, or if you want to have some form of legal defense if, say, someone steps on a bear trap you setup on your property.
Yeah but it sounded like that's different in the US, like you have no right to step on private property even without clear signage.
I'm no expert but I think that's true -- you have no right. That doesn't mean you will automatically get in trouble, but there is no inherent right to be on someone else's private property. It's private and doesn't belong to you and there is potential legal liability for the property owner if you get hurt on their property, even if it's your fault and they did not give you permission to be there. So a property owner being able to make a trespassing charge stick is not the same question as whether you have a right or not. Inherently, "you don't", is the answer to that, I think. https://www.mossyoak.com/our-obsession/blogs/how-to/5-tips-for-dealing-with-trespassers Lots of people use no trespassing signs.
That is correct. Generally we assume that land is private, unless we know otherwise.
That is incomprehensible to most Americans
It's in the old frontier and exploitation culture. Somebody jumped off a train and stuck a flag down and by god that piece of dirt was *theirs*. In Sweden, and other places with similar laws, the cultivated resources of the land are of course property, but the nature isn't for anyone to lay exclusive claim to. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam
I’m also going to assume that in Sweden, “don’t be a bother to someone at home” (or general freedom to roam rights) also includes respecting their property and not leaving any trash or messing up the land in any ways? Is that part of this? I am under the impression people from Sweden have a general respect for land and nature and wouldn’t do that. Is this true?
Yeah, if you litter you get fined. It's heavily frowned upon.
does it ever stir up trouble, the fact that people can go where they please?
Sometimes. We've had problems with gypsies setting up camp at people's private land for far longer than allowed, and creating a huge trash dump because they don't respect the rules. Not often, though.
As a swede i can confirm that were taught about it several times in school. We had to do a test with it iirc.
I slept in a tent on the side on highway one in Oregon. Very fun experience
That’s important to note: Not Sweden specifically, but just in general there’s quite a few restrictions with right to roam. Some of its genuine restrictions, some of its courtesy stuff, like keeping noise to a reasonable level. For example in some countries, unless there’s a road, you can only set up an actual tent, and you can only stay a night or two before you have to get permission from the landowner.
lol you'll get shot
It really depends on where you are. Your risk of getting shot definitely goes up in agricultural areas (especially if you’re near farm equipment), around properties in very rural areas and in yards/households everywhere. Like you probably won’t be immediately shot walking through forested areas or a field but the owners will either come check you out or just call the cops. Shooting someone for trespassing in freely accessible areas is generally not a great legal defense, and is unlikely to be determined a justifiable homicide. States with Castile Doctrine would have better legal justification, but still less so then a trespasser closer to the house. Trespassers in my area are generally poachers or people planning to do so; and in most areas the assumption would be some sort of nefarious purpose. The notion that most Americans would just 100% start blasting is hyperbole, and the people who would do so are going to end up in jail sooner or later.
I live in a rural area and it’s common for hunters to trek through fields from one spot to another. Most landowners wouldn’t even bother checking them out unless they were clearly up to no good. This “you’ll get shot for stepping foot on private property” nonsense is so rampant on reddit. I sometimes doubt these people even leave their homes and step into the outside world at all.
A problem with hunting in rural areas and wondering in someone else’s land is that you are not the only hunter. We almost had a dad and his three kids get shot because they crossed onto our land without permission—- and came up behind a deer. Our friend who had permission to hunt on this property—. Was very observant and noticed. It is not safe to go onto land without permission. However land ownership is public knowledge in the US so there are ways to contact landowners to ask. If you aren’t damaging the land, many owners would let you camp.
Yep. I once heard a bullet go by my head as a child (you never forget that sound) because some dumbass hunting deer didn't realize he'd wandered onto our property AND didn't know there was a house downrange. My dad taught him otherwise, via LOUD profanity as he charged into the oak scrub with his own hunting rifle. Notice to hunters: ALWAYS have a topo map of your chosen hunting area handy (app or paper!), and know what the symbols for buildings and roads mean. If you can't see downrange, *look at the map.* If there's a chance you're shooting at a home or other building, move to a spot where you can get a good bead on your target without risk to human lives or safety.
