I Finally Did It — My First Solo Moto Camp

Just me, the bike, a tent, and the Wicklow Mountains. Here's what happened — the good, the cold, and the very sleepless.

May 2026, Wicklow, Ireland

6 min read

For a long time, the idea of a solo moto camp sat quietly in the back of my head — exciting enough to daydream about, but easy enough to keep putting off. No group to coordinate with, no one to follow if things went sideways. Just me making every decision, from which road to take to where to pitch the tent. Honestly? That's exactly what made it feel like such a big deal. And also exactly why I knew I had to do it.

I chose Wicklow as my base. Hard to argue with it — it's close, the scenery is stunning, and there's enough of a riding scene there that it doesn't feel completely off the beaten track for a first timer. I set up at Moat Farm Caravan and Camping Park in Donard, a small family-run site tucked neatly into the foothills of the mountains. Nothing flashy, nothing commercial — just quiet fields, decent facilities, and the kind of peaceful atmosphere that makes you breathe a little slower the moment you arrive.

Setting up camp

I'll be honest — I was half-expecting the tent setup to be the first thing to humble me. Solo camping means no one to hold a pole while you wrestle with the other end, no second pair of hands when the groundsheet keeps lifting in the breeze. But it went surprisingly smoothly. Everything clicked into place the way it was supposed to, and inside twenty minutes I had a home for the night sorted. There's something quietly satisfying about that — standing back, looking at your tent, knowing you did it yourself and nobody had to help. Small win, but a real one.

Getting the rest of the camp organised — kit stowed, sleeping bag laid out, stove set up within reach — took another while, but it all had a good rhythm to it. Nobody rushing me, nobody waiting. Just me working through the list at my own pace. That part of solo travel, I think, is underrated.

Cooking on the camp stove

I should clarify what "cooked a proper meal" means in moto camp terms, because it's not quite what it sounds like. The menu was a microwaveable protein beef stew — the kind that normally goes straight in the microwave for two minutes and that's that. No microwave on a moto camp, obviously, so out came the pan, on went the stove, and I stood there in a field in Wicklow stirring beef stew like I was rustling up something special. In a way, I suppose I was.

"A microwaveable beef stew, tipped into a pan, heated over a camp stove, eaten sitting on the ground next to the bike. Genuinely one of the best meals I've had in a while."

And here's the thing — it was brilliant. Context does an enormous amount for food. Eating something hot and protein-packed after a day's riding, in the fading evening light with the mountains going dark around you, makes even a pouch of beef stew feel like a reward. I'd recommend it. The high-protein version especially, if you're planning a cold night — which, spoiler, I very much was about to have.

Clean-up without a proper sink is its own little puzzle, but you figure it out. And once everything was packed away and the stove was cooling down, there was that particular evening-at-camp feeling — everything done, nothing left to sort, nowhere to be.

The riding

From the campsite I headed up through the Wicklow Gap — the R756, one of the highest mountain passes in the country. The road climbs and winds through a landscape that genuinely stops you mid-thought. Moorland rolling out in every direction, the mountains rising up around you, almost no traffic. There's a particular feeling that comes from riding a road like that on your own terms, at your own pace, with nowhere you have to be. The Wicklow Gap doesn't care that it's your first solo trip. It just opens up around you and gets on with being spectacular.

The night — or the lack of it

Right. Here's the part nobody warns you about clearly enough. It was cold. Not "a bit nippy, glad I brought a jacket" cold. Proper, relentless, seeping-into-your-bones cold. Wicklow in the foothills at night has no interest in being comfortable, and my sleeping setup — which I had thought was reasonable — turned out to be deeply, embarrassingly optimistic.

I had come prepared, or so I thought. Down booties on the feet, down pants on the legs, down jacket on top. I was essentially a walking duvet. And still — still — I lay there wide awake at 3am, staring at the tent ceiling, cold in a way that felt almost personal, like Wicklow had decided to make a point.

"Down booties, down pants, down jacket — the full ensemble. Wicklow looked at all of it and said: is that it?"

I barely slept. I dozed in patches, woke up cold, pulled the sleeping bag tighter, dozed again. The things you think about at 3am in a field wearing three layers of down are something else entirely — mostly variations of "what rating is this sleeping bag actually" and "why is Ireland like this."

Here's what I'll say about it though: it didn't ruin the trip. Not even close. In a strange way, grinding through a cold, broken night on your own and making it to morning feels like part of the deal. You earn the sunrise a little more when you've been awake for most of it. And the first coffee of the day — camp stove going again, still in all the down layers, hands wrapped around the cup — was genuinely one of the finer moments of the whole weekend.

Lesson learned: a good sleeping bag is doing more work than all the down layers on top of it combined. Sort the bag first, then worry about everything else.

Would I do it again?

Without question. The cold night, the broken sleep, the thinnest sleeping bag known to man, the beef stew stirred in a pan like a culinary pioneer, the full down outfit that Wicklow laughed at — none of it puts me off. If anything it makes the whole thing feel more real, more like an actual adventure rather than a glamping weekend. If you've been sitting on the fence about your first solo moto camp, Wicklow is a brilliant place to start. The roads are excellent, the scenery earns every superlative, and there are enough sites that you're not completely on your own if something goes wrong. Just bring a warmer sleeping bag than you think you need. You can thank me later.

The full video is up on the channel — come along for the ride.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ_-IVosAgM