Off Grid Van Life In The Scottish Highlands Tour

Good morning, we are in the Scottish Highlands. Jake and I have been traveling up here for a month and a half, and we have been up to so much stuff, an abundance of things, from mountain biking, hill walking, a bit of fishing, a multi-day hiking trip in the Cairngorms, and lots of wild swimming. So we have been doing so much stuff, and it has been so fun. We've had a mixed bag of weather. It's been so lovely at the start of May, and it's deteriorated as we've gone on, and it's been pretty cold. Like it's been freezing temperatures at night, and raining quite a lot. As you can see, it's pretty miserable today. Quite windy, pretty heavy rain going on, so yeah, but it's been lovely nevertheless. So I thought I'd create a completely different video, and show you a little bit of an insight into my typical life. So the life in between all these lovely and amazing adventures that I'm lucky enough to go on. So me and Jake have been living in his van for roughly four years now. So it's pretty crazy it's been that long. We have been to so many beautiful places. We've done a multitude of stuff, and it's been a really awesome lifestyle living in a van. I was really inspired to live in a van beforehand. Just the simple lifestyle of it, but the opportunities to travel and have a freer lifestyle. Obviously, financially and in terms of ties, and just being able to be on the move, travel, see different places, and that ties in so well with our jobs as well, being full-time content creators. Yeah, I thought I'd give you a little bit of an insight into the van that Jake has handcrafted and converted all by himself, which is pretty epic. And as you can see from my videos, he's helped me convert Percy and inspired me to actually buy Percy and go down the overlanding journey that I have been doing on and off for I guess two to three years now. Although this life is wonderful, it does come with its highs and lows, and it can be extremely messy and pretty difficult, especially two people in a tiny space and constantly thinking about your water, your power, resupplying on food. It can be pretty hard to maintain and keep up with all the constant chores that you don't often get when you're living at a house and you're on the grid. Right, so I've just been for a little bit of a walk around, get outside whilst the weather just had a quick lull. I've learned the hard way to get out every morning. I think it's a must. It's a necessity to get out some point in the morning when you are living van life because you just end up getting cabin fever because you're in such a tiny environment and obviously a place where you're sleeping, eating, cooking, doing everything in. So it's nice to get out and escape it for a little while. But yeah, while I'm in here, I thought I'd give you a little show around. I don't think I've ever showed the van on my videos, maybe at some point, but very briefly. So I think I'll show you a little look around at the self build that Jake has designed and made. I think it took about a year, but he's done a beautiful job and it's a lovely place that we've got to spend the last three and a half, four years. It definitely could have done with a shower in hindsight. I think that would have made it a lot more livable and practical and it would have just saved the faff of having to find campsites and stuff like that and maybe just be a little bit more hygienic. But anyway, let's give you a little tour around. So starting off, Bo is a Peugeot boxer, extra long wheelbase and she carries all of our gear that we need all year round for all of our trips, adventures, et cetera. We luckily get to store some of our gear with family and friends when we're bouncing around the country, just because with the amount of hobbies we have, it is hard to store absolutely everything. So overhead storage is a must and in here, we store all our pots and pans, crockery and then towards the back, we've got clothing and all our camping gear and obviously living in a van, you need to be minimal. That's the key priority to be super minimal with everything and not have too many luxury items. I don't know how messy it's gonna be here, but in terms of storing stuff, clothing we usually store in packing cubes, just so everything's more compact and can be squeezed into a tiny space. Obviously like that's not super limited. These are all of my clothes in there and a few more in here and then larger like down jackets we store in pillowcases, just so it's a lot easier. So sleeping bags, camping quilts and down jackets, like large down jackets are kept in pillows, just storage again. As well, we are mostly off-grid in this van, which comes with its pros and its cons, especially financially. We obviously save a lot of money and we also have the freedom to stay out places for longer because we are off-grid in a sense. So that means we are harvesting our own power from the sun and also the alternator when driving. So I think there's 600 watts of solar on the roof and that pretty much lasts us all year round. We can stay stationary in one place up to one week if we are using a lot of power. So we both work remotely doing social media. So it does require a lot of hours editing and using technology like cameras, laptops and that sort of thing, as well as having 400 amp