Driving in Europe- essential kit you need (car, motorhome, camper, caravan)

Hey guys, I'm Kat from the Motorhome Travel website Wandering Bird where we share tips and tricks for touring the UK and Europe by motorhome and camper. Today I want to share with you the essential and the useful kit that you will need when you take your motorhome or campervan into Europe. I know there is a lot of confusion over this so I'm hoping this video will clear it up for you. So if you're planning a trip into Europe at some point in the future then this video is for you. Before I get started don't forget you can grab your free Europe motorhome travel checklist. The link to that is below and that's got a list of all of the stuff that I'm going to talk about plus a few extras that you might want to take with you and you can download that for free and print it off and it will make your life a bit easier to keep track and make sure you've got everything you need on your van. If you are new to the channel, hi, welcome. If you'd like to get some more tips for touring the UK and Europe by motorhome or camper by all means hit subscribe and then hit the little bell and it will tell you when our next video comes out. Right, let's dive in. Let's talk about equipment that you need. And equipment that you need when you take your motorhome or your campervan to Europe is split into two sections. Essential stuff you need and then nice to haves that make your life better. There's also possibly a third section which is things that you need if you're traveling in winter and we'll cover all of that. One of the things that caught us out when we first took our motorhome into Europe was that there are things that you have to carry in your vehicle. Now in the UK we have things that you should carry and we have things that all motorhomes need. I'm not talking about motorhome essentials. I have done a video on that by the way if you want to watch it I'll leave a link for it. This video is about stuff that you legally have to carry when you go into Europe. So there are certain kits that you have to have on board and if you're stopped by the police and you're not carrying this kit then they can and they will fine you and it's not a little fine it's something like a hundred euros or something ridiculous for not carrying the correct stuff. So this is important. We don't have this in the UK in the same way. So this isn't you have to have an electric cable and you have to have you know chocks. These are legal things that you have to carry. Now in this video we're not going to be talking about paperwork that you need that's an entirely different video but we're talking about physical things that you need to carry on your van. Okay first thing that you need when you're going into Europe is a high-vis jacket and you need a high-vis jacket for every single person in the motorhome including kids. Now babies who cannot walk under their own steam don't need one but toddlers do. So make sure that you've got one that fits everybody. They do come in a range of sizes. You have to put these on before you exit the vehicle. So if you have a motorhome with a garage or side access from outside the vehicle don't store them in there because you cannot get out of your vehicle to get them to put them on they have to be put on before you exit the vehicle. And this applies whether you're in a motorhome, a campervan, a caravan, a car. If you're in a caravan don't store them in the caravan because obviously you'd be in the car. So you have to store them in the vehicle that you're traveling in in case there is an accident. Next thing that you need is a warning triangle. That's fairly straightforward I'm not going to show you how to use it but you do need to carry one of them on your vehicle. This doesn't have to be kept inside the vehicle with you but you do have to have easy access to it. We actually ended up buying one of these big packs and it's got the first aid kit and a warning triangle and we keep our high-vis jackets in it as well. We keep that in the pocket above the motorhome cabs. It's really easy to just grab out should we ever need it, tuck, wood, we don't. So I mentioned it just now you need a first aid kit. Now basically you have to have kit in your vehicle in order to be a reasonable first responder. There isn't a set guide on what you have to carry in your first aid kit so they've got this great law but they haven't actually backed up exactly what you have to have. If you buy any standard first aid kit off something like Amazon or Boots or the RAC do one or there are loads of different types any of those will more than cover you for what you need. If you want to know exactly what we've got in ours I'll leave a link below and there's a link of everything that we carry in our first aid kit but honestly any of those decent not the tiny tiny travel pack ones but possibly the next size up any of those will more than cover you for your trip into Europe. A couple of other things that you need on your vehicle before you get into Europe so either put it on on the tunnel or put them on on the ferry although they're not easy to put on on the ferry. First is headlight beam converters. Now these are really really easy to put on badly and put on wrong as we well know because we've done it several times but these are stickers that go on your headlights that basically stop you blinding because obviously in the UK we'll drive on the wrong side our headlights point in different directions to what they would do in Europe and they stop us blinding the Europeans when we're driving on the wrong side so they're really important and they're also really obvious when you haven't got them fitted so do make sure that you remember them you can buy packs very cheaply off the internet off Amazon other retailers are of course available but possibly more expensive and you literally they're just stickers that you stick on on your headlight and they reflect the light so that you're not blinding people when you're driving on European sides. The other thing that you need to have on your vehicle is a GB sticker now there are several different types about this you can have one of the big white GB stickers which are obvious and they tick all the boxes or you can have a reg plate GB sticker but now that we have left the EU and Brexit transition period has finished it has to be a GB sticker with a GB flag not with the blue ring of the stars so check that if you have a trailer or anything which might obscure your vehicle reg plate so you've got something with a secondary reg plate you have to have a GB sticker on that as well so we have one on both our trailer and on our motorhome it just makes