The one place in England where wild camping is a genuine, court-confirmed legal right — not a gentleman's tolerance like the Lake District. Add windswept granite tors, semi-wild ponies, and a real 3,300-year-old Bronze Age village, and it's a properly wild long weekend.
Dartmoor is the closest genuinely wild upland in Britain to the Channel — 954 km² of open granite moorland, tors, mires and river valleys, roughly a third of it registered common land. Wild ponies roam freely across the commons (semi-feral herds owned by local "commoners" under ancient grazing rights), the skyline bristles with over 160 named granite tors, and the moor is scattered with genuinely one of the densest concentrations of Bronze Age archaeology in Europe — hut circles, stone rows and stone circles by the thousand. And crucially for this series: thanks to a real, high-profile court case that ran from 2023 to 2025, Dartmoor is now the only place in England where you can legally pitch a tent on open access land without asking anyone's permission.
Sources: leshuttle.com, dfds.com, directferries.com — genuinely dynamic pricing, re-check before booking.
This is a genuinely manageable UK trip by this series' standards: Meudon-la-Forêt to Calais is about 290 km, then the Shuttle, then Folkestone down to Princetown (the highest village on the moor, and the closest thing Dartmoor has to a central hub) is ≈ 262 miles / 422 km, roughly 4h45–5h of driving via the M20/M25/M3/A303/A30/A38 corridor — a route that mostly skirts London and never touches Scotland-length distances. All told, that's roughly 710 km and 8–9 hours of driving one-way from Calais, before the French leg — genuinely splittable into a single very long day, or more comfortably two.
Real Tesla Superchargers bracket the moor conveniently on both approach roads: Exeter, just off the M5 to the east (a natural top-up on the A30/A303 run in), and Plymouth, off the A38 to the southwest — meaning you can arrive with a healthy buffer and never need to charge on the moor's single-track lanes themselves. Given the Model Y's realistic ~330–370 km real-world range at 97% SOH, plan one mandatory Supercharger stop on the way down, around the Bristol/Somerset services on the M5 — that's roughly where a Model Y Premium needs to top up on this leg. Exeter or Plymouth then becomes an optional buffer stop before or after exploring, useful if you'd rather arrive with more margin rather than relying on the final stretch alone.
Sources: rome2rio.com (Folkestone–Princetown driving distance/time), standard M5/A30/A38 Tesla Supercharger network coverage.
The timeline, confirmed: In January 2023, landowner Alexander Darwall won a High Court case arguing that the Dartmoor Commons Act 1985 did not give the public a right to pitch tents or camp overnight on Dartmoor commons without landowner consent — a ruling that triggered a major public protest led by storyteller Martin Shaw. Dartmoor National Park Authority appealed, and on 31 July 2023 the Court of Appeal overturned the High Court, ruling that the 1985 Act does include a right for the public to backpack-camp on the commons. The Darwalls were granted leave to take it to the Supreme Court — and on 21 May 2025, the Supreme Court upheld the Court of Appeal's decision, confirming for good that wild camping on Dartmoor's commons is a genuine, standing legal right.
Source: Wikipedia, "Dartmoor" (History section) — citing the January 2023 High Court judgment (Sir Julian Flaux), the 31 July 2023 Court of Appeal ruling, and the 21 May 2025 Supreme Court decision in Darwall v Dartmoor National Park Authority.
Early motorway run to Calais-Coquelles, load onto the Shuttle, remember to keep left. Push down through Kent and around London on the M25/M3, charging near Bristol/Somerset on the M5, then on into Devon. Overnight at a paid campsite near Postbridge or Two Bridges, or — if you arrive with daylight and energy — head straight for a first legal wild camp on one of the commons.
Afternoon in nearby Bovey Tracey or Widecombe-in-the-Moor for the trip's one splurge: a proper Devon cream tea — scones, clotted cream (spread first, Devon-style, jam on top), and strawberry jam — typically £6–9 (≈€7–10) at a Dartmoor tea room. Watch for wild ponies grazing right along the roadside and on the open moor around Haytor Down — genuinely one of the most reliable places on the moor to see them.
Sources: Wikipedia "Haytor"; Wikipedia "Devon cream tea" (Devon-method serving order); standard Dartmoor tea-room pricing.
Sources: Wikipedia "Grimspound"; Dartmoor National Park Authority backpack camping guidance.
Morning at Postbridge to see the genuine medieval clapper bridge over the East Dart River, then an easy bike ride along the quiet lanes and byways around Two Bridges — Dartmoor's gentler valleys are good, low-traffic riding between the wilder tor-bagging days. Charge at Exeter or Plymouth, then start the long haul back: Devon to the Midlands or the M25 corridor, splitting the return journey with one overnight if driving all in one go feels like too much.
Finish the drive north to Folkestone, Shuttle or ferry back across the Channel, and the final run down to Meudon-la-Forêt.
Dartmoor's open moor is mostly too rough and boggy for casual riding, but the quiet lanes around Postbridge, Two Bridges and Princetown, plus the old railway trackbeds (Princetown branch, and the Plym Valley further south), make for genuinely pleasant, low-traffic road and gravel riding between hikes. Bike loaded inside per the Car Camping & Bike Guide, no range penalty on the motorway legs.
| Category | Cost |
|---|---|
| Charging (France + England, ~1,420 km round trip) | ≈ €70–100 |
| French tolls (Meudon–Calais return) | ≈ €55–70 |
| Eurotunnel Le Shuttle, return, booked ahead off-peak | ≈ £150–220 (≈ €175–260) |
| Lodging (1–2 free legal wild-camp nights on the commons, 1–2 nights paid campsite ≈£15–22/night) | ≈ €15–45 |
| Devon cream tea splurge | ≈ £6–9 (≈ €7–10) |
| Haytor / Grimspound / Postbridge access | €0 (free, open access land) |
| Food (self-cooked, ~5 days) | ≈ €50–70 |
| Total | €360–520 |
Ferry/tunnel and charging costs are genuinely dynamic — re-check nearer your travel dates. Rate used: £1 ≈ €1.17 (July 2026, approximate).