hours of lithium batteries. So this all comes in great for running the lighting, for running the diesel heater. And we have recently just bought Starlink, which I was a little bit hesitant on, but it has come in really handy with working remotely. Obviously we've been up in Scotland for a month and a half. A lot of the places we've been staying at, you potentially wouldn't get any signal. So that would mean that we'd have to keep going back to a town just to upload a post or a video or write an email or something like that. So you do realize how reliant you are on signal when you are a content creator and working online. So yeah, that's pretty much the power side. In terms of water, like I said earlier, we mainly rely on campsites. So this enables us to fill up our water. So we have 20 to 25 litre jerry cans that we use in the sink and also for drinking and then for showering, washing our clothes and that sort of thing. So it's a really nice reset and it also supports the local economy. Failing that and if it's the winter and a lot of the facilities are closed, we would filter from the rivers or we would find a place where there's a tap that allows you to fill up or we would be showering outside, which is pretty miserable, but it does the job. We have a port-a-shower system where we fill it half with hot water, half with cold and that does the job. It allows you to get clean. It could be a lot worse. Moving on to this beautiful area. It is so nice when I'm doing Zoom calls or work calls, having this lovely backdrop and also just like an inspiration area, I guess. I've got my hatchet and this lovely map we found and we've pinned all the places we've been and want to go. Also got this really cool bookshelf that Jake's made and we filled it with some really cool books and some of them are for the next chapter that we're thinking of doing that we'll hopefully be mentioning in the next few months. So that's going to be really exciting. Then we've got a Thetford oven. We've got loads of drawers, a fridge, freezer with all our food that we usually pack up. Pretty full, so it allows us to spend more time just away from places in remote places. Cutlery, got a wash drawer, a sink here. I need to do the washing up. I'm currently hiding it, very sorry. And then a lovely chilled area, editing area with a pullout table here. So it means we can work and eat there. So it's a lovely station. And then obviously the bed and underneath the bed is the garage with all our gear. So, so much gear from backpacks to bikes to camping gear. So yeah, that was a very brief tour of the van. If you want to see a detailed tour, then Jake has done one. Basically explain what it takes to get a van, build it, convert it yourself and design it how you want and more details about the electrics and the water system and everything like that. So to make this lifestyle possible, we have been using Sterling Insurance. Sterling are known for insuring the most unusual vehicles from banger rally cars all the way through to self-build van conversions like both. Sterling also offers van life insurance, which I think is great because it works around not having a permanent address, not having your van parked at a fixed location. And it also offers European cover, which is great if you want to explore over there for up to 90 days. You can also add an extra of breakdown and personal possession cover, which I think is essential when your whole life is literally in your van. So if you're interested in getting a quote with Sterling Insurance, no matter how unusual and wacky your vehicle is, then head over to the link in my description. The weather is now cleared, so I'm going to go on a little bit of a hike. So I've just had the most beautiful walk, come out here and just trying to witness some of the spring because we haven't got the spring weather, but definitely seeing all the new shrubs and plants and wild edibles coming through, which is really, really cool. Which is pretty crazy because we are nearing the end of May and heading into June. I also got to see a load of does, a load of red deer that were strolling around here. And that was really magical. I was trying to see how close I could get to them and try not to scare them either. So that was really, really special. Always wonderful when you see wildlife in their natural habitat. But yeah, it was nice to get out and have a bit of a wander. I'm going to head back to the van. Jake and I are going to take a little drive and we're going to head somewhere really special that we've stayed at before. It's like a mountain hut, Bothy, that we've stayed at previously and had some really special memories there. So I'm going to head back. We're going to take a drive over there and yeah, spend the evening there and the next few days. The idea behind staying at the Bothy is we wanted a little place just to dry out a lot of our kit, re-sort through everything. And also I'm going to start preparing and packing for a bike trip that I've got coming up next week. So it's nice to have somewhere that's out the rain that I can lay all my gear out and get a little bit more organised. So it'll be nice to get some admin and a bit of a sort out done there and just to enjoy it because it's in a beautiful setting. Good morning. I am just on a walk with my morning coffee, doing a little