ULTIMATE GUIDE TO VAN LIFE IN EUROPE.

 

Ask and you shall receive.  Here is wrap up post about our experience travelling Europe in a van for 5 months and answering your most commonly asked questions. If you missed my previous posts about why we chose to travel Europe this way you can read that here, or for all the information on how to buy a campervan read this.

 

THE VAN LIFE EXPERIENCE

I’m not going to lie, I was prepared for an adjustment period in living in such a small space. I assumed that it would take a while to get used to and that I would need to take regular breaks from van life by staying in hotels or airbnbs. In the lead up to our holiday, I’d definitely focused on all the amazing places we’d be going and less on the technicalities of van life. When we’d actually bought our van, there was mixed emotions. An overwhelming excitement that what we’d dreamt of for so long was actually, finally happening, but simultaneously a pang of anxiety and a few tears looking at the cupboard space (or seemingly lack there of)… A deep sigh of “where on earth are all my clothes going to go” was released many a times.

 

But as I’m writing this now we finished living on the road for just over 5 months and I honestly loved it. I adjusted more easily than I anticipated to having everything we needed at our fingertips and loved the simplicity of the lifestyle.

 During our travels stayed with some friends for a night or so in the UK and then had roughly 12 nights outside of the van. That’s not including when we had some friends come to visit during our travels – we did actually stay in the van with all 4 of us a surprising amount, but also stayed out of the van for 7 nights of the two weeks they were with us.

 

THE GOOD STUFF

Freedom. Spontaneity. Living with Less. Affordability. 

Our favourite part was definitely the complete flexibility. Of course this is a given in van life, but when you’re undertaking long term travel, with no real plans except a vague wish list of places you think you might like to visit, I truly appreciated the freedom of choosing how little or how long we spent in each place. Places I thought I would love and want to stay forever, we ended up moving on from after a day even and some other lesser known place would completely steal our hearts.

I could go on, but I feel like I covered a lot of the good stuff and advantages of travelling in a van in a previous post (here), so… lets talk about some of the more challenging parts.

 

THE CHALLENGES

Not every aspect of van life is amazing and carefree. As with anything in life, there are challenges. These are the main things we found more difficult (obviously this may be different for every person)

 

Alone Time
Alone time has been one of the big ones. Tom and I adore each other and are each others favourite people spend time with, but neither of our had truly grasped how much we still appreciate those few moments to be alone.

When travelling in this way, you’re essentially spending 24/7 barely a metre a part. So figuring out ways to have some alone time and zone out has been really important. If you watched my Instagram stories, I talked about using our kitchen table to create alone zones. I sit on one side with my headphones in and paint while Tom sits opposite me and reads or plays guitar.

It’s difficult to explain, but it’s not even that you’re sick of the other person, but you’re sick of yourself. For some reason it’s so much more difficult to zone out when you have someone else constantly with you.

 

Cities
Finding parking that is both safe and is close to the city centre often requires a fair of research. Often you need to stay outside the city and catch public transport in, which can be a bit more inconvenient than staying in a hotel in the city.. However is still obviously cheaper. We do feel like this extra effort impacted on our ability to fully experience and appreciate the city and its vibe, hence why we prioritised booking accommodation in select places i.e. Paris, Rome etc.

 

Hygiene
It’s definitely more difficult to stay feeling clean and fresh when living in a van, particularly during summer months. Whilst this is part of the fun and adventure of van life, it will certainly get to you at times, but there are easy ways to manage this, which I’ll talk about below.

 

Meeting People

Perhaps we were just unlucky with our timing, but I admit we were a little surprised not to meet more people our own age during our travels. Our experience was definitely more the “grey nomads” in their pimped up RV’s, which certainly have value in meeting and talking to (when they speak English). But we definitely missed community and aspects of meeting people that come so naturally when travelling in hostels or even hotels.

MANAGING MONEY ON THE ROAD

WEEKLY ALLOWANCE

Before we left, we estimated we could live off $100 AUD/day on average. With some places spending more, others less. This estimate includes all fuel, groceries, eating out, campsites plus any other accommodation. So initially we allocated a $700 AUD  allowance a week, which we soon upped to $1000 AUD/week whilst in the UK, as this was more expensive than anticipated.

