VAN LIFE: Shipping Our Van From USA to Europe // S02E01

Previously on Combi Life, myself, Ben, Leah and Alaska decided that we're going to drive around the world in a classic V-Dove bus, also known as a Combi. The mission started in Arizona, USA where we resurrected a dusty desert bus named Boomerang. We spent several months on the west coast of the USA prepping this 45 year old classic for an adventure of epic proportions, teaming up with experts to advise us on how to best prepare for this unusual expedition. With some awesome overlanding modifications and a solid new engine for the mammoth journey ahead, we found ourselves out of time on our US visas and we were unable to complete the build of Boomerang. So with a great bus but not a great home, we set out to cross the continental USA coast to coast from California through the southern states and all the way to New York City where we shipped Boomerang and Little Alaska across the Atlantic Ocean to Europe. So the challenge for us now in this season of Combi Life is to transform our expedition bus from a shell of a van into a comfortable off-grid studio home and continue the long drive to Australia. Arriving in Europe, France was our entry port because one, it's closer to Jersey than England and two, it's just easier to bring a dog into Jersey via France. The Brits are a little bit difficult in this regard. This is the start of a whole new adventure for Alaska. Maybe we should call her Australia. Getting back to Jersey is always a mission and a half. You can add another eight hours of travel just to get to the island. This time it was a case of planes, trains and automobiles. So apparently in France you need to secure your dog in the vehicle with a seat belt. So this is the first time Alaska has ever worn a seat belt. Kind of cool. Alaska, is that good? Yeah let me see if I can, maybe, here you go. That looks super comfortable doesn't it? And there was one more visit to the vet to allow Alaska to set paws on British soil. This was the first time that our Peruvian pup had been outside of the Americas and it was the first time that I got to bring her home since we met in 2012. As a full-time nomad I don't get to come home too often these days but it's always special to come home to Jersey and this time we'll be making the island our expedition base camp whilst we build our off-grid studio. So out the back of my house is this amazing little forest. It's really small, it's Jersey so everything is small and these beautiful sand dunes and ever since I met Alaska I have been so excited for the day when I get to bring her here in my own backyard and today is that day. Let's go exploring Alaska. This is one of my favorite places in Jersey it's called Creepy Valley and it feels like we're in the middle of a forest on this tiny island and having Alaska here is really nice because there's nothing that can eat her here like cougars or bears because Jersey just has nothing not even like a poisonous snake. Not dangerous at all so it's nice to just let her off leash and just be free be the dog she is meant to be. Here is my favorite spot on the whole of the Jersey island. This is like our special little thinking space. It was great for us to have some downtime away from our Kombi boomerang. He was still currently making the journey across the Atlantic from America to the UK. Meanwhile I was making the transition from van life to house life. Every time I come home I have a purge of throwing things out that I don't think I need anymore and after a few years of living in a van I've kind of realized that I actually prefer the kind of minimalist approach to life and only having the things that I really need. So I think it's kind of healthy to go through stuff and just kind of rid that excess baggage from your life. Like do I really need an mp3 alarm clock? Every phone does that now. Old iPod? Definitely not. Technology is one of the biggest culprits. It changes so frequently you just have to get rid of it. I'm going to be downsizing this room, emptying half of my clothes and just getting rid of all of the fluff from my life. It feels good. It had already been the promise two weeks and there was still no news of boomerang so we got down to planning. The aim was to turn this Kombi into an off-grid studio and we were looking for a big step up in comfort from our previous Kombi Kopito. You don't need it that wide to have the like that the tabletop. You don't need it that wide. As Jersey is an island it's got very limited supplies and it's expensive. To be honest it's not the best place to do the build but it's somewhere that I don't have any visa restrictions and I won't be kicked out. So our plan is to pick up as many supplies as possible from the mainland when we collect boomerang from the UK. Unfortunately that took a lot longer than expected. There was trouble at the landing port in Felixstowe, England. Apparently there was a system update and it was causing all kinds of trouble resulting in huge delays at the port. In fact boomerang ship was delayed so much that it was unable to dock at all and it skipped the port entirely. Suddenly boomerang was lost at sea. I kid you not. Weeks went by without any news. As we tracked the boat passing Felixstowe and heading onwards towards Antwerp and Germany nobody knew exactly where boomerang went on his little solo adventure. But eventually six weeks after saying goodbye in the USA we got confirmation that boomerang had landed. We are in Needham market in the beautiful Suffolk countryside. So nice to see a little bit of England and we are here to pick up our paperwork for our bus. This is the