bit of grounding and enjoying what seems like almost summer now. The weather has improved dramatically and it's pretty warm. Like I feel warm just coming out in this. So it's a nice surprise. We are now in a completely different spot. We spent a few days at the hut, which was really lovely. Got to chill out, got to slow down a little bit and have some really nice wholesome evenings in front of the wood burner. And also just get to sort out a lot of stuff that we need to sort, such as some work bits, sorting out the garage and packing for this bike packing trip that I've got coming up. And I'll be leaving for that tomorrow. So that's really exciting. It's a multi-day loop in the Highlands and it's going to be epic. It looks beautiful. The forecast is looking good. I'm looking forward to having a slower pace adventure, I think, just going, having some wild swims, setting up earlier than usual and just enjoying the experience rather than it being rushy. I had originally signed up to do the Highland Trail 550, which is a 550 mile ultra that's in the Scottish Highlands. And it's an epic route. It's really hardcore. Like there's extreme river crossings, hike a bike, that sort of thing. And I decided against it. And after some long thought, I decided that that really isn't for me at this point. So I feel like I'm craving just a slower paced adventure, being by myself and just having that time to reflect and just enjoy the landscape I'm traveling through. I'm really excited just to take my time and it be more of a connection to nature and the landscape I'm traveling through rather than a rush, which you can often experience during fast paced ultra type trips. And also just training. I haven't had enough training put in. I haven't done enough dirt time on the bike over winter because I've had priorities elsewhere. So it is what it is. But I'm really looking forward to this trip I'm doing and will potentially do the Highland Trail some point in the future. But as far as trips go, I'm really looking forward to what I've got coming up this summer. I've got some really exciting projects and adventures planned. And I cannot wait to start announcing them in the next few weeks coming up. There's something me and Jake that we're doing. It's the next chapter that's going to be absolutely epic. And I'm really excited to share that really soon. Going to be some big changes, big life changes. And I feel like that's what we both kind of need. We've been living this lifestyle for a long time now. So it's going to be something quite new, quite refreshing, quite different. And that's going to be amazing. And then in terms of adventures, I have got a huge, probably my biggest one yet. Well, it is the biggest one yet. Bikepacking trip, which is going to be unreal. It's going to be really, really amazing. It's a long trip, longest I've ever done solo. And I'm really looking forward to that also, which I'll be sharing in the upcoming weeks. There's so much going on. I feel beyond lucky and grateful for this life that I get to live. And I've just try and get out and appreciate how amazing this life is every day because it could be so, so much worse. And I'm really thankful. But yeah, it's been really nice filming this video. It's been a lot of a slower, more wholesome video and giving you a little bit of an insight into what my life looks like behind adventures, I guess. It's obviously just a very normal life of trying to get outside, trying to get on with things, trying to balance work, fitness, family, adventure, trying to balance all these things in life, which can often be so hard. And I must admit, I struggle so much balancing everything. And I feel like you neglect one thing if you're trying to focus on another. And I really like this example from Chris Burkard. He explained, I think it was in a podcast or something, that you've got four hobs in your life and you can only really have three. And if you want to be successful and good at something, you can only really have two on. And when you have all four hobs on full gas, it's just, you're gonna have a meltdown, your things are not gonna work, you're going to get burnout, or you're just not gonna be, you're gonna be lacking in areas where you could be making up in it. And that just, things get neglected. So it is a constant battle of trying to balance everything in your life. But we're getting there, slowly but surely. Can be so difficult, traveling full time and trying to balance everything, that's for sure. But yeah, it is an incredible day. I am going to start packing for my bike trip today. There'll be a load out on that soon. And yeah, I just wanted to say I'm really thankful for everybody's support. I'm really thankful and grateful for all the Patreons I have and people coming back to all my videos and liking, commenting, and being very supportive. I really appreciate that. I'm also super grateful for everybody who's bought me a coffee on Buy Me A Coffee and also people using my affiliate links. This lifestyle is amazing and it's only possible with the support of people online. So I'm really, really grateful. But yeah, I really hope you enjoyed this video. Thank you so much for watching. Thank you for all the support and the love. Thank you to all my Patreons for making this possible. And I will see you in my next video. Take care.