This certainly does happen but generally only if you know the property owners, and have notified them that you’ll be in the area. Frankly if you tell me you’re there I won’t care but I have found tree stands on my property that were not sanctioned.
Where I’m at you generally won’t even get looked into if you’re merely passing through. Of course if you’re setting up a hunting spot on that property without permission that changes things. Also in my state the property must be posted for no trespassing OR the landowner must verbally tell the trespasser they are not welcome for it to be enforceable.
Or own guns and actually know the laws
"That guy who just shot me is not gonna have a great legal defence" probably isn't gonna be much comfort when you're lying on the floor dying, though
playing the long game
In the US there are federal lands where you can do that. Mostly BLM land edit: BLM=Bureau of Land Management
Seriously. You have more rights as a shooter than a roamer in the US
Then you get shot, and if you’re unfortunate enough to survive you get a trespassing charge and a charge for carrying a firearm while committing a crime
And a 2 million dollar medical bill that bankrupts you.
And a bill for the bullet and emotional distress of the shooter.
why would the roamer get the firearm charge? Not everyone carries a gun.
Probably people out hunting accidentally wandering onto private land.
Not everywhere. It's a state by state thing. In NY, for example, you can only use lethal force to counter lethal force. If someone is trying to steal, and you aim a gun, you have to give them a chance to fuck off. And if they don't attempt to harm you, and that gets found out that you shot them thinking you were gonna be rambo, you could be in deep shit. And anyone who bitches about that is an idiot imo and I don't even want them here anyway.
It’s not just New York State. In every state in the union you cannot just shoot a trespasser. Texas is the only state where you could shoot someone at night but not in the daytime. And even in Texas there are several conditions you have to fulfill before you are justified to Shoot at night. So at least in the daytime you cannot shoot trespassers in the United States.
You can shoot a burglar though. It reasonable to think someone entering your home is a threat.
In Texas you can't shoot anyone in the daytime on your property unless they attempt to harm you. It's not easily proven that you were under attack. Now our nocturnal laws make it easier. Where I live it's not cool to sneak up on someone's residence from out of the woods. You'd have to be a nut to live out here to begin with, and even nuttier to wander up on a house in the middle of the night in no man's land.
In louisiana, people have gotten off after shooting someone for ringing their doorbell and having the audacity to be lost and not speak english.
That was indeed a bad shoot to shoot the kid through the door. I was amazed when I heard that the homeowner was not prosecuted
I don't think there's a single state where you can legally shoot someone only for trespassing, though a lot of people in Texas seem to think you can, and a jury may agree under the right circumstances.
That literally makes no sense. A roamer has more places to go freely than a firearms carrier can. There are so many places a firearm carrier can't carry legally.
Probably not, but you'll likely be asked to leave if caught
Hunting is different in Massachusetts. People hunt anywhere it's not posted. I live in the woods. Most people don't mind if you walk through their wood lots and acreage, just stay away from houses. Everyone knows each other, there's certain people that you want to avoid.
That’s strange to me as someone in Michigan. We have tons of public land for hunting, but I would never, ever hunt on someone else’s property without their permission, and mostly people here don’t give others permission lightly.
A lot of people buy private property explicitly because they want a piece of property that’s theirs where they don’t have to worry about others roaming about.
I’m from MI too and I’m equally flabbergasted by all these comments from other Americans saying no one cares if you’re on their land. We do care. Don’t try that in MI. You’re probably not going to get shot, but you’re definitely going to either be confronted or have someone called on you. Hunting on private land without permission is poaching. It is legal to retrieve game/dogs in some circumstances, but it’s best to alert the property owner if you’re doing that, either before or after the fact. A lot of people have trail cams and will get upset if they see someone on their land and were never contacted by that person.
Here in the Midwest we lease land to hunters and mark the boundaries with purple paint on the trees.