From Portugal onwards, $700 AUD/week or less was more easily be achievable, though we chose to stick to our allocated $1000, with left over money being our “treat yo self ” money which we transferred to our separate transaction [splurge] account. We spent this money on things like tattoos, shows, going to the cinema (only rainy days in the UK), art supplies, Tom’s guitar etc.

Now personally, Tom and I did van life neither lavishly, nor on a strict budget.

We cooked most meals in our van, aside from the odd dinner out a week (once a week on average) and our morning espresso most days. We stayed at campsites fairly intermittently and paid for very few specific tourist attractions. 

That said, when we ate out, we treated ourselves to a vegan feast. We also chose to get little tattoos along the way and were more lavish in the cities that demanded it. And by this I mean Paris. In Paris, we stayed in a hotel, ate out every night, went to café’s every morning. We did not hold back. But this was our first time to Europe. So whilst we embraced the van life, we also wanted to indulge in some of the quintessential experiences these beautiful cities have to offer.  This is just how we personally chose to spend our money.

During some weeks of our holiday, we spent probably less than $500 AUD a week. So I hope that gives you a clue to how variable your weekly budget can be place to place.

BUDGETING VARIABLES

Although you could definitely do this trip on a tighter budget than we have chose, there are quite a number of variables that will affect how much money you spend each day/week. I talked a little about these in a previous post (here) but will mention them here as well.

– How often you eat out

– How much alcohol you drink, both in the van or out at bars

– How often you stay at campsites – In the UK when we started out on our trip and were getting a feel for everything we stayed at a campsite every 3 nights. However after that first month we only stayed at a campsite once a fortnight or less.

– How many paid tourist attractions you visit

– Driving on toll roads. They are freaking expensive and we avoided them for the most part, accepting an extra hour or so onto our journey to save the euros (except when the money spent on fuel outweighed the savings on toll).

– How far you drive per day/week – fuel is around twice the price as compared to Australia

– Public Transport/Ubers in/out of city centres

WHERE DO YOU SLEEP?

A lot of people were curious as to how you find places to sleep, as it’s not technically legal… And you’re right. It’s technically not legal, but it is a hell of a lot easier than it is in Australia. Plus there are a lot more systems and structures to support life on the road.

PARK 4 NIGHT APP

This was our bible. It is an app where heaps of people have added places to camp, and you simply search on the map based on where you are to find the best spot.

It includes wild camping, paid campsites and random street parking as well as some day-only spots.

It’s definitely a must-have when undertaking van-life.

Main tip: Always check the rating and read the comments. 

This will give you an indication of how safe it is (note some previously safe spots will be updated to say that robbers have clued into the influx of vans and several people have been robbed. I.e. avoid those places. Or it will let you know if police are likely to move people along.

AIRES

These spaces are specifically designed for RV’s. They are barebones campsites that only offer a safe place to park, and points to dispose of waste water. We didn’t really used these, as finding places for a van is easier than an RV because they’re smaller and more inconspicuous. But they are generally a safe option if you are worried about leaving the van, particularly in cities. We would often park here for one day/night to visit the city without the stress of having our van broken into or stolen.

CAMPSITES

These babies vary greatly in price i.e. as low as 12 euro and as high as 50. We tended to stay in the cheaper ones only. But they are a great way to ease up on some of the more difficult aspects of van life. You have a separate bathroom, can charge all your devices if you are on a powered site, do laundry and they often have wifi.

WILD CAMPING

Our favourite part of van life. Finding the hidden gems, away from tourist sites, on some beautiful stretch of coast of wildnerness. When you find a good spot, we often stayed more than one night just to soak up nature.

HYGIENE

Again A LOT of questions around showers and toilets. I think I got the most questions around this.

SHOWERS

Our greatest discovery was realising we could use our kitchen hose to shower. Given it was cold, but it was a lifesaver to help us feel fresh and clean and extended the time between staying at campsites. 

Other options for showering:

Beach showers 
Although you can’t use shampoo or soap here (for environmental reasons)

Gym or Pool
Simply pop into the local pool and use their shower if you’re desperate. We did this is France when all the campsites were too busy and too expensive.

Portable shower
If your kitchen tap doesn’t have a hose, you can buy portable showers from camping shops. You just fill these with water and hang up somewhere to shower.

Otherwise baby wipes are going to be your new best friend.

TOILETS

As I talked about in my previous van-life post, we are fortunate enough to have a toilet in our van which we use for number ones ONLY.

