Campervan Skiing Essentials- What to pack?

Campervan Skiing Essentials- What to pack?

Hi we’re Richard and Jackie from early retirement wonderlust and we are really excited we are packing up the van as we’re going skiing for a few weeks in the French Helps it’s January the 1st 2024 and we are about to set off on our first adventure of the year we’ve got a week in the French helps in an apartment with our children which would be lovely and luxurious and then we’ve got at least three weeks camping out in the VW Camper

Van we are on a nice campsite there so what we thought we’d do is take you through every step of the way of getting us and getting the van ready for what is going to be a month away from home in the mountains in the cold in the snow

Hopefully and it’s uh yeah to say we’re excited is a bit of an understatement whenever we’re packing up to go on an extended trip of any sort but particularly when we go into the mountains we always get really anxious about whether we are going to forget

Something so we may look a bit chaotic but what we do is we just lay everything out and we thought we would take you through this process just in terms of uh helping us make sure we’ve got everything yep I call it the Jackie method of packing we just shove

Everything on the bed and we then have to have a really good look at what we actually definitely need I know particularly last year when we went skiing we were skiing for a week with the kids and a week in the van um we came back with a lot of stuff that we

Just never touched at all we didn’t use so I think we’ve paired it down to the Bare Essentials is so one of the things that we want to think about when we are skiing is that we want to be safe and we want to be comfortable so starting on

The safety front yep always ski with a helmet I’ve got a lovely sticker on my helmet new to this year um we didn’t use to ski with a helmet and I don’t can’t get my head around that now because I wouldn’t go out cycling without a helmet and knowing my skiing method I

Definitely wouldn’t ski without a helmet anymore either and just making sure we’ve got goggles to with them because it’s quite often quite foggy and snowing and it just helps improve your visibility so then down to comfort one of the things we have learned over the years that you definitely can’t skimp on

Is socks and gloves um do you want to talk about socks uh yeah I don’t know what he wants me to say about socks but our son Luke has bought us some lovely new Marino wool socks this year so we’re going to see how they go uh we did used

To buy the decathlon cheapest ones that were like tubes and they weren’t the most comfortable when putting them into your boots so I’m hoping these lovely new socks are going to be really comfy but the decathlon ones are cheap as chips and you can throw them out after

After a few years because they do start to smell a bit and we have had a bit of a clear out of our socks then to do with just keeping warm on the slopes uh gloves I’m completely NES when it comes to cold temperatures I can never get it

Right so um I always have some silk inners I have some lighter weight gloves for if it’s not quite as cold but inevitably I always end up skiing in mitts I just feel much more comfortable in M he keeps your fingers together and it’s the only way that I can keep warm

On the slope and there is nothing worse than skiing with cold hands no and I always wear mitts I don’t wear gloves at all on the slopes I love having nice fleecy or silky liners and my mitts and they just keep me toasty warm the other

Thing we have uh always pack some spare hats because obviously when you’re stopping for lunch you don’t want to keep your helmet on and your helmet keeps your head cozy warm so it’s always good to have a few hats and beanies so then for skiing in general to keep warm

On the slopes we mentioned in one of our previous videos that quite a lot of the stuff you can use from your other different activities that you have back at home so it’s just a really simple layering system well Richard goes for a simple layering system I go for proper

Full-on ski stuff okay so so our basic layers are I love my Marino so I always try to wear a long sleeve Marino top and uh long johns when I’m skiing I have had some lovely new long for Christmas and some nice new marinos so I’m going to try them out the next

Layer up it’s a little bit sort of personal in terms of what you like I like to go for a thinner top and then some sort of insulation I’m not a massive fan of fleeces so I have a man-made insulated jacket which is really good if uh it’s a little bit damp

Or you get a little bit sweaty or if it’s really cold I take my duvet jacket whereas I have a proper set of ski um a proper ski outfit which I picked up actually for a real bargain price a couple of years ago in the Lake District

In a shop in Umble side so I’ve got full-on outer jacket that unzips and it’s got a really nice down jacket that goes on the inside and some you can’t lose Jackie On The Mountain ski bottom that are all thermally insulated cuz I can’t bear being cold so I need those

Warm layers now bizarrely seen as I run so cold on my hands the rest of my body when I’m ski I tend to run really hot so my outer layer is just my gortex gear that I wear for all our walking and mountaineering and that does me fine so

