uk/usa

[open_life]

am i the only one thinks that the usa would a much better place to live if your into this hobby/life style ok i have never been there but my do i wish i lived there not only for the space they have but there goverment don't won't to mother them or am i wrong here ? i feel more and more suffercated in the uk someone fcks up we all have to pay.

i could be wrong but thats why i asked..

would love to try canada looks gr8.............

 

[weaver]

We have our problems over here too, but there is still a place or five where a man can set up camp and not see another soul for weeks at a time. Hunting and fishing are still good in some places and land is less expensive in the netherlands.

But, the mothers are trying to take over here too. It may not be such a great place for much longer.

 

[SkogKniv]

I rarely see anyone in the forest when I am out either. However I make the drive to do so, then again I have the vast wilderness to do so. So yes if you want seclusion the US is the place to be or Canada. Rest assured though the same laws that ruin it for you like knife and whatever else will eventually come our way too, or so it seems.

 

[dogwood]

I spend quite a lot of time in the UK and Europe and it seems to me that in the UK (and to varying degrees a lot of Western Europe) there is a significant problem with a countryside that has been too completely tamed. Of course, at lot of this stems from being an old country and an island.

In the US, we still have vast -- vast! -- portions of truly wild areas. Even in our largest cities you are seldom more than 3 hours drive (in the West and South, much less) from truly wild areas.

I think that access to wild places -- even if you don't ever go there -- is a fundamentally healthy thing for a culture. It has tons of subtle benefits. For bushcraft, North America offers endless possibilities.

The whole nanny state thing can get people too lathered up, I feel. Yes sometimes the state goes too far but other times it does good things. (I'd give a lot to have universal health care here in the US...).

In the US we have this incredibly absurd rhetorical warfare going on between the left and the right -- both sides are good at hand wringing and suggesting that the world is going to hell unless we adopt their viewpoint. It's whipped up by media people on the radio and TV who make their livings generating controversy.

The reality though, is Americans are more complicated and generous than the rhetoric of the media. I'm a liberal. Unabashed. An Obama supporter, although I don't think he's a messiah. I hated that pinhead Bush and his war. I've got tons of conservative friends, though, and I think their viewpoints have merit too.

But this liberal is also a long time gun owner and strong believer in gun rights. I hate the surveillance society we're slipping into (and you are already there in the UK...) and the erosion of personal rights in the interest of "protecting the public." I'm a vegetarian (20 years) but I'm a decent hunter (bow and rifle, once spears with hogs... fun!) and I will go and harvest deer (I give the meat to friends, keep the hide and antlers and bones for my projects) because we've got to harvest deer because we've killed off too many predators. I brain tan hides and... well you get the picture.

See, the stereotypes we like to trade on in the internet don't work so well in real life. Most of us, regardless of our politics, get along just fine face to face.

That's a long answer to your comment. In brief: yes, there are lots of good wild places for bushcraft here and it's generally better than the UK. On the other matter of the state, we have different issues but don't believe the folks who take too dark a view of where we're going.

Americans and Brits have one quality we share in spades: we're both at our best when things are at their worst and we both always come through in the end.

It will all be OK in the end.

So come on over. You'll like it.

 

[durulz]

Yeah.
There are plenty of countries better suited to bushcrafting.
But I live in the UK and so I'm stuck with it. I'm not going to take part in all this self-flagellation that some have revelled in, I'm just going to get on with it and enjoy it the best I can and give my support to what changes can be made.
I can't remember who said it but, the mark of the immature man is that he wishes to die for a cause - the mature man wants to live humbly for one.

 

[jojo]

It is true that we don't have any "wilderness" in England, in the sense of vast open spaces where man has hardly set foot or caused damage. But I can still walk out of the house and get a glimpse of nature. I live not far from a nature reserve. Ok, so, it's flat as a pancake here and not too many trees as it's a mashland, reed beds and man made tracks. But the point for me is that I can go out there and meet very few people, despite the fact this is within walking distance from the town. I can't set up camp and have a fire, but I can see tracks of animals, sometimes see them, see the plants and flowers, hear the birds, feel the wind and the heat of the sun (when it shows!) I can sit by the river, which is about a mile and 1/2 from home and brew a cup of tea on a small wood burning stove, and still see no one. I think no one takes notice of me. In appearances I am just a middle aged bloke walking his dog and looking at the birds, so I am left alone, which is just what I want!

Having said that, I'd love to find myself in a really vast wilderness where very few people have set foot, where there is no man made noise and light pollution, or piles of dog s**t. Being able to set up a camp and spend a few days without being seen and shouted at "geroff my land" would be bliss!

But I do think the state is slowly drifting into a state of paranoia, taking the easy way out and restricting our (already limited) freedoms more and more, the vast majority of us having done absolutely nothing to justify it. As to the media

, I won't even go there :tapedshut

But there is still quite a lot to be enjoyed out there! Particularly now spring is (maybe) on its way! Yay!

 

[woof]

I'm English, and would not consider living anywhere else, but having visited America(Texas & Colorado) last year, the sense of space was overwhelming, and i did fall in love with the mountains.

 

[Draven]

i did fall in love with the mountains.

Who can blame ye? I still remember vividly the last time I saw the Appalachian mountains before moving to Scotland. One of the first things I want to do when I move back is to see them again.