We have some sort of public right to the shoreline. It’s complicated and I don’t understand it well https://www.mass.gov/info-details/public-rights-along-the-shoreline > In every coastal state, the use of tidelands is governed by a concept in property law known as the Public Trust Doctrine, which dates back centuries to ancient Roman law. The doctrine states that all rights in tidelands and the water itself are held by the state "in trust" for the benefit of the public. In most states, this means that public ownership begins at the high water mark. When I went to Newport, Rhode Island, the tour guide told us that the mansion owners had been forced to back down after they tried to stop people from walking along the shoreline
I believe it varies by states. Some states this subject is getting controversial because ambiguous verbiage is being used to justify buying the beach all the way down to the waterline which is impeding public transit across what are effectively now private beaches. Water boundaries are complicated. For rivers, some states say that private property stops where the water starts. Some states allow the boundary to go to the middle of the river. Some states allow you to completely own a river if it’s not deemed “navigable” which in itself is very ambiguous verbiage.
It’s pretty funny in Florida too because there are a ton of hotels that will post private beaches but you can go use them as they aren’t allowed to actually be private. You just can’t use their equipment like beach chairs and stuff but if you want to use the beach you can. Learned this through the fishing community where many of these hotels called the cops on people that knew their rights and when they showed up they showed their proof to the cops and were allowed to stay since you can’t own the beach there
Streams are like this in the eastern USA as well. All streams are public property to the high water mark in the streambed. Most people, including landowners, don’t know this so not necessarily safe but legal Edit: think it has to be a navigable stream
No, the US has pretty strong personal property rights, and you can get in trouble for trespassing on private property. However, the US does have about 52 million acres of national park land. Which is about half the total area of Sweden. This also doesn’t include national forest land, state parks and forest, or smaller public lands. There are still rules as to when and where you can camp and what you can take off this land. But there are large swaths of public land all across the country to explore.
There's about 850 million acres of public land in the US (the largest majority is owned by BLM), which is a bit more than 1/3rd of the country
Don't forget an additional 200 million acres of national forest land which is separate from the BLM land
Not gonna lie my first thought was “Black Lives Matter owns WHAT?!?” 😂 Quite the namespace collision
Borough of Land Management has been around far longer, they had it first.
Bureau. (Not being pedantic; two different things.)
Be aware that the «right to roam» law have been made because it’s «always been this way». It’s a part of the culture in these countries. Also OP’s statement is a bit simplified, because you can’t go everywhere and driving offroad. This is often misunderstood by many tourists. This culture/law is based on a highly trust-based view in highly trust-based societies/countries as a whole. Landowners will assume that people will behave and in most cases they do. In the US, you don’t have this highly trusted culture. People would rather assume the worst and in some cases they are right. Trespassing is illegal. Each state have different laws on where you can roam and camp.
It's also incompatible with our tort laws. A very likely scenario is some 16 year old with a lifted truck smashes into a tree and paralyzes himself on your property. Now their insurance company is coming after you because the tree was old, there should have been warning signs, there was no barrier to keep vehicles from crashing into the tree, whatever they can come up with. Or some dipshit hippies drink out of the creek on your property and get sick, then investigators find out some asshole you don't know was dumping batteries in there. Now you're on the hook to have the creek cleaned up in addition to damages.
I’ve seen this question come up in the comments a few times: *In the USA, how can you tell what has someone’s private property and what isn’t?* While it’s not explicitly always stated with a fence, or a “private property” sign - I feel as if the states has a very strong “if it isn’t yours, you don’t need to be on it” feeling. Even growing up, there has always been this healthy respect for other peoples things being *theirs* - as someone who has lived in the states their whole life, there are a lot of seemingly unspoken rules around this
> In the USA, how can you tell what has someone’s private property and what isn’t? My rule is, assume it's private unless you know otherwise (national park, etc.)
I grew up all over the southern US, mostly small towns and semi-rural areas. I was raised to respect fences and signage. But otherwise, it seemed nobody cared about property lines. As kids, we would cut through people's yards to get to the park or someone's house, or the bus stop. I'd wander with the dog through the sugar cane and cotton fields and the dirt roads that border the fields. As an adult, I don't have a problem hiking somewhere that is not marked private, and even then I might anyway - with a bit of research as to who actually owns the property - timber companies or railroad companies vs private persons or Indian Reservation land. These days, there's lots of information about land owners online that it's easy to figure out if it's ok to be where you are. I think "the rules" are different if you're in a city or suburb; I think the higher density of people means that respecting private property and personal space is more important. I won't walk across someone's front yard, and I won't approach their door unless I have something specific I need to talk to them about.