When I’m skiing I just have my ski outfit on I have a fleece on underneath it and a Marino and that usually keeps me probably a little bit too hot I also have a buff that I put where is he um got a nice herdy one now but just to

Keep your neck warm because it is really cold and actually on the lifts you just want to have something over your mouth just to keep keep you nice and warm so then moving off the slopes um the first thing that you want to do when you ski

Is get rid of your ski boots and then move into snow boots and they are really really useful it means that you don’t need any other Footwear when you’re skiing in particular when you’re up in Resort because there’s snow everywhere and you want something that’s going to

Keep your feet warm and dry and I know last year I took my snow boots and I took a pair of hiking shoes and I took a pair of trainers as well and I didn’t use the other shoes so all I’m taking this year is my snow boots and I love my

Ski boots and inevitably on a ski holiday you spend most of your time in ski gear so then what we’ve always done is overpack on nonski gear and we’ve really tried to cut down on that this year so I’m really limiting myself to a couple of pairs of trousers couple of

Tops some T-shirts and that’s probably me yep I’m going to have the jeans that I’m traveling in one spare pair of jeans and just four long sleeve tops and this jumper which I love it’s lovely and warm quite excitedly this year we’re packing our swimmers because we are for the

First week staying up in Arc 1950 and we have got a pool and a Jacuzzi access for a week obviously I am really excited about that Prospect as is most of the French Nation because I will be taking my budgie Smugglers for the pool that overlooks the past cannot wait and I

Know the kids are really looking forward to that embarrassing cringe moment with Dad the French just so don’t understand your Budgy Smugglers as does not half of YouTube they’re rich that’s fine a few other bits and pieces that we need to remember particularly CU you’re in a van

Um towels we have actually traveled without towels before and had to buy some and um obviously a wash kit and definitely underwear uh top tip for electronics we keep all our recharging stuff in one box so that we know where all our cables are within the van or when we take it up

Into the apartment but the top top tip is to take a plugboard yeah particularly if you’re staying in a apartment so we can for just one European plug have four English plugs plugged in obviously just not putting anything that might draw too much energy off it but super handy for

Just charging laptops and phones we are taking a box of medical stuff and that sounds very Grand but it’s just the usual stuff like painkillers and flu remedies and stuff that my duelingo French would not allow me to order in the French Pharmacy and something we definitely need to take um because I’m

Really conscious about the fact that we’re in the outdoors so much and for our faces when you’re skiing is having a high factor sun lotion so we’ve got factor 30 sun lotion for our faces the kids and us to be fair really struggle the kids you know the mid 20s um but

Really struggle with lips when you’re in the mountains because the sun is so bright so yeah we’ve all got a lip lots of lip Sals that have got an SP factor in them and then I’m just taking Rook sa because seemingly dad still does the picnic run and everything goes in The

Rook sack and we this year we’re going to be taking camera gear and stuff like that so it’s just really handy so I think that is most of the stuff that we need to take for our actual skiing part um just the matter of packing a van up

Now let’s get on with it there are a few things that we’ve had to do to get the van ready for winter camping particularly going into the Alps the first thing is we’ve changed or topped up our screen wash we’ve got one that’s from hord and it goes down

To-30 we have had occasions in the UK to be fair where we have had the screen was freeze and it’s not great when it’s wintry snowy or sleety another thing we’ve had to do is make sure that we have got our stickers on our front headlamps so we don’t Dazzle the drivers

That are coming from the opposite direction in France and make sure that we’ve got a UK sticker on the back of the van one of the new things that we’ve had to add to the van this year is to make sure that we have a crit air

Sticker they are not the easiest things in France to get a hold of you apply online and it is a little bit of an awkward process but you need it for areas that have wholesale pollution or big cities and there are a couple of areas that we may possibly pass through

On the way down to ski in that we need it so yeah the crit a is safely on the inside of the van and it stays with the van for life now so we don’t need to worry about it anymore with the Volkswagen T6 being an eco6 engine it

Falls into the second category of the crit a in France so it pretty much means now that we’ve got this sticker we can go wherever we wish in France and we are not just planning on going out this winter we’re also going to be passing through France in the summer with our

Van we have underslung water tanks and waste tanks so we have emptied them completely and we’re not actually going to use them on our winter camping trips we are quite worried about them freezing I know that there are ways that we can winterize them I think there’s probes

