Fight or Flight, Park4Night

I've written before about how I find parkup spots on the move, the types of places I stay and how I assess them - one of the ways is Park4Night, a phone app where users tag public locations suitable for overnight parking, and review them. I have developed somewhat of a love/hate relationship with Park4Night over the course of the last 18 months - it is very handy and the concept of it is brilliant, especially when on the move in an unfamiliar area or when you just need to get off the road quickly and don't have time to do a recon on Google Maps or driving around etc. But, it has a downside, in that every location tagged draws additional attention to it, and the more a location is used by the VanLife community and casual campervanners, the increase in the likelihood of parking restrictions being implemented (height barriers, prohibitions etc) or disgruntled locals with an axe to grind taking matters into their own hands. As I have found first hand...

I've said before that the spirit of this series of blog posts is to paint a realistic picture of VanLife from the perspective of someone actually living it in reality, not a glorified social media filtered version where you only see the best bits (I am also guilty of that), so while I don't want to come across as negative or moany, I do want to be honest on certain aspects of this lifestyle. I had a Park4Night related incident last week which is a common altercation with "VanLifers", and at some point ot another will pretty much happen to everyone, so I'll give you the story.

I was working in an area of Yorkshire that I'm not that familiar with, so I arrived close to the location the night before, pulled over at the side of the road, and opened the Park4Night app - quickly found a tagged spot not far from my job - nothing fancy but a wide layby off the side off a very quiet lane through some woodland. Looked alright, so I went for it. The first night was absolutely fine, nice little spot surronded by trees, lots of dog walkers but no passing traffic and had a silent nights sleep. Woke up early, packed up, and headed off for work.

I returned for a second night, same as previously. Took Sanchez for a little walk, made dinner and listened to music. While I was on the phone to a friend, Sanchez started barking - he only does that when someone is too close to the van, so I cracked the door open to find a man just stood there. "You do realise this is private property don't you?". Heeeere we go. I told him no, I didn't, there was no signage indicating such and the lane appeared to be a public highway. The man iterated it was private property and that if I didn't leave he would call the police, I asked him if he knew who supposedly owned this lane and hr replied "I do", he told me he know the location had been marked on "some sort of app" and claimed he had clamped a campervan the previous week and charged them £600 removal. We had a short exchange of words which ended with him leaving saying "you'd better get gone quickly" which I took to be a threatening remark.

Now, there's a couple of issues with this gentlemans claims. Firstly, I don't believe for a second that the lane is private property - aside from the lack of any signage, the lane is marked on Google Maps and recorded on Street View. But lets entertain him for a second here. Firstly, tresspass is currently not a criminal offence, so it's nothing to do with the police. Secondly, private clamping was outlawed a few years ago, so if he did clamp anyone, he actually broke the law himself. Not that I believe him. From a legal perspective, there's nothing this bloke could have done to force me to move. But he clearly wanted me gone.

I picked up my phone forgetting for a second that I was on a call and my friend had overheard the conversation "fucking hell that was tense!" were the first words I heard. We had a bit of a chat about the encounter and she convinced me to just leave, not to stand my ground as some sort of point of principal, just in case he came back later in the night damaged my van. I agreed, on the basis that I had to be up for work in the morning and didn't want to spend the night listening out for every noise, so I started packing up and found a new location in the form of a public carpark. Just as I was ready to leave, I saw two figures approaching from the back of my van - the same chap had returned with a friend. I'll save you dialogue as it was quite colourful, but let's just say their intentions were very clear - l was to be sent packing with a kicking. I don't respond well to threats, I despise anyone who thinks they can physically intimidate someone to get what they want, and I'm far too stubborn and fiery for my own good, so the exchange got hot quickly, but basically it had gotten past being a claim of ownership dispute and all got a bit Mexican Standoff, with flatcaps. 

As much as I hate feeling like I ran away and they got to bully be out, I left without anything getting physical or my van getting damaged, because as much as I might have wanted to put up a stand, if it was anyone else telling me the story, my advice would have been "just leave, don't put yourself at risk, it's not worth it" so it was time to swallow my pride, call them a set of inbred cunts, and get out of there. I'm still pretty pissed at this. I don't run away.

Stay safe ✌️