I Left the Van (for Switzerland)

Hey, I'm Christian. I'm an outdoor adventure photographer living full-time on the road in my converted van. It's been three and a half years since I last had a real address, and besides my old SUV, this tiny home on wheels has been the only place I've called home since. Last month, I left behind the van for the first time and traveled to Europe with five really good friends. This is the first part of our story, from Seattle to the Swiss Alps. It's another day in the huddle household. Today, we go to Europe. We're leaving in like four hours, and I'm still in the process of packing. I actually just started this morning, and I've got stuff everywhere. I have stuff inside Matt and Renee's house too, which really, really fortunate that they're letting us pack here and shower here and do all those things because there's so much to do ahead of an international trip. And there's a couple extra steps I'm taking just because this is the longest I will be leaving the van ever. Yeah, I've never left the van this long before, so a couple extra steps that I'm taking, like I put the plants inside the house so that they don't get too cold out here, and I emptied out and cleaned the fridge. I'm going to be turning off all the power when I leave, including the AC and DC currents. I don't think my fridge has ever looked so clean, unless you count the day that I got it. Oh, and I put a little desiccant in there. I don't know if that's a good idea, but just to keep moisture out and hopefully no bacteria will form in there. Here's just a quick flyby of what I've got packed so far, or set out, I should say. I'm undecided how many fleeces I'm going to take or shirts, but this is kind of a preliminary pile of stuff, and I'm going to see what will fit in that bag. That's the only checked bag I'm taking. And then I'm taking my Peak Design Everyday Pack for all of my camera gear. For this trip, I'm taking the Canon R5, the 24-72.8, the 15-35 2.8, and the 100-500. I'm taking a bunch of extra batteries, filter, and microphone, odds and ends. Here's my Peak Design tripod. Here's a top-down view of my bag. I've got the 100-500 here, a beanie for cushion. I got all my lithium batteries back there. And here, I got one of my lenses in the middle, another lens. And on the other side, I've got my R5. So up here will go everything that needs to be easily accessible on the plane, including some tech gear in my tech pouch, and my laptop will go right back here. And here is my drone, which these have to go into my carry-on, but I'll probably end up packing the drone itself in my luggage. Here are my toiletries for the trip. I've got shampoo, conditioner. This is going to go with me in my carry-on, and then makeup, and then just various odds and ends. All right, I'm all packed up. I've got all my camera gear, my laptop, everything that I need for the plane is right there, all my really important stuff. This tech pouch fits right up here in the top. And then I have my one suitcase. I have my drone, my tripod, my toiletries, all my clothes, my shoes, everything fits in there just fine. And yep, that's everything I'm going to have for the three weeks and COVID test. We made it into the car. We got all the bags. We got all the people. I had a lot of mixed emotions going into this trip for a few different reasons. One, this was my first time leaving the van for so long. I'm so used to having everything I own with me at all times. The thought of parking my whole life in a driveway and leaving it there unattended felt a little strange. Two, I used to live in Italy, and this was my first time back since 2013. I was a little nervous to see how much Italian I would remember and just how it would feel being back. Three, like I've mentioned before, I'm an extroverted introvert, which means I need a lot of alone time to recharge. And I was nervous about traveling and living with five other people for three weeks straight. All right, our plane is delayed. It sure is. We've been on the runway for how long? Two hours. Two hours. We're gonna make it. Fourth, this was my first time traveling overseas since before the pandemic. What I can say is traveling during COVID comes with a lot of uncertainty. All six of us are fully vaccinated, which made things a little easier, but that was only one piece of the puzzle. All right, where's the first stop now that we're in London? Coffee shop. Toilet. We're going to Zurich. We're going to Zurich. Zurich. Finally. Getting into Switzerland via England required filling out quite a few forms, downloading an app and uploading all our information, and then downloading another app in Switzerland and applying for clearance so that we could be allowed into restaurants. It was a process and the most nerve-wracking part was leaving Europe when we were required to pass a COVID test before boarding the plane and found out last minute that the tests we packed in our suitcases weren't going to cut it. But yeah, more about that in the next video. Anyway, despite all that, I was really excited to be back in Europe. And after a long day of travel, we picked up our friend Ali from Zurich