That you can put in them to try and keep them um from freezing but for us actually we’re on a campsite for pretty much all of the time that we’re in the actual snowy areas so we will just do our washing up and get fresh water every

Day from there as we are obviously traveling into high Alpine areas it’s really important that the thing that connects us to the road is as safe as possible we’ve decided to go for all season tires because in The Dales we actually run them 12 months of the year

Um the important thing for allseason tires or winter tires is that they have the three Peak mountain snowflake symbol and it’s a little bit dirty but just down here is that and that’s the European Standard for um winter or allseason tires so it makes us feel pretty safe when we’re in the mountains

But obviously it’s no guarantee and you just got to be really sensible when you’re driving on snow or ice one of the other safety considerations for when driving in snowy conditions and particularly in the high mountain areas of the Alps is snow change because all season or winter tires will only get you

So far um it was something that I was really anxious about when I first drove to the Alps but it’s actually pretty straight forward and they’re quite easy to Source I got the snowchains uh direct from Amazon and they are pretty much exactly the same as what you can buy in

French supermarkets in the high Alpine areas the only thing you need to check is the size of your tires and then on the snow chains there is a whole raft of different sizes um and make sure you’ve got the right sets I’m not going to bore

You with the details but I know from my own experience that there’s very little information out there on YouTube about snow chains so I am going to do a cheeky little bonus video on Monday that is all things snow chains fitting snow chains how to use them how to Source them and

Hopefully for anyone that’s interested that might be worth a watch imagine Richard’s Joy on Christmas morning when I bought him this Natty little Christmas present last year we traveled to the outs without a snow shovel and we had to borrow one so he’s got his own this year

And it folds away so it’ll hide in the boot nicely one of the challenges of keeping the van warm in alpine conditions and particularly in the snow is the front cab area so it’s really important to remember your screen cover we use an external screen cover from

Rainbow screens it served us really well and it keeps us toasty warm inside um if it’s blowing a holie or we want a little bit of extra warmth we’ve also got internal screen covers um that could be used as a second layer or we could just

Use them so they don’t get blown away if you’ve never traveled to Europe in a motor home or a camper van before this is something that you may need you don’t always need them but some of the campsites don’t take the universal adapters for the electric hops you

Actually have to have this adapter to go with it so it’s just handy to have it in the back of the van just in case and another adapter that we have to take with us we have an LPG tank underneath our van uh rather than portable tanks so

When we get it refilled in any of the Europe European or most of the European garages we need to give them this little adapter so that they can fill it for us how ironic that we actually forgot to go through when we were in the UK some of

The issues to do with French law that you’ve got to carry when you are driving through France you need to make sure that you’ve got high Vis whereare for all passengers within the car within easy reach so they need to be uh pretty close to you in the car and likewise you

Need to have a warning triangle in terms of breakdown and then the final thing um we always carry a spare bulb kit um just in case there are issues with headlights um again it’s something that’s advised when you’re traveling on the continent so in Avan we do have a gas heater it

Blows out from underneath here and we do use it loads in the winter but with us being in the Alps and we’re not particularly wanting to you move the van very much we’re not sure how quick it’ll go through the LPG just as a backup and actually because we’ve got free Electric

Hookup we’re going to take a little electric heater that we can can put on it only takes about 15 minutes to warm the van thoroughly anyway cuz it’s so tiny we have to thank the YouTube Community for this next modification because as a consequence of us putting

Out our winter camping video we received so much advice to do with the problem of condensation in Winter it always seems that either just by being in the van or cooking in the van that condensation is a problem and every single person that commented on that mentioned the wonders

Of a CER window vac um I am so excited my brother and sister-in-law were so excited and got me this for Christmas so it’s going to be a revelation I’ve already tried it in the shower at home and it is amazing that combined with loads of microfibers it’s just really

Good for mopping things up when um things get a little bit damp in the van and we have also sourced something from Amazon these little uh damp traps we’re not quite quite sure how well they’re going to work but we’ve got a few of them dotted around the van because the

Van’s not going to be moving for 3 weeks when we’re on the campsite um we’re wanting to make it home from home and we don’t want to have a problem condensation a couple of little adaptations that we make in the winter when we’re traveling in the camper van

We always have a very thick winter duve on so we’ve got a 15 H du on here and we’ve got it with some really nice cotton bedding thick brushed cotton just keeps it toasty warm and we also have a really thick warm blanket that goes on