last major hurdle before we see boomerang again. Let's get it done. That's your money. Ah thank you very much. So we just got the paperwork sorted, our temporary import and the release forms. It cost £430 to get our bus back on this side and it was about 1100 US dollars on the US side for the port fees and all that. It was an absolute nightmare getting our bus here. It took over a month to get from the US to the UK. It got lost out at sea. We had no idea where it was for about two weeks but it's finally arrived in England and we're going to pick it up now. To pick up our bus in a modern vehicle. Hello. Hi there we're just here to pick up the Volkswagen Condi. Okay can I go to the next door down on the right? Sure thanks. Nice to know it We weren't actually sure what to expect with this shipping process. There was very little communication and my only previous experience of shipping a vehicle was across the Darien Gap between South and Central America. On that occasion some items that were not nailed down were not present when the vehicle was collected. On this occasion even despite leaving the Condi unlocked with all of our possessions in it and the windows down parked in an unsecured compound there were thankfully no unpleasant surprises or items missing from Boomerang. This was a major milestone and it was time for a happy dance. It's so good to finally have Boomerang back in one piece. We were a bit scared that it wasn't going to go smoothly but it went so smoothly. I know it was expensive but this was a major hurdle for us getting over. Now next job is to build the interior for the bus which we are very looking forward to because it's very uncomfortable in there at the moment. So we're going to be doing a bit of shopping in the UK to pick up some supplies. Let's get on with that. Phone paradise. I think we found the right place. Our bed is in here somewhere. Let's go find it. We're going with bamboo for our headliner basically in the car because it's one of the lightest materials and it's super super strong and it's got a little bit of varnish on it so it should resist the mold pretty well. Quite happy with this. A little pricey but it's a good product. This is our first morning back in Capito. Capito? It's Boomerang you fool. Capito was our old bus. It was so like 2000 and before. Oh my gosh. Both of us keep doing that. This is our first morning back in Boomerang since we picked him up from the port. It's been really really nice to be back inside of our bus. I'm kind of lying in the back of there thinking what the heck are we doing. Yeah it's full of junk at the moment. But it will be nice to be in here. Yeah it's nice to be driving in Boomerang. Part of me had to broke down yesterday but that was a steering problem. Steering problem which needs to be fixed because it's very very dangerous. But yes we woke up in a really nice field. It's really nice here in England at the moment. It's really sunny and nice but it is really hard. Don't get used to it. This isn't difficult. It's really hard to find free camp spots for one. The petrol is a lot more expensive in the US. Oh my days. It cost us £60 to fill up the tank. It cost us $30 the last time we filled it up. So what £60 is probably like $75 or something. So up from $30 to $75 to fill it up. But the food's cheaper right? The food's cheaper yeah. We'll be saving on the food not saving on the petrol. Unfortunately I'm not able to send things to Jersey so I've been sending them to my friend Dan's house here. He's been collecting a bunch of parcels for us and now we have to somehow fit them into the bus. I don't know how that's going to fit in. Is that heavy? So how are we going to sleep in here? There is no space for us to sleep. No space for one person to sleep alone too. Not even with a hammock we're not going to fit in here. Oh hang on. Hang on. I've got this in my sleep. This is it. This is going to be combi life. Welcome to the combi Leah. Somehow we have to turn this into a livable space. It's just like how are we going to compact all of this stuff? It just doesn't seem possible. It's like physics. We're defying physics to get this into a livable combi. It'll happen. With a combi fuller than it's ever been and much of the supplies needed for the build on board we headed for the town of Poole to catch a four and a half hour ferry back to Jersey where Alaska was waiting for us to return. The delay in shipping had cost us big time. There was a lot of work to do and now in less time than we had hoped and if a classic feed up has taught us anything it's that they always need more time than you expect. But that is one luxury that we do not have on this occasion. Leah only has three short weeks before she leaves combi life and goes home to Australia. But that is a story for next time. Thanks for sharing the adventure with us and double thanks with a cherry on top for the tiny percentage of viewers in the combi crew on Patreon who are supporting this series. Did you know that during the filming of season two alone we've shared many hours of extra behind the scenes footage with the combi crew including real-time updates from the series and live hangouts in the combi. Just recently we've launched the combi crew interactive adventure map where we invite you guys to help us plan where to go, what to film and who to meet up with in this series. If you want to stick a pin on our interactive map, support the series and be part of the project we'd love to welcome you into the combi crew. Go to patreon.com slash combi life or hit the join button below this video. Thanks again for watching and we'll see you in the next one.