Free camping in Region Zealand

Region Zealand is the rest of Zealand once the capital is taken out of it, plus Lolland, Falster and Møn to the south. For a lot of drivers it is the country they cross to get somewhere else: the motorway from the German border to Copenhagen runs straight through the middle of it.

That is exactly why it is useful. The traffic is on the E47 and E55. The free sites are not.

What is mapped here

118 free shelters and tent sites, each one designated by a named public body. Naturstyrelsen’s Storstrøm and Midtsjælland units run about two thirds of them between them. The rest belong to kommuner, mainly Holbæk, Lejre and Stevns.

63 of the 118 have to be booked in advance and 53 do not, so assume booking is likely here rather than the exception. Naturstyrelsen takes reservations at book.naturstyrelsen.dk.

As everywhere in Denmark, these are places you walk into from a car park. A shelter is a three-sided timber hut you sleep in, and a teltplads is a tent site. Neither is somewhere to spend the night in a vehicle.

Where they sit

The northwest, around Holbæk, Jyderup and Odsherred, is the densest cluster. Skarresø at Jyderup, several sites in Holbæk Dyrehave, Tølløse Dyrehave and Kongsøre Skov are all in that belt of forest and lake between the fjords. Holbæk Kommune runs a good number of them itself.

Møn, in the far southeast, is the one to go out of your way for. The chalk cliffs at Møns Klint are the best known landscape in this half of the country, the island is a designated dark sky area, and there are sites inland at Mandemarke Haver.

The Stevns coast, south of Køge, is a UNESCO listed chalk cliff with a handful of kommune sites behind it, and it gets a fraction of Møn’s visitors.

The south, on Lolland and Falster, is flat, agricultural and thinly covered. There is less here, and what there is tends to be near the coast.

Season

Late June to mid August is the window when everything is open, and it is also when the bookable sites fill. Outside it the constraint is facilities rather than access: Danish sites widely turn the water off for winter, so from September onward carry your own.

Rules

Denmark does not give a general right to camp on open land the way Sweden and Norway do. The designated network on this page is the alternative, and it is a good one. The Nordic right to roam page sets out what each country actually permits, with the sources.

The posted sign at the site and the operator’s current guidance beat anything written here.

Related

• Denmark country page
• The Denmark map
• The Nordic right to roam