Are you allowed to camp on a multi-day SUP tour? Wild camping rules, boat rest stops, and how to realistically plan stages and food.
The honest answer: wild camping with a tent is generally prohibited in Germany — but the legal landscape is patchier than many think, and paddlers have real legal options. In Bavaria, Bremen, Brandenburg, Rhineland-Palatinate, North Rhine-Westphalia, Hamburg, Hesse and Berlin, tent camping in open countryside isn't explicitly banned, while other states like Baden-Württemberg or Saxony are much stricter.
One gray area many touring paddlers use: bivouacking — sleeping under the open sky without a tent, just a sleeping bag and sleeping pad — has no explicit legal regulation anywhere, unlike tent camping. Overnighting bivouac-style on riverbanks is generally possible as long as you don't enter protected areas. Along the Altmühl river there are even dedicated boat rest stops for overnight stays — official, legal overnight spots right on the water, and similar trekking spots are increasingly appearing along other paddling rivers.
For stage planning, the same math from the first guide applies: at 4–8 km/h base pace, a realistic 5–6 hour paddling day covers 20 to 35 kilometers including breaks. Planning more almost always means paddling into a worse decision the next day, exhausted.
Find out in advance where you're traveling: some states tolerate tent camping in open countryside, others regulate it more strictly. Bivouacking without a tent is the legally simpler option if you're unsure.
Where available, use designated boat rest stops or trekking spots — they're legal, often have simple infrastructure, and are specifically meant for paddlers and hikers. They remove the legal uncertainty entirely.
Plan with a 4–8 km/h base pace and 5–6 hours of pure paddling per day — that gives 20 to 35 kilometers, depending on condition and gear. With full load, plan toward the lower end, since cargo noticeably slows your pace.
At around 450–500 calories per hour of paddling and a liter of water per hour, a 6-hour paddling day needs significantly more supplies than a day tour. Plan a reserve, not just the calculated need.
Set a fallback exit point for every stage where you can bail in case of weather changes or exhaustion — hostel, train station, accessible road. A multi-day tour without a plan B is a multi-day risk.
Multi-day tours stack risks that are manageable individually on day tours: exhaustion, weather changes, unfamiliar terrain. Plan more conservatively than for a single outing and leave yourself enough buffer every day.
Inform a contact person about the full route with daily stages, not just start and finish — that way a search can target the right stretch instead of an entire river.
Plan your first multi-day tour deliberately shorter than you think you can handle — two days instead of four. That teaches you your real supply and time management before you commit to a long, hard-to-reverse route.
A practical trick: deliberately book an official trekking or boat rest stop for the first night instead of a legal gray area — the more relaxed sleep measurably pays off on the next paddling day.
Tent camping in open countryside is regulated differently by state, sometimes tolerated, sometimes banned. Bivouacking without a tent is legally simpler, and official boat rest stops like along the Altmühl are legal, dedicated overnight spots.
At a 4–8 km/h base pace and 5–6 hours of paddling, 20 to 35 kilometers is realistic. With full gear you should plan toward the lower end, since cargo noticeably slows your pace.
Plan for around 450–500 calories per hour of paddling and a liter of water per hour. For a 6-hour day, that's significantly more than for a short day tour — plan extra reserve as well.
Use your pre-planned fallback exit point for the current stage — hostel, train station, or accessible road. A multi-day tour without a fallback option for every day is needlessly risky.
SUP Touring: Navigation with Compass and GPS