>>2415807But anyway, the basic tip is to pitch your tent when the sun sets and pack your stuff in the morning. Get camo or olive green tarps/tents instead of those flashy colors. Try to pitch your tent off the trail, but in my case it was pretty hard to find flat spots and I had no other choices... which brings me to the next topic:
I just bought a flat lay hammock setup (in camo colors!) which will allow me to have far better sleep (haven't tried it yet but I can already tell I will sleep like a baby in it, will try it in a few days) all while having far better camp selection opportunities, all my destinations and trips include forests and I always have far more trees than flat spots. And it will allow me to get off the trail and be way more stealthy... There are only pros in my case, it's perfect.
I know it would have allowed me to be way stealthier in that Germany trip, I had plenty of trees there but very very few flat spots. Oh and actually I read the other day that there is a flaw in the German laws, they only apply to sleeping on the ground so they don't consider sleeping in a hammock to be camping so you're actually exempt if that's your sleeping setup (I don't know if that's true though?).
I do plan on sleeping in areas I shouldn't in Switzerland this year, that will be exciting.
Now when it comes to France, I can tell you that we are way more relaxed than those Germans... I stumbled upon some French forest ranger and had a nice talk with him, he told me they tolerate camping (bivouac is a better word here for what we're talking about) as long as you unpitch in the morning, he said they're really after fires. I forgot to ask if he tolerates small (wood) stoves, I'm curious about that.
Btw the bullshit excuse I would have given to the Germans is actually a law here, you have the right to emergency bivouac if you have no other choices, so that excuse would have better chance of working in France if I ever had to use it.
