LOW BUDGET CAMPER TRUCK LIVING IN FRANCE

LOW BUDGET CAMPER TRUCK LIVING IN FRANCE

Ta-da! We are already in France. Beautiful le petite France. Also, the roads went “petite”.
Tiny little narrow French roads. Luckily,
I had some time to actually learn the size of our truck camper.
It’s a whole new thing for us. Our van was 20cm, more narrow More narrow. So it was easier to drive in small roads. So I have to just…
learn how to drive that. Yeah. Exciting times. A bit scary at times, too. But we are in
one of our favorite countries in Europe. A fun little fact. We have paid, filling up the water… In the past decade – only three times. So we always find “gratuit” place. Europe is full of totally potable
free water to drink and use. We prefer water springs in the mountain areas. We always try to find springs
in the mountain areas, but now the Alps are like 200 kms that way and the Pyrenees are 1000 kms that way. So we are in the middle. So we have to cope with… normal water. Beautiful country. But this time France is going to be
left behind. Yeah, a drive tru country because
we are going to south. Pushing south. Sara panicked a little
when we were in a hail storm. Hailstorm and rainstorm. So we are going more south. Indeed, a driving day. It’s already dark. And Sara doesn’t like the darkness. No, driving in the darkness
because our lights are not really that good. And my eyesight
is not that good, so it is scary. Luckily, one of us has a good eyesight,
so we are not in a danger. Yeah, not. But exciting part about these long driving days, is, You’ll go to sleep, and next morning is like an adventure. When you wake up.
You don’t know what’s going on around you. Yeah, there is some wild animal park around us, here, somewhere.
But we don’t know where. We just came to the parking lot
in the middle of the forest. And because it’s so late and we smell, I think? We’ll take a shower
and go to bed. Yes, that is the plan. So dark. Home sweet motorhome. It’s so weird to come from
that truck part to the camper pod. But I think, in recent years, we’ll learn. But it’s so weird. It’s nice to have an indoor shower, but we love also outdoor shower.
Because when the place is right, it’s so more convenient
to go out door shower. So we got the bidet faucet,
and then the switch for the pump, Getting a hot water. Then getting the shower. Awesome sauce! And good morning. And this is the place where we woke up. It’s a parking lot of the park. You can actually hear the motorway,
like one kilometer away. But this is perfect. Just getting out of the big road and spending a lovely
and quiet night here. There is the barbecue places. But every sign here tells you not to put fires, anywhere. Yeah. Good place to spend a night. Now we are going for a morning
walk to see some animals, and then head back to the road and south. There is wild boars stomping away. Usually you cannot see these wild animals
because the cages are so large. They have a lot of
places to go hide in. Pretty impressive sized, they are so big and huge. This is a third wild animal park in France
that we have visited. And they have been always nice. The enclosures are huge. The minus side
that you cannot actually see the animals – just in the billboards. They are somewhere there. But it’s good to see that
they have enough area that they can roam. And also those
piggy piggies – they can eat oak nuts. I think they are called. They are dropping from the trees.
Pigs are having really good meals. Good morning. Good morning start. And now again,
it’s a driving day. Unfortunately. We are a fast paceing
in the whole France. We need to go to south, but these are always nice pauses
from the driving. – Yes. And this was like five minutes
from the main road. Yeah. Incredible. Free.99. And also, we don’t have to spend a night on the
motorway stop. Or in some city. You can come to nature. But I have to say,
France has delightful amount of Aires. So motorhome parking spots and usually
they are totally free. There is toilets, free water, Pretty much everything. Usually small towns, they are free. In bigger towns,
they cost someting. Not much. This is a really convenient country
to travel with a van, or motorhome or anything on wheels. And you have rivers, mountains, fields, two seas… what else? Lots of things. Yeah. Now when we are popping in France there is some “must” things to do. It is going to the grogery store.
– And buy cheese. We were housesitting in France for
several months. And whenever we went to the grocery store,
we always bought some cheese. They are so good. And also, a baguette. I don’t know. It tastes
so much better. Our friend said that the French
bread is so much better than the Spanish one. – No, it can be! It’s just the wheat and water
and the salt. That’s it. But they are special. They sure are. And of course, Patesserie croisants. With a coffees. This is so dangerous.
We are going to be so fat. But we love France. We stopped at Intermarché because
Intermarché usually has the cheapest fuel. But this Intermarché
doesn’t even have a fuel station. So that’s why we stopped here to brew
some coffees and have a break from driving. So good. Take a look at this spot! We did find this from Park For Night app. So this is a big greenery area
next to the river Loire. The stream is kind of powerful. The water looks so brown,
so we are not going to swim there. Yeah, this is some kind of picnic area. Very vast. Lot of room for everybody to be here. You know, we have not really developed any routines with this pickup camper. Everything we own is inside of these
