The Best Free Camping Spot We’ve Ever Found 🌿 Ep. 7

The Best Free Camping Spot We’ve Ever Found 🌿 Ep. 7

[Music] every once in a while when you’re living in a van you come across a camping spot that is so so good you literally can’t leave and this is definitely one of those just a 10-minute walkway is this beautiful little Lake that we’ve been coming to every morning we’ve already been here for a few days and we probably won’t leave for a few more because it’s just so idyllic [Music] here usually the camping spots that we linger at for a few days have a bunch of conveniences and that’s kind of what makes the spot good you know there’s a toilet that’s not too far away or maybe there’s a mountain water tap or some bins and this camping spot actually doesn’t have any of those things it’s just the sheer beauty of being able to access a sort of what feels like a private pool in this Lake and the mountain views from the van as well they’re just so gorgeous and it kind of feels like we’re allowed to just linger here and nobody’s going to be bothered by us being around we are pretty obsessed with wild flowers like whenever it’s spring or summer we’re always just is trying to make the most of every little Bloom that’s out there especially here in the mountains so we were looking up like nice little nature spots that we can go and visit that are nearby and we realized there’s actually a botanical gardens only 10 minutes away it sounds like an absolute dream for us it’s basically one area filled with all of the lovely Alpine flowers from from around here and everywhere else in the world so it sounds pretty perfect it’s only 8 and we really like to contribute to the local areas that we’re traveling in especially because we benefit from all this lovely wild camping that we have for free we cooked up a nice big lunch today because we knew that we’d be out all day just staring at the flowers and in case you’re wondering whereabouts we are it’s a part of the French Alps called Acron National Park and the garden that we’re visiting today is called chardin deette me and my subconscious just go out into the garden just in time for sunset as the sky begins to darken overgrown and Tangled Up the Bramble needs some pring oh the weeds have sprouted out in the grass is barely breathing [Music] we’ve never actually been to a Botanical Garden before I think it’s probably because of our assumptions from the gardens back in England where the bushes are all kind of shaped into these peculiar squares and things and so we just thought that Gardens were kind of a manicured version of nature but this one is so wild feeling like it really just feels like an exhibition honoring the flowers that naturally grow at this altitude rather than something quite [Music] man-made one of the main reasons that we wanted to come visit the botanical gardens was just gather like as much inspiration as we could we’re both artists and the main way that we earn our money is actually by selling tapestries that I design based on the nature that we visit on our travels one of our absolute favorite places in the world is the Alps so we really wanted to do a tapestry design completely inspired by the wild flowers that grow on The Meadows that cover the hills here and it just felt like there was no better place to come than this Garden to see as many flower specimens as we could but also like species of bees and butterflies that pollinate the flowers [Music] what do I know about nature and needs blindly assum and drunk of naivity we take what she has and Ang her out to bleed the least we can do is show us some sympathy me me and my subconsciousness step out into the garden Bey treading tentatively eyes begin to sharpen crouching down a running Lea brushes past my ankles birds begin to sing to me as my thoughts begin to Wrangle [Music] just wandering around here for a few hours as made us both feel so so calm and it was really surreal to see the huge number of butterflies and other pollinators condensed in such a small space we’ve never seen that many butterflies before it’s made us long for a garden of our own one day hopefully we can make something almost as beautiful as this when we do eventually stop living nomadically and find somewhere to build a little cabin in the wild but I don’t think that’ll be for a few more years yet [Music] driving back to our camp spot tonight we had such a gorgeous sunset which is quite surprising really because that’s happened almost every night since we’ve been in this National Park and usually the mountains are so tall that they block The Horizon and you just don’t get to see that glow in the sky but ever since we’ve been here it’s it’s been a treat every night really [Music] Happ yeah super nice [Music] [Music] today we’re off for a drive around because there’s loads of iconic mountain passes in this area it’s just crazy the sort of places that you can reach without hiking around here like for example one of the roads today is three times higher than the highest road inland yeah it’s absolutely wild like that you can just park your little house so high up in the mountains in England there’s just nothing like this it’s like completely different scale so we’re just going to wind slowly around the mountain passes take in the views and probably pop on an audio book um we’re listening to Heidi at the moment it’s just like the most comforting little tale about choosing simple life here in the Alps yeah we really like to romanticize the areas that we’re traveling in and we find that listening to stories that are set in those really really helps to do that yeah it just makes traveling in this area just so much more fun