Van Spots


Wild camping spots for those with Vans
Now in Beta


About Latest Updates How To

About Van Spots

A simple, easy way to find spots to camp in your van.

Van Spots is free resource, with no ads. The aim is to keep it that way.
It takes some clever engineering in order to do this. You may notice at times the site takes a long time to load, this is because it turns off when no one is using it.
We're working at the moment to try and improve performance across all areas of the site.

Van Spots is an open-source project built by one person in their spare time using Ruby on Rails.
It is still in development so let me know if anything isn't working as expected.
All the core functionality is now live; you can sign up, add, find and review spots.
If there are any features you would like to see, any feedback you would like to give, or any bugs that you find please get in touch.

If you want to keep track of progress (or contribute with a pull request) you can see what needs doing on the Trello Board and the codebase lives on GitHub . If want to use the data, then we also have an API. G et in touch and we can talk to you about usage.

If you want to get in touch with suggestions or just to have a chat, drop me an email.
More information coming soon!

Latest Updates

26/11/2019

Update the front page to add most recent spots and reviews


08/11/2019

Updated the default sorting of spots on the index page, so the best rated spots are now at the top.
Added loading icon to increase descriptiveness of background processes.


01/11/2019

Van Spots has had some performance improvements and a load more spots added.
Please let us know if you have any issues!


25/09/2019

Update to front page


23/09/2019

Lots of little background updates and a major change to the design of the Spot Finder page


Latest Spots

Old forestry access

Free Spot - 8.0/10
Created By: Andy1290R on Oct 03, 2024
Built a nice wee camp here,lots of cast off firewood from the forestry operations,plenty blackberries/brambles.views are stunning and well worth a park up

Creech Hill

Free Spot - 0/10
Created By: Payno on Sep 22, 2024
Top of steep hill so not ideal for bigger vans. Great views out across Purbeck and Lulworth Ranges

Bulbarrow

Free Spot - 0/10
Created By: Payno on Sep 18, 2024
Large gravelled lay-by. Can be busy in Summer months with day trippers. Fantastic views of the Blackmore Vale and out towards St Alfred's Tower.

Okeford Hill

Free Spot - 0/10
Created By: Payno on Sep 18, 2024
Lay-by on quite hilltop road. Outstanding views. Lay-by is at entrance into the Okeford MTB Park.

Tosaig Pier

Free Spot - 0/10
Created By: kmack68 on Sep 14, 2024
Tosaig Pier Great Sea View Spot for offgrid stay

Latest Reviews

1/10

Black Rock Cafe

No longer available

Site no longer offers overnight parking due to people not clearing up after themselves.

1/10

nr Norton Hall Farm

Avoid

Stayed overnight 24/08/2024 - Overnight parking allowed. Lovely spot, but awoke to back tyres slashed. Other vans in the area experienced the same. Apparently its an o...

10/10

Stonebarrow National Trust Car park

Quiet but windy

Great night sleep, very windy as its quite high up. Nice walks down to the beach

10/10

Yr Eifl

Beautiful Spot - Deserted!

5/10

Fluke Hall Ln Preston PR3 6HP

Poor Sleep

Don't park by the slip way as it is a working area. Was awoken by people accessing the beach on quad bikes at 4:00. You can park further down the lane and it shouldn't...

2/10

Pretty Corner Ln Sheringham NR26 8TW

Can't stay over night

They now lock this car park so you can't stay overnight according to Google

How to use Van Spots

More details coming soon

Finding a Spot

There are two ways of finding a spot to camp in, you can either browse the Map or use the Spot Finder to browse for a spot.
There are some basic filters on the spots index with hopefully some more coming soon.

Signing Up

Click the link in the nav bar and sign up

Adding a Spot

Either find the location on the map and click or tap on the map or enter the latitude and longitude yourself on the create spot page

Rating a Spot

View the Spot and click Rate Spot

Editing a Spot

If you are the person who created the spot then you can edit it. There should be an Edit Spot button next to the Rate Spot button

Editing your profile

From your Profile page, click the Edit Profile button


P.S. How To is also a great book by Randall Munroe