Top as well this is a really nice passenger blanket it’s got fleece on one side silk on the other so it traps the hea in keeps us really toasty warm at night something we use in the van all year round anyway is a duvet mattress it’s only a couple of inches thick but

It just makes the bed so much more comfortable the advantage though in winter is that the um foam in it actually retains the heat so once you’re in bed and the bed’s nice and warm the duvet just keeps that heat and we are really toasty warm in there few little

Solutions for outside the van when it’s snowy and wintry um we have a normal house mat to just clear our boots off that may go outside the van or in snowy conditions sometimes it goes inside the van this is an absolute godsend it is a duct board and it’s just really good

Knocking your boots off and keeping the snow out of the van and then a solution that we have for storage is that we have a couple of these containers that we um use for things that aren’t particularly valuable and it’s just a good way of storing stuff under the van and outside

The van so the last bit and it’s all the paperwork and things that you need to travel with we were going to do this in the UK but we did forget one piece of paperwork that we needed to get printed off before we arrived here so most

Obvious thing that you need to take with you is your most current and relevant passport not the old ones that have got sides clipped off if you have had a new passport you also need to travel with your gck cards particularly if you’re skiing they have replaced the Eck cards

And in case you have a medical emergency or you need any treatment your insurance will expect you to have this in place because it does cover some of the costs MoneyWise we travel with a post office card or some sort of preloaded card with Euros on we use that for the tolls and

In the supermarkets just makes it a little bit easier our kids have got stalling bank accounts um which they use all the time when they are in Europe because that doesn’t charge apparently whereas our nwest bank account does give charges to us um we do put our petrol on

A credit card though we have had occasions with our NatWest card where we’ve gone to the petrol station you have to have it pre-authorized they’ve taken up to €200 out of our bank account and then rejected the card so we’re actually 00 worse off and in one case it

Took three weeks to get that money back onto our account that’s just a little bit of a warning U and then we just always travel with a few Euros um France is getting more to the point where they would prefer you to pay in card for most

Things but in the ski Villages and in little Villages when you’re at the little bo lingeries it’s probably better to have a bit of cash on the driving side you need to travel obviously with your driving license in case you get stopped and we always bring our paper

Copies um to go with it as well we need to travel with your V5 document for your vehicle that you’re traveling in you’re also supposed to travel with a print out of your current insurance we changed insurance companies a few weeks ago because our old insurance company Brent akre has actually stopped insuring

Camper van um so we forgot that we hadn’t had a paper copy of it through so on the way down to the fair port we called in at my moms to print that last bit off and then the last bit that you need to make sure particularly again

When you’re skiing that you travel with is your travel insurance if you have an accident on the mountain the French P STS are quite particular that they need to know that you can pay somehow to get off that mountain whether it be that you’ve got a credit card with you that

You’ve got your travel insurance a copy of it to show that you are insured you can get a cart n which you get when you buy your ski passes that will cover you for insurance to get you off the mountain as well but yeah just make sure that you’ve got relevant winter sport

Travel insurance with you that’s it the van is absolutely crammed full now ready for us to go skiing there’s just a few little bits and pieces to pack tomorrow so don’t forget tomorrow I am going to put out a video that just relates to All Things snow chains and using snow chains

For those that are interested and probably the next time we’ll see you we’ll be on the road heading south to the Alps see you later Bye W

We are just about to depart on a 4 week ski adventure in the French Alps in our VW Campervan. Join us as we take you through our whole packing process- from what to wear on and off the slopes, to preparing the van for camping in the winter alps as well as all the paperwork and legal requirements for such a trip.

We are now 6 years into VW campervan ownership and we love where our little van takes us. We love the Alps in summer, but we have always yearned to stay for an extended time in the winter. Following our early retirement, we can now make that dream a reality.

We are Richard and Jackie and we live in the UK. We retired from teaching at the age of 51 in the summer of 2022. Our plans for early requirement include relocating to the Yorkshire Dales, developing our forever home and travelling the UK, Europe and eventually the world in our VW campervan Nelson.

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Check out our blog http://earlyretirementwanderlust.com

Many thanks,

Richard & Jackie

Timeline:
00:00 What to pack for a ski strip
01:11 Ski Gear & Clothing. What to pack.
09:20 How to prepare the Campervan for skiing
14:39 Living in a campervan when skiing. What to pack.
17:46 Essential paperwork. What to pack.