Other then when you stay at campsites, it is also generally very easy to find public bathrooms when you need them. I don’t want to get into specifics, but lets just say your body does adjust and you just go when you can go. Some public bathrooms you need to pay for, so its always wise to have some small coins handy. And get in the habit of carrying some toilet paper or tissues. A lot of places are weird like this, where even campsites won’t provide toilet paper for some reason.

WHAT ABOUT GETTING ROBBED?

Well thankfully during our 5 months on the road, we only had one break in. They took my wallet and my jewellery. Despite the go GoPro and other tech stuff being clearly visible.

I’m sure thieves vary in their thoroughness, but I would generally assume that being quick is of great importance to them. So for the really important things (passports etc)  – find the best hiding spots you can, that are of the greatest inconvenience to find.

TOP TIPS:

1. My main advice – HAVE GOOD TRAVEL INSURANCE.
Check the fine print of your insurance, and better yet, talk to the damn people. Make sure that is covers your UNATTENDED vehicle and possessions as some don’t. Our van was covered so long as it was locked.

2. Be prepared to lose everything.
Don’t bring stuff you care too much about losing. Although I would be annoyed if my laptop or camera was taken, these are very replaceable items.

3. Back everything up
I upgraded my iCloud subscription for the purpose of this holiday and everything got backed up on a semi-regular basis. I also had a hard-drive time machine that I backed up every 1-2 days and brought with me whenever we left the car. Because the things I did care about were my photos, and lasting memories of this holiday.

4. Steering Wheel Lock

The one thing that can happen, is that your entire van can be stolen. It’s not particularly common, to my knowledge, but it CAN happen.  So this is why you must take as much precaution as you can when parking in certain places – do you research. A steering wheel lock might be also useful, though we never got around to getting one.

NAGIVATION & DATA PLANS

Some people decide to go sim-less and hence data-less while doing van life. Choosing rather to jump on wifi when possible and use a sat-nav for navigation instead.

We did not.

It just wasn’t feasible with my job and we felt like we would be less “switched off” thinking about when and where we could next get on Wifi.

We also wanted to be able to look things up on the go, and hence were able to us Google Maps on our phone.

Tom organised to get a phone sim through 3 UK, which enabled us to have 12GB data overseas a month. We bought our sims before we left and brought them with us overseas. We were then able to buy a bunch of vouchers in the UK to add to our account whenever we needed to recharge.

DRIVING NEED TO KNOWS

TOLLS

Tolls are super expensive in Europe and we avoided them for the most part. Except when the calculation of what we would spend on fuel driving an extra distance balances the cost out.

LOW EMISSION ZONES

One of the biggest issues with having an older van, is that there are a number of low emission zones that apply to older vehicles. These prevent you from accessing a number of cities.

The zoning information varies from country to country, but the signs can be pretty inconspicuous and if missed, will result in hefty fines.

We will forever be grateful to our mechanics in the UK that reminded us of them before we drove into London for a week. Our rough calculations meant that a week spent inside the zone, and the time it would take for us to be notified (given it would go to our van lady in Amsterdam before coming to us) would total around $6000 AUD.

So whatever you do….  DON’T DRIVE INTO THE LOW EMISSION ZONES (LEZ).

Do your research. There are different classifications for different vehicles based on their age, fuel efficiency and emissions rating etc. But it is likely that if you have an older diesel van, you won’t be able to drive into any major cities.

VAN LIFE ESSENTIALS

• 12 v cigarette chargers – we have these for our phones and I bought a USB-C charger for my laptop.
• Powerboard (if you have power plug inside your van) – Australian with EU adaptor
• Cord to plug in campsites (to charge van, if you have this option)
• Baby wipes
• Cooking Fuel – always, ALWAYS have a good supply
• Multi-tool – so handy for quirky little things that might need fixing around the van
• Rubber bands and Wax wraps (for food storage)
• Packing cells for clothes storage – we bought these to pack our bags and have kept using them throughout our van life journey. They are the easiest way to keep everything organised and easy to find

This is by no means the most comprehensive van life “how to”, but there is plenty around online and I wanted to keep it more relevant to the main things we’ve learnt during our travels.

Anyways, that’s all from me folks. Hope you’ve found my van life chronicles helpful. Stayed tuned for the rest of my travel guides of the cities we went.