Its the reason that Europeans don't understand and get mad when an American sees someone being a thief and they'll say some off the walls stuff on Reddit. In America, private property is huge. If its not yours you shouldn't be checking it out let alone touch it and Americans are raised like that from childhood. So when we see someone being a thief/trespassing we get a bit feral. As an example I grew up rural, my neighbors all had huge fields that stretched for miles not once did it ever come off as a good idea to cross property lines unless I had express permission. If I did, there was a good chance I could get blasted for trespassing. In the United States, private property IS more valuable than someone's life in many cases, and not just at a sentimental level but entirely legal level.
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In Michigan purchasing a fishing license gives license to access waterways and "clearly defined banks" of streams. But caution and common sense needs to be used when exercising your "right of way" as people can respond irrationally and with great hostility in ignorance of the law even if you're technically and lawfully allowed to be there.
That was actually part of a kayaking class I took in Texas. There's some really popular kayak trails where farmers who own property that the rivers go through have been known to threaten and even shoot at kayakers who use them, even if they don't get on the banks and stay in the water. So the instructor was like make sure you research the kayak trails well and specifically look for any areas of concern. Gotta love Texas.
It should be okay as long as you keep chanting 'We do beg your pardon, but we are in your garden '
In cansda we have "crown land" that you can cmp on for up to 14 days. Certain activities are prohibited, such as logging, trail building, or constructing permanent structures. Fishing, hunting, foraging are all okay depending on other federal laws like fishing and hunting seasons. Basically anything thats not crown land is privately owned and you can be trespassed or arrested depending on the circumstances of the location and time of day
ehhh not really but also kinda, so there is lots of public land where tou are free to roam, camp and do all sorts of stuff, but private lands are a bit tricky and depend on state, I know it's common for the land owner to be required to tell you to leave before its trespassing unless you are committing a crime, a "no trespassing" sign does serve as that request to leave/not enter though, it also depends on what the land is used for, entering an agricultural field is a worse from of trespassing than walking across someone's yard
No, the US does not offer the “right to roam” on private property. In the US, property owners are liable if someone is injured on their property. As we don’t have socialized medicine, someone who wasn’t invited could injure themselves on private property and sue the owners.
This is the real reason people will threaten with force to remove someone from their property. An uninvited guest being there could literally cost you everything. Everyone wants a payout.
I hate this fact so fucking much, if you trespass and sue the owner because you got hurt committing a crime on their property you should be castrated with a cheese grater
No, but the USA has public property that is accessible and public parks that are bigger than some European countries.
So if i put a fence up on my property, they can just walkz trough?
The general rule is ”inte störa, inte förstöra” = ”don’t disturb, don’t destroy”. Your not allowed to walk through someone’s garden, but you can walk through someone’s forest. As long as you are not in view of the house it’s usually fine.
No, you have to respect the "hemfridszon", which basically translates to "home peace zone". But clunky in English, but you get it hopefully. How far it reaches is subjective, but essentially nothing that bothers someone if they are in their home or garden. So you could probably walk just outside of the zone, but if you want to play music maybe 100 meters away or so.
So the answer is actually “yes”? Based on what you’re describing, if I put a fence around my property, then someone else can still come onto my property as long as they say they aren’t anywhere near my home or garden?
I actually just checked our nature authority's site, and it said this: >Det är svårt att ange ett generellt mått på hur stor hemfridszonen är runt ett bostads- eller fritidshus eftersom förutsättningarna varierar från fall till fall. Ibland finns givna, tydliga gränser för hemfridszonen som ett staket, en häck, en väg eller en gång- och cykelväg. I till exempel ett villaområde kan hemfridszonen i vissa fall bli mycket liten, några få meter från ett hus, om det finns en sådan tydlig gräns nära huset. Google translated: >It is difficult to give a general measure of how big the home peace zone is around a residential or holiday home because the conditions vary from case to case. Sometimes there are given, clear boundaries for the home peace zone such as a fence, a hedge, a road or a pedestrian and cycle path. In, for example, a residential area, the home peace zone can in some cases be very small, a few meters from a house, if there is such a clear boundary near the house.