and drove straight into the mountains. Checking into our first hotel here in Switzerland. Thank you. Oh, perfect. I'm so excited to sleep. We've been traveling for a long time. We had an overnight flight from Seattle and I stayed up all night the night before that editing and finally made it through. We went to London. Now we're in Switzerland. We got the cars, went through customs. We did all the things. We found parking and now we are finally in the hotel room. I like that. All right, grocery shopping. Getting all the veggies. So many good breads. In Switzerland. Yes. Here's our first hotel in Switzerland. Here is home for the next three days in Zaino. Here we've got a strange man living in here. This is so nice. Nice wood detail. And so we got three different rooms. We got this nice cow chair, very aesthetic, fitting for Switzerland. Oh, hello. From Switzerland. So pretty here. So we have this trail right behind our hotel. We're going up. It looks pretty interesting already. So it's just after sunrise and we are going to hike up there to get a better view of the peaks out there. We saw a handful of van lifers camped out on pull-offs on our way out to this place. It definitely made me wish I had my own van over here. Switzerland especially felt a lot safer than some of the places I tend to base in the US. A local here shared that it's pretty safe to leave your things visible inside a vehicle, to leave your car unlocked. I don't know if that's true or not, but theft is something I constantly think about in the States. Leaving my van at a trailhead just isn't an option unless I'm willing to risk a break-in. And also, as far as I know, Switzerland and Italy don't have dangerous wild animals like we do back home. Oftentimes hiking on a trail alone after dark or before sunrise means risking a run-in with a mountain lion. Rare, but always a possibility. Anyway, this was just one of the first places we explored that got me thinking about shipping the van over here myself someday. Just hiked up from the hotel, which is down in that valley. I've been hiking for about an hour, hour and a half, and it is so beautiful up here. It's midday, so the light's not that crazy, but wow, these mountain peaks are something else. Found this really cool rock to sit on up here at the top. Surrounded by mountains, and I'm up at this mountain hut. There's no one up here. It's so peaceful. And my friends all went on a different hike, and I guess I just, I really needed a day to myself with all the traveling, and I've been doing a lot of social activities lately, and yeah, it just kind of takes it out of me sometimes. No matter how much I love the people, I just need time to myself. So that's what I'm doing right now, and I can't think of a better place to do it. This is so nice. We are going on a hike, and we're not entirely sure where the trail is, but we're trying to figure it out as we go. So we have to cross a river of solid ice, and we have to go up this trail and around this very skinny cliff. Oh. And it doesn't look good. All right, we're gonna go back. We went the wrong way. Very tired. How are you feeling? Yeah. I'm so tired. It's not running out of my nerves right now. All right, so this hike is turning out to be a mega slog. How far have we gone, Matthew? We've gone only about 1.5 miles, but this trail was meant to be two miles, 2,000 feet of elevation gain, but what we didn't realize is that 1.4 miles is flat. Yeah. So now we're just going straight uphill. We're at pretty high elevation, pretty high altitude already, and yeah. The vultures have started to circle us. Yeah, we can hear them. They're up there. We're not gonna make it. Oh, wow. I really do think Switzerland might be the most insane country. It's so beautiful. We finally made it up the really steep climb, and these views are so worth it. You can tell I can barely breathe. I'm so tired, but we're almost there. How are we feeling, Renee? So tired. We made it to the top. This was seriously the hike that never ended. A lot of people think travel is a form of distraction, just a way of running away from life. I disagree. For me, travel has always been a mirror. It offers up perspective and forces me to take a good, hard look at myself and the life I'm living. Everybody happy? Happy. I could cry. I could cry. I'm so happy right now. Kyle could cry. It does look really good. All packed up, heading to our next spot. Two cars that we're loading up, and we're heading out to Engadin. Really gonna miss this place. Travel highlights all the things I miss back home, and also all the things I'd like to change. It amplifies emotion. In my case, emotion about going back to a country I once called home, about traveling in a group as an introvert, about leaving the van and potentially risking quarantine in a foreign country. It's easy to pretend that none of that was going on behind the scenes, but it was. Like so many things in this weird life of mine, it was a true adventure. Beautiful, challenging, and just getting started. I will see you guys next week when we head to Italy. Just getting a shot in Switzerland. Nice. Is it still smoking? Smells like crap.