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Comment by iamthepieman | Hacker News Reader

In the rural Northeast U.S. where I live you are allowed to walk on and explore private land that you don't own unless it's "posted". To post your land you must display an official sign (available in hardware stores) every 120 meters and at every corner of your land. You also need to date every sign every year and register your land as posted with your town or city. Posted land may still be accessed with the permission of the land owner. We enjoy skiing and bird watching often on our neighbors lands in this way.

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Granted, I'm from the US and live in Norway - so I might be wrong - but I'm not sure if that would be all that legal in Norway. Yes, you may own the expanse of wood, but if you aren't actively using it for things, folks can walk there and camp there. I don't have to get permission.

In the US, I'd be trespassing and could expect police to say something. For a long time, it felt like I was doing something wrong or illegal.

Not sure about other states but unless it's posted you can use other people's land. This is true for my state and several of the surrounding ones in the Northeast U.S. You only have to get permission if it's posted.

regardless of posting status, written permission is required for certain activities such as driving and camping on private land.

The only thing I see in a search is mainly speaking about beaches [1]: Can they not call about you trespassing? Or do many people simply not actually care? Can you just park by the side of the road and go walking in the woods?

Because ultimately, that's what I have here. I can just park off of the side of the road so long as it isn't blocking anyone and go off into the woods. I can do that and camp. Or sleep in the car, even. Without being worried about any trouble whatsoever. I can do this hours away from home without needing to know who owns the land.

Indiana doesn't need signs: If a local cop sees your out-of-town plates parked by the road or sees you in someone else's woods, they are going to ask about it. Lots of folks don't care all that much, however, especially if you aren't camping or hunting, so if they see you, they might say hi but that's about it. (Parents had some acres of woods, and didn't care with the exception of hunters - they wanted to know when hunters were about so they didn't let kids or dogs in the woods without proper safety colors).

Many landowners don't care or at least don't care enough to post their land. Yes you can park by the side of the road and walk in the woods. We do this to forage for wild plants like fiddlehead ferns, morels and garlic scapes.

You can't camp without permission although as children we certainly did this on our neighbors land.

Provided that the landowner does not charge a fee, a landowner is not liable for property damage or personal injury for the recreational use of their property.

Also in the Northeast and take advantage of this occasionally. I took a hunter safety course recently and they hammer it in that this model is changing as more and more land is bought by people moving to these areas from places that don't have this custom or land gets passed to generations that don't share this ideal or don't want to bother with people on their land (many times for good reasons).

I personally love it and would probably never post my land, but I feel like it is one of those nice things that can be described as "just the way we did things back then" that won't last much longer.

People also post land because, while they may be fine with people walking, they may not be fine with people hunting and ripping up paths with ATVs and dirt bikes. (The latter group regularly rips down my neighbor's posted signs.)

You can post against specific uses "No Hunting" but not "No Trespassing"

A quote from my states website

    The landowner may maintain signs that:

    Prohibit hunting, fishing or trapping;
    Prohibit any combination of the three; or
    State all or any combination of the three are allowed 
    by Permission Only.

    Once registered, Permission Only signs and standard Posted signs are essentially 
    identical in meaning and enforcement.   However, if you've decided to post, consider 
    Permission Only signs when:

    Your primary goal is to know who is using your property;
    You welcome hunters, but have had issues with other users;
    You've made the decision to post, but want to show you support hunting and use 
    hunting as a tool on your property; and
    You want to continue to allow other public access without written permission, such 
    as hiking and cross country skiing.

Yes. Around where I live (New England), it's fairly common to post land without a blanket "No Trespassing" with the intent to prohibit motorized vehicles, hunting, and trapping but not people simply walking on your property.

It still happens though that as rural towns become more like exurbs though that new landowners post their properties to prohibit "traditional" uses that long-time residents had been doing all their lives.

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