A Raw, Unfiltered Week of Van Life in Austria

This week, myself and Mitch are trying a new style of video, taking you through what a realistic week of van life looks like for us. That's it, let's go. I'm being forced to brush my hair outside because I get too many hairs in the van. We fell in love with this lifestyle over a year ago now and after recently completing our dream van conversion, we're even more excited to share what our life in our new home looks like. This is where the adventure starts, here on the western side of the Austrian Alps, parked up out the way by a restaurant and ski slope, both closed for the season. Hey guys, I thought there were alpacas. Alpacas? Are you serious? Navigating Austria on a budget will be a challenge for us as we try to dodge the threat of a 220 euro fine for overnight camping. Well, today's plans have taken a drastic change. After an intense couple of adventure videos, we're wanting to strip it back completely by keeping the video as raw and unedited as we can, so it feels like you're truly on this trip with us. Allowing us to showcase our real feelings and experiences in their truest form. Hey, what would you like today? An hour on our way for a very hot, maybe miserable day. Sharing the highs and the lows. I've noticed something that's not very good. And everything in between for you to truly see what van life is all about. Made a quick pit stop for water. We're in the deep depths of the summer holidays at the minute, so there are people and campers everywhere. So I'm hoping that when we get to this spot that we're hoping to park up for most of today, there is actually some space. Because I'm not very hopeful. Great success! How do I do this gracefully? I cannot believe where we are right now. I did not expect this whatsoever. Because are you out of shore? I honestly don't know how many times I can begin to say how amazing this area is. Since being in Germany and then now being in Austria as well, I'm just absolutely in love with this place. It's just so nice. I can't believe this, but we've just seen a sign for ice skate hire over here. So just imagine in the winter what this is like. It's so beautiful now, but imagine when there's snow on the mountains and everything too. And that lake is completely frozen over. Oh my god, it'd be so cool. Honestly, I've never looked forward to the winter before in my life. We keep saying this, we keep saying we love the summer, we thought we were summer people, but being here in a place where it's equipped for the winter just makes you want to wonder what it's like. Just picture people ice skating around here with that backdrop. There's snow on there too. There's a bit of a storm rolling in now, so we're using this as an opportunity to try and park up where we couldn't get a parking space earlier. Everyone's been running back to their cars, so we're hoping that that means that it'll be the same over there. Well, we were going to park here on a bit of a lean, but the people two spots down are just moving, so I'm just waiting for them to go and then we're going to have a quick shuffle. That's it, let's go. Grab these both. Yes, I can. I never got that on camera. Jesus. Well, anyway, that was a massive lightning bolt. This is what we're working with. We don't get a lot of choice of parking spaces here in Austria. Half of it is actually designated parking, half of it is just public parking with no signs that say no overnight camping, so hopefully we won't get a €220 fine tonight. On tonight's menu, I think we've got probably the best meal we've ever made in the van, ever. We made it yesterday. Yesterday was actually my birthday, so Mitch made us some burritos because we found these amazing wraps in Lidl and they're like the perfect burrito wraps, so we're basically, we made loads, so we're going to reheat it and have it again tonight, and I've been thinking about it all day, so I'm really excited for this. That was a shambles. Well, have we had an eventful morning? Oh, for God's sake, Marv. You're miming it behind the camera. Come on. Well, have we had an eventful morning? But before we tell you all about it, we've just seen an outdoor gym, which we're going to go check out, as this is the first one we've seen of the trip, so we should probably make use of it. This has got to be the most beautiful run I've ever been on. It felt like we were in a film and it wasn't even real life. I couldn't wipe the smile off my face the entire time, and something tells me that I wouldn't have a problem running if this was my view every day. Since arriving in the Alps, we have noticed just how much the outdoors is utilised, whatever the weather. I have never seen people choose to go out into the elements at their own will for fun until coming here. It really does feel like the epicentre of outdoor adventures wherever you look. This outdoor gym went beyond our expectations, as most things here do, and was actually part of a fitness trail along the river, allowing us plenty of space to work out for the first time