like little things that we usually just wouldn’t notice and we drive past but because they’re mentioned in the book we get all excited about them yeah it feels like we’re sometimes traveling through the story book [Music] itself there is a place where I like to go to get away from all that I know free as a birden safe as a mole helps me to breathe it is good for my soul all that we fill with our own design ready to break in a mind I can’t escape but I have to try to get a grip of my worrying mind there is a place where I let to go into the depths of the great unknown sented by the florales everything breathes in the energy flow so much to do such little time leaves me with too many trees to climb I can’t escape but I have to try to get a grip of my worrying [Music] mind after a little while of driving we started noticing that the flowers were just covering the hills more and more it seems that at about 1,500 M of altitude they’re kind of happiest and they were just in so much abundance that we didn’t feel too bad taking a tiny little handful of them to bring back into the van [Music] driving around today we haven’t really seen many houses at all but we have seen quite a few other camper vans it seems that the local population here is quite small considering how big the area is and it kind of feels like a van lifee Village or something [Music] w [Music] on our way back to our little base there was this small blue Lake and the water was really milky which you don’t really see very often so we decided to just stop here and stretch our legs have a little bit of a walk after such a long drive [Music] [Music] uh out in the wheat FS Verity she hides under her feet there’s a badger passing by further ahead she can see the robin smile this is the place where she goes to think for a while we were laughing whilst we were filming this because it really doesn’t look like an appealing breakfast but it’s definitely one of those that tastes way better than it looks and if you’ve had proper Italian Hazel nut spread you’ll know exactly what we mean we got a dark vegan one and actually bought ourselves quite a few jars so that we’re not going to run out anytime soon [Music] [Music] it’s particularly hot today hotter than the other days we’ve been here and it’s not fun at all when there’s no trees because you don’t have any shade and it can get really stuffy inside the van like we don’t have any air conditioning or anything like that so we got to spend the time outside when it’s this hot so we went up to the lake to hang out there but we had to build Luffy a little tent out of a tripod and towel to protect her from the Sun and while she was staying cool in the shade we got ourselves into the water to cool down with a nice swim this spot just never gets old upes on the Graze she wonders what it would be like for a day to eat all she wanted be restful and L in the place where she casts all her worries away [Music] it’s all well and good making plans in the mountains but the weather can change so so quickly one minute it might be perfectly blue skies and the next a big thunderstorm can roll in and completely ruin your plans yeah but to be honest we don’t mind a little storm here and there because otherwise we just don’t get any work done like how can you sit inside the van when the mountains and the flowers are out there calling your name so yeah at least when it’s raining um it’s a good excuse to just get back inside the van do a bit of online work a bit of video editing yeah and also it means the lovely flowers get a much needed water too [Music] we did a little bit of video editing for social media whilst we sat out the storm and we had the curtains down whilst we were doing it but thankfully just in time we saw a little golden ray of light cracking through the Gap in the curtains and we knew that we had to get outside quickly if we didn’t want to miss the sunset [Music] we spent the rest of the evening just chilling outside under the sunset all cozy with our blankets on and just kind of drawing up and sketching some of those flowers that we found at the botanical gardens the other day we were just sort of trying to draw them out and see which ones that we wanted to be part of our next tapestry design all about the Alpine flowers eventually though it did become a little bit too dark to see anymore so we retreated back to our cozy van and settled down for another night parking on the wild [Music] side if you enjoyed watching this there are loads more relaxing Vlogs of our van life adventures in Forest Meadows and mountains coming soon so be sure to subscribe to our Channel where we share our simple life of Freedom parking our little cabin on Wheels out here on The Wildside

In this episode we linger in the most idyllic wild camping spot we have ever found. Tucked away in the French Alps with enchanting meadows of wildflowers and mystical mountains towering above us, we explore the Lautaret area of Ecrins National Park in our tiny home on wheels 🚍

As flower children we couldn’t resist a visit to the botanical gardens hidden high up in the clouds which are a total cottagecore sanctuary. We slowly wind our way through high altitude mountain passes and go wild swimming in what feels like our own private alpine lake right next to our free camping spot. Summertime and the living is easy 🌞

If you live for cottagecore vibes, slow living, adventures in nature and wild vanlife camping, hit subscribe for our vlogs 🌸 we post every two weeks on the day of the new moon and the full moon!

🎶 Music by Aaron- https://www.parkingonthewildside.com/shop/p/botanical-daydreams

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