WEEK of VAN LIFE Crossing EUROPE // S05E05

Whilst Traveling Europe is open for tourism at the moment, we're inviting you to hop into our Kombi to see what it's like to be living the van life and road tripping across Europe in summer 2020. We have one week and a lot of ground to cover. Would you believe we drove all flipping day, we didn't even make it to Belgium. We are attempting to drive around the world, you guys are invited too, so subscribe and buckle up, it's one heck of a ride. Guys we are about to leave Jersey, we're just packing up the Kombi for another adventure. We haven't been here very long and we would love to stay longer and show you guys around but that day will come. Right now we are trying to make the most of summer 2020 before there's any second wave. Europe is still open and accepting visitors and we intend to make the most of that and take advantage and go and explore Europe. You want to come with us? It's time to say goodbye again. I can't believe we've only been here a week and we're already back at the boat port. Much of that time we're in quarantine waiting for our results. Okay so we have an interesting week coming up. We are about to head from Jersey, my home island, to Europe and we're going to be changing locations every single day because we've got a lot of driving to do. It's going to be a very busy week. It is, so we thought we would just check in with you guys every single day to give you a little bit of an update of how a week in van life looks. But it should be an adventure, right? Right to the front, boomerang at the top of the queue. Next stop, France! Bonjour! We continue tomorrow to get out of France. We like to be on the freeway. We prefer the squandering roads, don't we? But as we're doing, just trying to get straight to Belgium right now, we are going to just hit the freeway all the way I think, more or less. We pulled off the highway to one of the three French campsites. I really hope they have these kind of things in other parts of Europe. It's so easy to find three places to sleep in France and just it's literally, you don't even need to think about it. Is this it? This whole place for us? No, come on. Sweet. We'll be staying here and playing Pétanque. Want to play Pétanque? Ben's mum sent us away with some tuna pasta bake so we didn't have to cook tonight, which is good because when you drive and it gets late, not that it looks late, does it? It's eight o'clock, believe it or not. We're going to have an early night. We've got a lot of driving tomorrow, right? No, we're going to stay up all night and play Pétanque. Amazing how many more sunsets you see when you live outside. You don't see as many when you're indoors. So today we've got a lot of driving to do because France is huge and we still have to get up to Belgium, so we're just going to be driving all day today. We've gotten into the habit of every morning we're checking any updates and seeing whether there's any new information about the countries that we're going to with the whole Covid thing. You know that this spot right here is a hot spot? Yeah. Yeah, like where we are in this region of France is it's blowing up here at the moment. So we're quite lucky that there's nobody around here but we're going to be doing our best to stay away from any kind of hot spots. So yeah, driving day today. Let's get to it. Got to get some supplies, so I'm going to leave Alaska here. The fan on, shades up. You're going to be fine, you've got your conk, eh? See you in a minute. We've got new flies. Mint, cayenne peppers. Quick snack stop at the side of the road. Stunning here. After a drain shot and the car's just not starting. What would that be? Flipping starter motor's gone. Just randomly stopped on the side of the road. We haven't even, it hasn't even been exhibiting signs of failure. Either that or the solenoid in the starter motor's gone. A few little taps with my best friends and we are back on the road, no? I guess this is going to be home for the night. Night two on our trip to wherever we end up. If it's all right for you now? Absolutely exhausted, so I think we're just going to get some food and go to sleep and get up and do all that again tomorrow. Would you believe we drove all flipping day? We didn't even make it to Belgium but we did pass Paris and we are near the border of Belgium so I think we can call it night. It's nine o'clock so it's been a slow day. Morning. So this morning we're going to start off with some exercise because we had a really long day sitting in the car yesterday. Then we're going to have some breakfast, have a quick shower and Ben has got some work to do because we've got a video coming out today so he's going to be uploading that for today and while he's doing that I'm going to be researching where we're going to be going in Belgium and then we're going to head off to Belgium. What for? For beer. And? And waffles. Yes, that's the main reason we're going isn't it? Yeah. It is great sleeping in beautiful places like this pond and unfortunately in the morning people like to come fishing quite early so that is something to keep in mind. We've made that mistake a couple of times and thought this is amazing we found the best place to sleep tonight and then like five in the morning people are there like casting in getting all excited to catch fish so yeah especially on the weekend not a good option. Okay morning safety meeting. Yeah so we're trying to find out this morning where we're going to go in Belgium. There's new restrictions isn't there? Since we've left they've now brought in new restrictions. Yeah so I've just read now just found out that we need to fill out a form before we go there because they're doing check on the road to see whether you've filled in a form. What's the purpose of that? A passenger locator form. So they can contact trace us if we yeah okay. I think we're not going to stay too long in Belgium and just drive out and stop once just to get something to eat. Next stop after that Germany. Germany. That's tomorrow's challenge. It might change you know. Let's go to Belgium. That's the Belgium sign. That's it. It's funny because in America like that when you cross the state border there's a huge sign and and here we've just crossed to an entirely different country and the sign