in God knows how long. This area felt so accommodating for us and had everything you could really ask for. Great views, great hikes, a gym and fresh water points dotted all around the villages, and there is honestly no better feeling than grabbing some fresh cold water after such a hot and active day. I tell you what, I am absolutely dead after today already and it's only 3pm. Even holding this camera is killing me. I know I still need to tell you about what we've been up to this morning, but we are just going to drive now for about 40 minutes to get to our park up for the night and then we're going to finally chill, because I'm still in my sweaty workout clothes at this point. It's not cute. Just thought I'd give you a bit of the reality of the fact that right now in the cab, it absolutely stinks of s***. No, it's disgusting. As we're going up in altitude, obviously everything's expanding, so the toilet is expanding and it's breathing. Oh, it stinks. We had this in our old van, in the old toilet as well, but for some reason, even with this, it's not doing enough. It stinks so bad. That's grim. Oh, Jesus. That's you that is. It's not me. Yeah, it is. Too many burritos. This drive has been rather heartbreaking for me. We've been getting around 40 miles per gallon average with this van and I've been absolutely buzzing about it for how big it is, but this drive, we're down to 24.5. He's bloody ruined my run up. I might run him over for that. No, mate. He's ruining my MPG, big time. We've not been here two minutes. This is happening right now. Mate, you're not allowed in here. This is humans only. No, don't lick inside here. Mitch, Mitch, Mitch, get him out. No, come on now. You're licking my cupboards. Come on. Come on, I'm going to have to be nasty now. Come on. You were my mate, but now you're starting to take the piss of it. Yeah, you've licked. Oh, you've licked. What happens if I just shut the door? Yeah, but what about his horns? We're being held hostage by a car. This is ridiculous. I'm going to have to start whipping him. Oh, he's going, he's going. Oh, I'm scared of his horns. He's going, he's going. Is he? Yeah. Oh, you fooled him. All right, so I'm finally getting a chance to sit down and talk to you about this morning. We've just moved spots from where we were because the car was getting way too friendly. So Mitch is on car patrol as I just talked through what the hell we got up to this morning. Now, as some of you may have known from our previous video, we tried our first ever Via Ferrata or Kletterstag in that video. We did two in total and today we went and did our third one and we didn't film crazy amounts because we didn't want to ram it down your throat about if you're not into that, then that's fine. So we have taken some clips, but oh my God, it was probably the best one that we've done. Would you say? Yeah, I would say. Yeah. It was so good. We did get lost at the start. So it was a little bit of a hike there and we just went along and there were D and E sections. Mitch did try a little bit of one of the D and E sections, but the majority of it was just B slash C. So A being the easiest and we just followed it along. And then the main bit of it all was the waterfall climb over and Mitch got me going over, so I'll roll them clips so you can but I definitely want to find more of them. Let us know in the comments if you enjoy kind of watching that footage of us doing them Via Ferrata's as we'd be more than happy to bring you along. We just don't want to bore you with it. So let us know as we had a lot of fun, but now I think it's time for me to probably think about making some dinner. I'm not hungry yet. Oh, okay. It's only five o'clock. What should we do then? I don't know. I kind of want to go down to that river, but I'm scared of attracting the car over again. We're trapped. We're trapped in here. It's like the concrete angel off Doctor Who. Every time you turn around, it gets a bit closer. All right, well, we'll figure out what we're going to do and then we'll catch up with you in a bit. Right, it's that time of day again. Martha's Kitchen, what's on the menu today? That's so cringe. Right, so the previous video where we did this has not gone up yet, so we don't even know if anyone likes this segment, but I'm going to show you what we're cooking for tea. So I'm going to attempt to do crispy soy garlic tofu. So I've got a massive tub of firm tofu and then we're going to do that with some jasmine rice, which I'm really nervous about because I haven't done this. And last time I dipped jasmine rice was in a rice cooker, which we now no longer have. I'm also going to add some onion, some vegetables because it won't have any vegetables otherwise. And then I've got some coconut oil and some cornflour to make it crispy. I've also got some soy sauce and some maple syrup to sweeten as we don't have sugar. Maple syrup? We're not made of money. No, I know, but we haven't got anything else. Oh, and did I say garlic? Garlic. Say it again. Garlic. Hey duck, what would