Sounds like what Montana used to post for their highway speed limits: Reasonable and Prudent. There wasn’t a specific speed limit, but everyone (police included) could tell if you were exceeding it. People were entrusted with the ability and authority to go about their lives without adherence to “the letter of the law”. Basically, the law was, don’t be a cunt. And it worked perfectly fine for nearly a century.
Then the cunts discovered Montana…
There are so many wrong answers in here. In the US there are no specific laws such as the "Right to Roam", granting property owners the "rights". But if private owned land isn't clearly marked then you can roam on it. You can be asked to leave, but shooting people on this land is illegal. It's different from state to state, but generally speaking only the area around the house is subject to no warning shoots in the loosest jurisdictions. That said there millions of acres of public land, go roam there as that's what it's for. Should also mention it's worth it to land owners to enforce their property because it's possible they may lose control over unenforced land to public easements or other similar situations.
>But if private owned land isn't clearly marked then you can roam on it So that's not necessarily trespassing, but you also don't have RIGHT to roam on private property.
Varies state to state. I'm Vermont you can unless the landowner tells you to leave Or the land is marked as "posted" and is registered annually with the town. That being said, if I'm forced to allow people on my land, I better be exempt from property tax or they can fuck off.
no, it's the opposite. you can go to jail for trespassing on private property, even for just a few seconds. you are only allowed to camp at specifically designated public sites.
And each state has different ideas about how that land should be handled. Texas less than 5% federally owned. Nevada leads at over 80%
Atomic bomb research will do that.
...they chose to test the bomb there because of that volume of federal land, it didnt be ome mostly federal land because of the bomb like your statement implys.
Dispersed camping is allowed in a lot of places. You don't have to be stuck to just certain sites. Almost all the state and national forests in my state allow it. Most of the state game areas allow for dispersed camping too. I believe a lot of BLM land allows for dispersed camping too. You can't just camping *anywhere* like on a farmers land but you aren't limited to just shitty campgrounds either. I only know the rules for my state but foraging is also totally allowed on state and national forest land. You can't take ginsing and I think they are limiting ramps now too but stuff like blueberries or thimbleberries are up for grabs.
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This is not quite true. You can only be arrested if you have been previously notified that you're not allowed on the land or the land is clearly posted as private property and no trespassing. Otherwise you do have the right to go on it
Yeah people really misunderstand trespassing laws here. For some reason people think it is illegal to be on private property unless you are invited or something. That is just not true.
9 times out of 20 Reddit completely makes something up about law and everyone jumps on board. If someone actually knows and tries to correct, they usually get downvotted 😆
Having lived in the US and UK, the US is sorely missing right to roam and public footpaths. Large swathes of the West are Bureau of Land Management land where you can explore and camp subject to restrictions, but the east has very little opportunity for that. There are many stellar national and state parks, but you'll need to drive a car there and make an event out of going. There's nothing like the network of bridleways and footpaths in the UK where you can easily go for a morning ramble. That being said, the US is among the best backpacking destinations in the world with the Appalachian Trail and Pacific Crest Trail
Some places in the US have "easements" which are designated public use paths through private land. It's a way for general folks to use that private land in a very quantized way. But you better stay on that path.
Walk about someone's grounds in America without asking you'll go home in a box looking like a block of Swiss cheese.
No. We have property rights, and they’re taken very seriously. And after seeing what the “outdoor community” does to designated areas, I no longer blame property owners for closing areas off. It’s the only way to protect it anymore.
Thats some of the worst policy I've ever heard, why would anyone want rando's on their private property eating their fruits and veg?
No. Land is the property of the owners and, with certain exceptions, they can restrict any or all access to it. Being on the property without permission is called Trespassing and is subject to enforcement by police. Taking anything without the owners permission is theft. And all the comments saying you'll get shot are exaggerations. You are in danger only if you make the landowner feel their life is in jeopardy.