life a little bit easier if you have anything that overhangs the back of your vehicle whether it is a tow bar whether it is a box like we have whether it's a bike rack whether it is anything you need one of these red and white diagonal striped boards now depending on which country you're going into depends on whether you have to have them or whether it's just a nice to have I know some countries are way more hot on this than others and in some countries it's a legal requirement and others it's just a suggestion I know Italy is really hot on it so if you are going into Italy make sure that you've definitely got that the other thing to remember is that the diagonal lines need to point into the center of the road so obviously when you're in Europe they need to be pointing from top right to bottom left so going down that way if you were in the UK technically you'd have to change your board around so it's pointing in the other direction because you're driving on the other side of the road or you could just in the UK because it's not a legal requirement take it off I'll be honest we've driven in the UK I don't know how many times and have completely forgotten to change the direction so I wouldn't worry about it too much in the UK but do worry about it in Europe in some of the countries that you might be traveling to they're really hot on it one thing I haven't mentioned and you'll notice because you don't need it in Europe is a breathalyser now we've still got this from when we thought that you had to have breathalysers you do not need to carry breathalysers anymore legally in Europe whether you choose to or not it's totally up to you but they cannot France had this crazy thing where they put in this law and then they just sort of quietly took it away and no one really noticed and then it just poofed so they cannot and will not fine you for not having breathalysers in France or indeed in Europe many packs like if you buy one of these packs they still include them because it used to be a thing and it was the most short-lived law ever I don't know what they were thinking but hey but it is no longer the legal requirement for you to carry a breathalyser so those are the things that you have to carry there are a couple of other things that might be legally required for you to carry depending on when you're planning on traveling into Europe one of those things are snow chains if you're planning on going in the mountains I think most countries have the restrictions between October and end of March you have to carry snow chains now we have carried snow chains for years they're heavy they take up a lot of our payload we had the wrong size for camper tires so we had the right size but we didn't have the right width so be really careful when you buy your snow chains that you're buying them for camper tires of the right size and of the right width so that you have ones that fit you when you need to big learning curve the other thing that you might have to have fitted depending again on when you're traveling are either winter tires or all-weather tires if you're going anywhere near the mountains when there is a chance of snow and ice I really strongly recommend that you have proper winter tires fitted and all-weather tires are well worth doing anyway we spend most of our time summer or winter going up and down mountains and having tires with that extra bit of a decent grip are definitely worth the money in our opinion but they are a legal requirement in winter a couple of other things which are legal requirements the first of vignettes so in Europe there will be a payment system for pretty much most of the main motorways or dual carriageways that you have across the country depending on the country you're either going to have toll system like they do in France or you're going to have a vignette system like they do in Switzerland the toll system you can just turn up and pay as you go you can get a toll pass and we highly recommend it because they are fantastic but you don't have to it's not a legal requirement for you to have a toll pass you can queue up and pay as you go through each toll and you can pay with either cash or with a card most UK debit cards and credit cards have been accepted at pretty much every toll but we always recommend that you carry a little bit of cash just in case you end up at one of those random toll booths that suddenly decide that they don't want to take a UK card the only country that I know of that currently has a legal requirement for you to carry a toll pass whether it's a fitted system or a temporary system is Portugal now the system that we use which is a company called Imovis apparently covers your requirements to do this so you might want to get an Imovis tag if you're planning on driving into Portugal but if you're not you need to get a temporary toll and I'll leave a link to the website which will tell you more about how to do that if you're going into a country which requires you to have a vignette like Switzerland you legally have to have that and you have to buy that on the border as you cross now it's really easy to do this now even if you've got a vehicle over three and a half tons which was our last motorhome and it became a bit complicated they've now changed the system you can actually do it online but if your vehicle is under three and a half tons it's really simple you pull up we pulled up at a garage which was right on the border and you go in they spoke excellent English which is good because we didn't have a clue what we were doing and you buy the vignette and you have to put it in your windscreen pay attention to the rules because you have to put them most of them in certain place in your windscreen it has to be so many inches or centimeters in and across there's a certain point so that their special cameras can pick up make sure that you've definitely got one of those if you decide that you don't want to drive on the main motorway networks and you want to do back roads you will avoid all tolls and even all requirement for vignettes because they are for the main motorway one last thing if you do what we did and you tow an extra motorbike or an extra vehicle behind you you will need a vignette for any vehicle that you're going to ride or drive in that country if it's on the trailer behind you and it doesn't ever leave you don't need a vignette for them so we towed our bikes through Switzerland and we didn't use them but if we had taken them off the trailer then we would have had to get vignettes for them which is really difficult on a bike because where do you put it let's talk about things that you really should be carrying but aren't legal requirements so first thing