you like today? I'll have black pudding, bacon, melted cheese, brown sauce, butty please duck. Not a problem pet. It doesn't look the most appetising, but I think it's going to taste pretty good. But you could do it with chicken or pork, but we've just used tofu this time. That's pretty good. I really need to wash my hair. As this video was so spontaneously planned, I hadn't had a chance to wash my hair since we left. So it's looking, it's looking very greasy and it's driving me a bit insane now. It's been nearly two weeks. So instead of a full shower tonight, as we are running a little bit low on water, I'm going to just do a little sink wash. So we'll see how this goes. That was so much messier than I expected. That's why you've used more water than you would have done in the shower. Yeah, you're right. I should have just had a shower. Well, I've learned something, haven't I? Was Mitch alright? No. This is how tight we are with the water. I'm literally using the rest of the hose water to finish washing Martha's face. No, no, no, no, no. It's going to come out of this one. I left it up in the air. That's full of water. Okay. Ready? Yeah. Perfect. Thanks. There's still more. Do you want to? Yeah, I need it though. Any more? No, that's it. I'm being forced to brush my hair outside because I get too many hairs in the van. But it's okay because the sun's setting and it's a really nice view. That's disgusting. So whilst Mitch is flying the drone outside, he has somehow convinced me tomorrow to go for an early morning walk. So right now I'm just making ourselves a cup of tea before we go to bed. We're going to call it a night here and get an early one ready for tomorrow morning. I thought you said this was just a stroll this morning. It is a stroll. Have you seen how much we've climbed? So nice but so cold. It's so clear. Oh, that's cold. Oh man, it's gone to a cocktail sausage. A cold water dip always seems like a good idea until you're about to get in and then afterwards it's always the best decision you could have made. I am pretty cold now that I've got out but it is just so beautiful. When Mitch told me that we were going to go for a morning stroll I didn't expect this at all but it's just so quiet. There's hardly anyone around. You can tell how much of a ski resort this must be in the winter. There's just gondolas everywhere but now because it's just out of season, it's so quiet. I'll tell you what, it doesn't get any easier. Oh my god. How clear is that water? It's actually ridiculous. I can't hit anything. But part of me when there's lakes like this would regret it so much if I didn't get in and I just think the worst that's going to happen is you're just going to be a bit cold but you'll warm up. That was my whole motto when we were in Vietnam on the bikes. It'll all be over. You'll warm up, you'll get dry and now you just feel amazing for it. We've not even had breakfast yet and this is how we've started our morning. It's really good. Last night was putting the van to its coldest test so far and I honestly can't say how happy I am with that van. Last night on my watch, I don't know if it's true, it said it got down to three degrees last night and when we woke up this morning the van was 17 degrees inside which is like unbelievable. So it just means that we can hopefully start travelling in the winter a lot more comfortably. I also think what helps as well is before we left to come on this trip, Mitchell's mum made us some covers for the max fan and also our skylights just out of, was it one inch foam? Yeah. One inch foam with just some leftover material from the sofas and that has made such a big difference. Well we didn't actually plan on recording anymore today, we've just sort of been taking the day to chill out. The past few days I've noticed that the solar panels haven't been working as well as they have done in the past so I came up here to give them a bit of a clean and while I've been cleaning them I've noticed something that's not very good. So what you can't see underneath the panel, there's actually like four burn marks where there must have been some sort of short or resistance across the panel and from what I've been reading that means that the whole rest of the solar panel is working as efficient as that one cell that's damaged. So basically that means we're down to one solar panel. The person that we bought them off only supplies people in England so I've sent him an email to see what sort of resolution we come up with. I don't think there's going to be a lot and if this hinders us the whole way through the winter I'm going to be very sad about it. So we'll see what comes back from him but anyway yeah I thought I'd just keep you in touch with the reality of what actually goes on and the things that come and go. Van life isn't all sunshine and rainbows. We've come up with a nice plan for stuff to do tomorrow so we'll see you bright and early when we get up for that. Well today's plans have taken a drastic change from what was going to be a nice walk into