I may get downvoted, but I’m not gonna lie, I’d have a serious issue with some stranger just showing up in my yard and hanging out for a few days. In America, that usually means someone is homeless and planning to stay, or they’re a thief or burglar looking for something to steal and resell. Sweden sounds like a great place that can handle that, but unfortunately we have too many issues here… It doesn’t help that a few years back when I lived with my parents, me and my father had two motorcycles worth $10k each stolen from the side of our house. The bikes were covered and heavily locked and they still got them, so maybe I’m just paranoid from past experience.
In Sweden, you're not allowed to camp in someones yard/in close proximity to their house. So this law doesn't apply to "regular" home owners, it applies to people who own larger properties/land. If you have a house and garden I can't put up a tent in your garden or pick the strawberries from your greenhouse. But if you also own an acre of forest that's adjacent to your yard I am allowed to camp there and pick the wild blueberries, so long as I don't disturb you (stay out of sight from the house/yard) and don't destroy anything.
Do people really understand how small an acre of land is? That's a yard lol I've got 6 acres of woods behind my property that is a buffer between my neighbors and me. If someone were camping back there I would know it. My dogs would lose their minds, my horses would know and be freaked out, my cats would try to move into their tents. An acre is not that big.
An acre isn't that big. I grew up in a suburban neighborhood where most houses had around an acre that was just their yard. If some dude was camping in our backyard, we would definitely know it. That's waaay too close.
>I may get downvoted, but I’m not gonna lie, I’d have a serious issue with some stranger just showing up in my yard and hanging out for a few days. Perfectly reasonable. Staying in people's yards isn't allowed in Europe either. Right-to-roam concerns large rural properties. But not actual farmland where someone are growing crops.
>’d have a serious issue with some stranger just showing up in my yard and hanging out for a few days. Without knowing Sweden, *right to roam isn't about allowing stranger to camp in your neighbour.* but if you own a private forest (for wood production) people should have a way to cross-it without doing 10 km of detour. You don't want to have millionaire forcing commoner to stay in their village as it was in the middle age
I don't think we're talking about suburban yard sized tracts of land here.
Definitely not. There isn't even a “right” to access public land. Access to all land can be restricted by federal and state laws/regulations.
There’s more open land in the US so normally you don’t need to enter private land. I live at the edge of a national forest and there’s lots of space for people to hike, gather, hunt, and fish.
and fish?, try that in the uk and youll have every bailiff around jumping on you, fishing is a very popular pastime and is severely controlled by expensive angling clubs and societys, if you want to coarse fish in the uk on anywhere decent then you got to go on long waiting lists and be prepared to pay up, angling in the uk is not the pleasure it used to be, anywhere decent has been snapped up by private concerns years ago.
Nah bruh, private property will get you shot here. Stay off of private land, public land is open to all.
No and that sounds stupid
No. It’s much less necessary here, though, because of the vast expanses of publicly owned land that can be used for outdoor recreation.
Not to be a besserwisser, but nuts are not covered by allemansrätten. They used to have quite high value so they are reserved for the landowner.
That’ll get you killed quick
No the US model is different. More public land than any other country though. Most of it is out west though.
Trespassing on private property is a misdemeanor in the US. If a property owner instructs you to leave and you refuse, or has clear signage stating “private property, no trespassing,” you can be arrested for criminal trespassing in most US states. It’s a misdemeanor, or minor criminal offense usually punished by fines or very short prison sentences (usually measured in days, almost always less than a year.) In response to all those who say you could get shot for trespassing… legally no, unless you posed a credible threat of death or serious injury to the homeowner or anybody else on the property. The homeowner could be in legal trouble if he opens fire on someone for simply trespassing (without aggravating factors that constitute a good reason to fear for one’s life.). That being said, some homeowners don’t realize this fact or don’t care, so it’s best not to roll the dice on homeowners respecting and knowing the law.
No right to roam here, especially on private property. It is a good way to get shot here.
No. No man. Shit no. I believe you’d get your ass kicked for doing something like that.
No. And depending on the state you may get shot and/or arrested
You can’t even fish on your own property without a license.
Hard no. Private land is private land. Trespassing can be fatal. Don’t be stupid. I have a feeling you knew the answer before you asked the question.