that we highly highly recommend you carry a spare bulbs so spare bulbs for both your exterior so your vehicle lights and also for your interior for your LEDs because they do go occasionally so I would suggest that you carry at least one lot of spare bulbs for every light that you have on your van similarly fuses now if you don't know about our fuse episode where our motorhome nearly caught fire I will leave a link to that that was not fun and we're very grateful that we chose to carry lots of spare fuses on board so that we could replace the ones that have been damaged and then we still had all the fuses to work so definitely have spare fuses another thing which is a legal requirement for you to have depending on where you're going is a crit air or clean air sticker now this is a growing issue and it's mainly in France but there are a few other cities around Europe which are taking it on and it's basically a charge that you pay to drive your vehicle into a city now most of the big cities in France now have this their website is an absolute pain in the backside I find it really difficult and the other thing that's really annoying about it is you have to buy it in advance there is apparently a way of doing it whilst you're there but we've never done it we tend to avoid cities so we've never needed to buy it on the road so I can't tell you how to do that I'm afraid but there is a website I'll leave the link to it and if you know that you're going to go to Paris or Nice or there are several and I don't want to I'm thinking of French cities but I don't want to say them in case they're not on the list I think Marseille and maybe Toulouse are in there too but don't hold me accountable if they're wrong yeah I think they're like 10 now across France the big big cities and if you know you're planning on visiting any of those with your vehicle and you don't want to stay outside the zone you actually want to drive your vehicle into the city I personally wouldn't but that's up to you if you want to do that then you will want to buy them in advance and they take a few weeks for rides so definitely give yourself enough time for them to turn up so that you've got them on your van before you need them when you're in France or whichever other country you're planning to go to where one is required okay a couple more things which are really useful but again not legal requirement highly highly recommend that you have a decent motorhome sat-nav whether it's an app we still use the co-pilot caravan app which is okay we are still debating upgrading to a proper motorhome sat-nav because they are much better in our opinion and we've had a few issues with co-pilot lately but definitely a proper sat-nav where you can put your vehicle dimensions in which means you can avoid low bridges narrow roads or places with weight limits that you can't cross that's definitely worth it also fillable gas bottles if you're going to be doing a lot of touring in Europe they are well worth fitting make sure that you get them either fitted professionally or get someone to check them properly so that you are still in accordance with your insurance also the ACSI system we think that's fantastic only if you're traveling outside of peak school time so if you're traveling only in July and August don't bother getting the ACSI it's not for you but if you're traveling anytime outside the main school holidays then this is well worth it if you're only traveling in winter many of these campsites will be shut a lot of them shut into September beginning of October so if you are traveling in the depths of winter this might not be so useful for you but any other time then definitely work in them you get a discount on those campsites for up like 60% because they've got a lot of money over the length of a trip if you're planning on using airs or wild camping a lot then we think a solar panel is essential again make sure that it fits in with your payload we've got ours mounted on the roof but if you're planning on only using campsites which will have electric hookups then don't bother with a solar panel it's just extra weight that you don't need you won't use it enough to warrant the cost of it but if you are planning on staying off grid more than a solar panels definitely worth it also an awning on our latest van we thought that we could do without an awning we thought we'd save the weight and we'd have that extra bit of payload and it would be amazing and we would just have umbrellas or we just park in the shade yeah we lasted two weeks and that was only in May and it got so hot and we couldn't find decent shady spots and not having an awning was a problem in the UK I don't think an awning is so essential but in Europe especially if you're going to southern Europe I think an awning is really really essential it gets far far too hot to not be able to use one so that's definitely something that I would get fitted before you go and last thing in our essentials that we feel you should carry but it's not a legal requirement is an inverter we charge up all of our kit as we are driving we use the inverter to be able to charge laptops and cameras and drone batteries and all the rest of that stuff that's definitely worth fitting now question we get asked all the time is where to buy all this kit from obviously some of the more specialist stuff like a toll pass or refillable gas bottles you need to buy direct from those manufacturers if you're looking for things like the high-vis jackets first-aid kits warning triangles I would recommend Amazon I think Amazon is great and you'll often find you save an awful lot of money there do not leave it until you are at the ferry port or the Eurotunnel because you will pay up to three times more than you would pay and a either normal shop or pay online so definitely try and get as much of this kit in advance before you travel if you can right so that is the list of our legal requirements and our things that you should have because it makes your life better I hope you found that useful don't forget you can grab our Europe checklist which covers all of these points and a few others for you and it can help keep you organized we've also got the list on there the paperwork that you need which might make life easier for you if you haven't watched that video yet if you enjoyed this video you're not already subscribed and you'd like to see more motorhome tips for the UK and you're by all means hit subscribe and the little bell and you'll find out when our next video is thank you very much for your time I'll see you on the chasing every moment of a good night we're always looking out and it's a good life we go around the world for a show