the city has now turned us into us doing our biggest hike yet. So today was originally meant to be a day exploring Innsbruck but we actually chose the wrong day, it's Sunday so we realised everything was closed and it wasn't worth the hassle of what we were going to try and do. So instead we've decided to climb our highest mountain that we've ever climbed instead. I don't know why but here we are we've moved car parks to be closer to where the trail starts just to save our legs a little bit more and to get away from the cows and yeah we're just gonna go start it. So we've quickly had to decide this morning if our legs are capable of it after the workout we had the other day. I still don't know if they are or not. Yeah they're feeling pretty sore and this is a another long long hike but if we don't do it now we'd be here another night and we don't want to take the mick with parking there for free so it just makes sense for us to do it now. So we've had a mass run around packing the backpacks this morning and now we're on our way for a very hot maybe miserable day. Oh don't say that. It is an absolute scorcher today so we've got lots of water we've got sun cream all over us and we're staying as sun protective as we can for this hike because it's going to be gruelling in this heat. So that right there is where we're going Sulkskogal I think that's how it's said it's at 3060 meters of elevation it doesn't look that tall right now but we have climbed up a fair bit and from the map we and two of the mountains are going to be kind of at the same level so we're going to be really tall overlooking everything which I'm excited about and I've got a feeling that this res is going to look so cool from the top. Oh my god we have made it and it is absolutely beautiful I can't even begin to fathom what we can see right now and how far we can see it's genuinely incredible the whole time we were hiking we thought we were going to this peak but actually we went to this peak close enough yeah yeah considering that was a 3000 meter peak that was really really accessible I wouldn't say it was easy but there was kids going up there so if you ever want to do a hike up to 3000 meters that isn't too strenuous this is definitely one to choose there can't be too many other mountains in the world that you can get up there that easily when I've come to grab the water bottle we've noticed that there's like little black dots on the bottle and I also noticed it on my seat when I first got into the van and then now that we're looking for it we can see just little spots of it I thought it was some sort of like poo from like a spider or something I don't know but actually it's some sort of like fungus so the van must be getting a little bit damp in this cab area we've had we have had like our wet shoes in here so I mean it's not harmful we've just googled it but artillery fungus artillery fungus didn't even know it was a thing so hopefully it all scrubs off okay I think it will because I've got it with my sweat there can you see so yeah our legs were feeling pretty ruined from the hike and Mitch convinced me to dip my feet in the river which developed into this oh my god it's so cold you have to put your legs over we're now leaving the car park that we've called home for like the past three or four nights and it always feels weird leaving a place that you've been for quite a long time and it always feels a little bit like weird to to venture on but we are we are actually going to head into Italy today which might come as a shock because we've only just got into Austria however the way that Austria is as a country and how narrow it is it kind of makes sense for us to head into the Dolomites from here to then come back into Austria later on on the trip and to save us going back and forth so that's what we're going to do we've got to get some water find somewhere to fill up the gas bottle do a food shop all them sort of things today as we head into a new country it's also been nice as because we know that we're kind of just having a day in the van a day doing chores I've actually been able to get ready like a real person and not be in like hiking gear or in just like loungy clothes so I've actually put on some shorts and a nice top and I feel like a new woman it's nice actually being able to dress up for the weather instead of in hiking stuff all the time so if anyone's curious of how much that food bill came to it came to a total of 53 euros and 81 cents and I thought I'd just touch on the fact that since we've been away our only expense has been food and fuel they're the biggest things that we've sort of spent money on and that's mainly down to the fact that we want to prolong this travel trip for as long as possible and we are still on a budget so we'd like to keep everything as cheap as possible but also we're fortunate that all the activities we enjoy doing are free but that does bring me on to if you did want to help support our channel and support these videos and the production of them we do have a