is literally smaller than the speed sign for the freeway. But anyway welcome to Belgium. This is the first region that we've actually come across where it's compulsory to wear masks outdoors in a public space. I mean everywhere else so far it's been just indoors but here it looks like we can't enter the centre of town without wearing masks so masks it is. We slept at this beautiful park last night in this residential area. It's a major town so there's not many places that you can wake up but this morning they're cutting the grass so quite an early and quite a loud wake up call. Not complaining at all obviously but that's just one of the things that you know you have to get used to that you can't always control the environment that you're in and where you wake up in the morning is not always the same setting that you go to sleep in the night before. So still it's beautiful and it was a great three nights camping so we're very grateful. Thank you very much. I wonder where we'll end up sleeping tonight. It's exciting not knowing where you wake up tomorrow. So in our catalogue of different places that we're staying we are staying here in this side of river camp spot. Another free camp spot on the other side of Belgium. We've crossed all of Belgium. Next stop for us is going to be Germany which I think we'll be heading to tomorrow but let's have a little look at what this free camp spot looks like. This is going to be a nice little spot. Stay here tonight. Not sure I'm going to be showering in that if I just stick to my hot shower in the Kombi. He's just getting some editing done because obviously it's not all just travel and fun for us. We do like to see new places but we also live in this van and we do work on the road so we've just done an interview with a rather rather prestigious news outlet. Who knows if that'll ever make the air. And now Leah's editing. I think I'm self-sufficient style of traveling that vanlife offers and now more than ever we are so grateful that we have our own kitchen with us so that we don't have to rely on going out to restaurants in places that are unsafe to do so. So in Belgium they speak multiple languages. They speak French, German in the region that we're in now because it's so close to the German border and Flemish which is spoken by about like over five million people I think and it's the basically the Belgian version of Dutch and I'm curious as to what language people speak to each other when they're in a region that's like on the border does everybody speak multiple languages or how do you know what to say to somebody in what language to speak? I guess a lot of people speak English too. I feel very fortunate for that because Flemish looks difficult. Time for a fill up. Driving through Europe is expensive. Definitely more expensive than the UK and definitely definitely more expensive than North America. However it's still much cheaper than it was before the pandemic I think. Paying 1 euro 20 a litre here which adds up quickly when you're having difficulty finding water in Belgium. We need to fill up our tank. It's a well-known fact for overlanders and vanlifers that cemeteries always have a tap with water because people water the flowers here so there's always open tap for people to come and use. We have no idea if this water is actually potable but that doesn't matter for us because we have a UV system which will basically kill any viruses and bacteria that we have in this water and it makes it a safer drink which is absolutely essential for van life. If you want a UV filter and you live in the van life then we will leave a link below to $100 off our system. Honestly it's such a good deal and it's such a peace of mind having that kit so I highly recommend it if you're on the move with yourself or your family. Oh look at all the overlanding apps we have. Maybe we should go through that one day. One that we're definitely going to be using right now though is Park4Night and we use it all the time because look at all the places we can park for the night. Lots of free places and paid places and if you get the premium membership of the app which is well worth it to support the work they do we can see where there are facilities like water or you know electricity or something like that so I can see here that this is the nearest parked in nature kind of spot. Something rural with nothing around which is exactly what we want. Somewhere nice and quiet near some hiking trails. There are toilets. It's dog friendly so we can go there. Let's get going. We made it to Germany. We brought Boomerang all the way back to his motherland all the way from America to where Boomerang was made in Germany. I think this is time for a celebration. Driving around the world has always been an ambitious dream but right now the goal of reaching Australia seems almost impossible to achieve. But chasing your dreams is a marathon not a sprint and it's important to enjoy the journey and celebrate the little milestones along the way. This is going to be our final camp spot for the week for this week. It should be an interesting place. Can't wait to go and see. It looks absolutely beautiful this region. It's the in the middle of this hike. So far we are absolutely loving Germany. Yeah as you can see this week has been we've been on the move quite a lot. We've been through various different countries and stayed at various different camp spots so we just wanted to take you guys along just so we can show you what a typical van life week can be like when you're on the move. Yeah we thought we were going to end up in the Netherlands and we've ended up in Germany which is just typical because we don't know where we're going to be every night and we don't know where we're going to be tomorrow. But wherever that is you can be sure we will be bringing you with us. Now if you don't mind we're going to go and get a little bit more naked. Guys if you're interested in exploring your own country van life is a great way to be self-sufficient and off-grid. Our experts guide to van life contains hundreds of pages of tips advice and inspiration from our decade on the road. From how to get started to how to make the most out of your own nomadic adventures. The 2020 edition is linked below. Check it out now and we'll see you guys next week.