cupboards and they don’t have a place yet. Whole summer We renovated the camper
and when the camper was built, we immediately hit the road. So we did not have any learning time. And when you live on the road, you make these micro decissions every day. Where to get water,
where to park your camper for the night. Every day,
and it can be kind of exhausting. One of our routines
is, we try to make a one good meal each day. Even everything
takes a lot of time inside of the camper. But it’s so worth it. So now we are cooking
in a beautiful setting. Joni your food is ready. Yay, my food is ready. So good, thank you. Okay school day is over, and what has Sara prepared for us here? Finally, now I have Joni with me! Yeah. So our camping place has wine and cheese? Of course, because we are in France. And baguette. So good tasting. Yeah, this is good start for the evening.
For sure. Let’s enjoy before it starts raining. Yeah, but beautiful place, Loire is quite murky, I would say… brown. Brown, but it’s iconic river. So it is all that matters. And good wine from Germany. Cheap wine! We love Europe for cheap wine. For sure. Peage. But not “peage” for us. We drove, like, 20km on that motorway
because it was the free section. So now when the “peage” motorway
starts, we’ll go off the motorway. Yeah, it takes half an hour or an hour more More of driving
time to get to our destination. But we are saving €75.
75 euros is a lot. And when you choose these free routes, there is a thousands
and thousands of roundabouts in France. And small, very beautiful villages. Just like this. And now we are back at the motor way,
in a free part. We have a 115km of free motorway
on front of us. So it was 25km to 30km through those little roads,
through little towns. But it was worth it.
We saved a lot of money. And now we can drive motorway just
with the speed of the trucks. So 90km/h is our average
speed on the motorway. I have to say these seats are really uncomfortable to sit for several hours, because
here is no support in our lower back. So we really miss our Ducato.
We need a lot of breaks from driving. We need to walk. Because of these seats. Maybe we buy some kind of small pillows. Yeah, to support our lower backs. It’s uncomfortable!
But we are not in a rush. We can take as many
pauses as we want to. Or need. This is what road tripping is all about. Butts of the lorries! Escaping butt… A small traffic jam. It should be over in a 15 minute time. And driving this vehicle is a little more stressful than driving our Ducato. Especially long distance driving.
Because there is no cruise control at all. And it would cost like €500
to install the cruise control. So I’m just using my leg. Yeah, poor leg. But soon we hit our overnighting spot, Hopefully.
it takes about one hour to drive. And it’s supposed to be 4×4 route. Usually in P4N 4×4 routes, they are just gravel roads. Yeah, but let’s see,
there were no comments, so it might mean it’s so isolated. Or it’s so ugly that people
don’t want to go there Or whatever.
It can mean anything. But we’ll go there to see the off road route. Now that we have a 4×4 vehicle, We have to go there. Yeah, of course. As I told you, 4×4 routes for the Middle Europeans, In reality, they are
just normal gravel roads. But we are getting in to the lake. Maybe. And then we have a really nice evening
in the nature again. Just 5 minutes or 10 minute
drive from the main highway. So worth it. I guess we were too cocky, because the route is getting more
sandier and more softer. But let’s see if we get there. It’s not a bumpy ride at all,
but soft sand, extremely soft sand. And we don’t use4x4 until
we get stuck or about to get stuck. Look at the blue lake. We don’t know
if this is an old quarry or something. Or is it safe to go swim? Here is “a baignade interdit” sign. But there has been local kids,
I think, jumping from the cliff. So we’re going to go in a swim
before the night falls. Yeah. Beautiful place and these weird sand formations,
they look so non European to me. We feel like
we are in the moon or something. Yeah. Not really fan of sitting water, but when it looks blue, it’s inviting. Does that make any sense? And some locals has really jumped there
to the lake. So… At least once. – Yes.

About Vantastic: We are a happy couple who got rid of everything to travel the world. We make vlogs sharing our daily lives in a camper truck, our ups and downs, and our adventures around Europe.

What camera equipment do you use?
We use GoPro10, Røde VideoMicro with a dead kitten, Ulanzi tripod mt-16, Ulanzi cage G9, Ulanzi vl49 light, DJ Mavic Pro drone and Adobe Premiere Pro to edit the vlogs. Our electrical power set-up in our camper van allows charging our camera and laptops to film and edit.

What is your home on wheels?
Our pick-up camper is Nissan Navarra 2005 with Bimobil Husky 240 pod.

How do you afford your nomadic lifestyle?
We live on a true shoestring budget. We travel economically, we cook all our meals, we dont visit tourist traps, we enjoy being in the nature and hiking in the nature. We worked traditional office jobs for years and now we live on our savings and investments. We dont believe you need tons of money to to pursue your passion. However, we have learned that you do need to sacrifice comfort, consistency and safety, but that it is possible, very worth it, and the only lifestyle that makes us truly happy!

What happens after van life?
Call us naive, but our goal is to travel forever.

You can also find us from:
https://www.instagram.com/vantasticvaan/

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