 

[HillBill]

One of my goals in life is to walk both, in full and in one sitting the Appalachian trail (2175 miles) and the Pacific Crest Trail (2650 miles).

America has a lot of trouble brewing internally, Obama is not what people believe and that won't take long to show. So as much as i would like to go there for a while, i can't at this time.Which is a real gutter, i'm ready for the trails.

 

[dogwood]

I've done the about a third of the southern part of the Appalachian trail. It is a spectacular hike and well worth doing.

 

[Nonsuch]

Try Scotland !

 

[pete79]

I moved to north west Canada from the UK a couple of years ago. There's more wilderness and freedom than you could shake a stick at where I am. It's funny though, you actually start to miss the tamedness of the UK countryside. In the wild parts of north america they don't have such a long tradition of working in the countryside (apart from the native folks whose history extends 1000s of years back), and you start to miss things like hedges, or stone walls and the real nice managed forests of Blighty. The grass is always greener on the other side I suppose.

 

[korvin karbon]

Try Scotland !

not in midgie season though :-(

Id love to visit canada and north america, really envious of the vast spaces to jsut, well get lost.

 

[SkogKniv]

..............

 

[Pict]

I've done most of the AT in Pennsylvania R-O-C-K-S...

I grew up here and we had a house up in the Blue Mountains so I had lots of opportunities for bushcraft.

I went from the developed world of the US to the developing world of Brazil in1999 (full time), I had also lived there from 90-92. It was a big step up in wildness. Central Brazil is a wilderness playground.

One thing I've noticed is that there is a wealth of information about bushcraft for north America. Its a matter of self education. In Brazil there is almost nothing written down (I'm fluent in Portuguese) so it is a matter of self discovery. Mac

 

[fatduck89]

Ah I have already given up on England, and I'm only 20.

Too many reasons why, but growing up in the city just put it into perspective. I have my sights set on Canada, but the immigration process looks like an application to go to the moon! Pete79 I would be very grateful if you could pm me about your view and experience on the immgration process from England to Canada. I would love to move to British Columbia or Alberta, and I would settle for some of the western American states such as, Wyoming or Montana.

 

[Tye Possum]

Well I guess I'm lucky that I'm Canadian! My mom's Scottish but moved here when she was 11. I plan on going out into the wilderness for a while once I actually know what I'm doing. There are alot of great wooded areas here and I'll be happy once I'm camped out in one. There are still some laws that kind of get in the way I suppose but nothing near what it's like over there in the U.K. from what I hear. Still, it's more... controlled or restricted than the U.S., at least with the gun and knife laws, but I think as long as it doesn't suddenly change, it's definately good enough to do alot of bushcrafty stuff, especially further north where it's still fairly wild.

 

[trail2]

I live here but home is always England. Every time I visit and walk the Downs and beaches I feel somehow refreshed. I think its the fields,hedges and stone walls that does it for me.
I grew up in an England that was far different than it is today and many of my old haunts are under yuppie "cottages". But I still feel at home there. (Well most of the time )
Jon R.

 

[Tadpole]

I don’t know why people would want to swap England or any where in Great Britain for that matter for the USA, We have all that a man needs and more. A misty walk on Dartmoor, a sunset overlooking the heather fields, lowlands of Scotland, a stroll round Lock Tummel, beats anything I’ve seen in the USA.
I may be biased though, the last two times I’ve been to the States I was shot at twice, once in a fast food joint, and once in the middle of nowhere (100 miles from anyway with a name on a map) , and forced off the road by some no-neck in a pick up for overtaking him on Route 1 when he was doing maybe 40mph. Maybe he didn’t like hire cars or tourists or maybe he drove that for deeper seating issues. Since then I have felt safer walking on West 125 Street New York, then I do in the Hinterlands of the west coast.

Britian for me everytime.

 

[Sainty]

To those of you who moan about life in the UK why don't you just pack up and leave? Flights to pretty much the whole of the world are less than £1,000. Sell all your stuff and you'll have enough to get away and live the life you want in another country. Don't worry about immigration, we have more illegal immigrants than you can shake a stick at, the US has an ever bigger problem of illegal aliens. Anyway, as most of the malcontents seem to want to live in the woods, immigration shouldn't be a big problem, you could earn a few bob trading animal skins, making knives and such like.

I, on the other hand, love my country. I love the diversity of the people and the tolerance for their cultures and ways of life. I love the countryside, the history and the heritage. I love the coast and the moors, I love cricket and rugby. I love it that you can go walking and camping and don't have to worry about getting bitten by snakes or spiders or scorpions, or getting eaten by bears or alligators of crocodiles.

I love it that the winters aren't too harsh and the summers aren't too hot. I love it that we don't have annual monsoons, tornadoes, hurricanes, forest fires, or droughts that cause the deaths of thousands of people. I can live without using my hosepipe for a few weeks.

I love it that, when I'm sick, I can go to the doctor and he doesn't need to care whether I can afford to pay for treatment. I love it that when my daughter was born 12 weeks early weighing under 3lb she and my wife received the best possible treatment and I never had to worry about the cost.

I love my country, I'm proud that my grandparents fought both on the battlefield and on the home front to make our country as great as it is today.

If you don't love your country like I do then I'm sorry that you don't but you can leave. It's easy, just stop moaning about it, pack your bags and go. That's the great thing about this country, no one is asking you to stay.

Martin