patreon page which you can sign up and get access to free behind the scenes stuff of what we're doing I post like journal entries and we also have a discord which is basically like a big group chat which you can join if you join patreon and you can ask us loads of questions we're going to do our announcements on there that money helps fund the making of these videos and helps improve our production for these videos so it's basically a little investment for your guys's entertainment so we always want to try and improve and make them as good as we can for you so that's where all the money from patreon goes it doesn't go into our food shop hence why we still want to keep that down and we still shop pretty cheap but yeah that's a way that you can help support us we really appreciate it already our patrons on there we just wanted to say a massive thank you for being there and supporting us as it really does mean a lot and hopefully it means that we can do this for as long as possible and keep curating some great videos for you but on that note we've got an extra of the day to go to I think that we might have looked out here because I'm pretty sure this is like an automated campsite that you just pay on a machine for a slot to sleep on so the water's just on a tap that you can just tap onto I'm half expecting someone to walk over and ask what we're doing but we'll see we were more than willing to pay I'd got some change because a lot of these places even on the campsites are just normally like the big machines that you just put money into or pay at the desk but it's just a little parking ticket machines and that's it and then there's toilets and showers and bins so I've emptied the bin but if yeah if no one's here then we've completely looked out which is very nice because we've just realized on the map that I think we might be going into like more expensive fuel territory and Mitch is quite upset about that because it was very cheap where we just were which we didn't realize so if this is free at least that's it's counteracting it also we've got a cool little gag with our water that when it starts getting full it just starts spraying water at you I think it's because there's not there's not enough air being able to escape through the breathers and it's coming back through the water I might take a little bit actually we are the only people that when we fill up with water we make so much mess everywhere we are we're at our last tour of the day and we've been successful at finding gas it's probably been the easiest tour so far of the day we've just rocked up we called the guy this morning spoke great English and we actually have an Italian bottle a camping gas bottle from when we were here last year so it was a really easy exchange we've just swapped it out and I think he said it was 20 28 90 I think that's what he's just said to me because they've just gone into pay um so it's kind of what we expected I think we paid a little bit more than that last year when we were here so should be good hopefully last us over a month each bottle we have two so we're on rotation so yeah happy with that we've got about another 36 minute of driving and then we'll be parked up hopefully and then able to chill out for the night because it's the day's just flown and it's so so hot it's like 32 degrees hottest day of the year for us in this van so far and we're just driving with no aircon so got a nice natural glow going oh I'm excited now I'm here again we're just slowly starting to get a little glimpse into the Dolomites as we drive further to our park up tonight and it gets me so excited you can just see it starting to peek through the trees but we're taking every bend and then we'll lose it again but we're so excited I was actually so bummed to be leaving Austria but now I've seen that I'm buzzing oh man that looks sick if you've been following us for a while you will know that we've already been to the Dolomites before in our old van and already we are being reminded that we are no longer in that van because the roads are already so narrow and the turn and circle on this van is just non-existent so I'm starting to miss the old van if we're gonna go there oh oh he's not slowing down either it's so tight can't really complain can we without that we are on a road as you can tell but it's free and that's the view we've just moved around and tried to stay out the way we're just at like the end point of this little pull-in it's still illegal here just like it was in Austria so hopefully we'll be okay that sign over there says no camping but oh camping camping so I think we'll be fine I'm just ready to make some food and I'll show you this view and with that long day of chores over it was time for us to put the camera down make some food and start scheming our next adventure here in the Dolomites I hope you've enjoyed relaxing and spending the week with us a lot of effort went into recording this video so please give us a like if you've enjoyed it thanks for watching guys we'll catch you in the next one