Reading the story of traveller aloud
Breakdown Cover
Don’t forget to get breakdown cover. Being able to just phone someone and wait for help when we broke down in Austria was the easiest thing ever.
Equipment
Before you set off, find out what each country requires you to have in your car. Each European country has different rules, so what you need to get will depend on where you’re going.
We didn’t know where we’d end up going, so we got the most commonly needed things (reflective jacket, GB sticker, warning triangle, first aid kit, fire extinguisher, spare headlight, breathalyser), and planned to look up each country’s rules as and when we needed to. You can get kits with most of these things in.
If you’re from the UK, you’ll need some stickers to make your headlights beam in the opposite direction, too.
Sleeping In Your Car
In some countries, it’s illegal to sleep in your car. You could look this up beforehand or stay ignorant and hope that if a police officer notices you, they take pity on you.
Each night, we decided what we’d say if we were questioned. Usually, the plan was to say that we were driving to whichever friend’s house we were going to next and that I’d gotten tired and thought it safer to have a nap than continue. If we weren’t going anywhere, in particular, we’d say we were sleeping in campsites but had gotten lost.
Passes
Some countries and cities require you to have and display special passes and stickers to drive in them.
Particularly in the East, you’ll find that, as you approach the next country, you’ll see signs urging you to pull over and buy a vignette.
This is a sticker that allows you to drive in a particular country for a certain number of days. They’re only about €20 each, but it’s worth factoring them into your budget.
Some European cities have low emission zones that you need a sticker for too. You can order these from your own country before you leave, but we found out about them too late and had to go from gas station to gas station in Germany, trying to find someone to issue us one.
Again, these cost a few Euros, although we got ours for free (no idea why). If you don’t want the cost or hassle of getting one, simply avoid the affected cities.
Planning Your Route
Efficiency
I’m a big planner, so when I did InterRail, my friends and I booked every single hostel for our trip before we even set off.
This time, we decided to do the opposite. Apart from going to a conference in Berlin, we had no plans. The plans we did make changed pretty much on a daily basis.
One day, we were in Klagenfurt, Austria, planning on staying there for a week or so. The next day, we arrived in Germany, having driven through Salzburg, Liechtenstein, and Switzerland, just because.
And while it was fun being so free, it didn’t make any sense, gas-wise. This approach was not at all efficient, so if you’re on a budget, figure out how to squeeze as much out of your route as possible, or just stick to one part of Europe.
The Best Roads
I was very nervous about driving abroad, but I actually ended up preferring it to driving in the UK.
In most of the countries we went to, the motorways only had two lanes and you’d only see another car every minute or so. It was so easy and peaceful.
The busiest roads were the Netherlands and Germany. Along with Vienna, they’re the only places we got stuck in traffic.
Toll Roads
For whatever reason, our sat nav failed to tell us when we were approaching a toll road, so we wasted more money this way. If you’re tight on money, look these up before you go or make sure your sat nav will do that for you.
Finding Places To Sleep
Sometimes finding somewhere to sleep is a nightmare but, after a while, you get pretty good at it.
Residential Areas
Your best bet is to try and blend in on a normal residential road or housing estate with no parking restrictions. Avoid main roads and deserted back alleys.
Street Lights
It’s a good idea to keep your car under a street light, to discourage thieves. That said, the light can stop you from getting to sleep, so experiment with different distances and positions.
Churches
We read that sleeping near churches is a great way to deter vandals and to be close to help, should you need it. We never tested this idea out, but feel free to try it!
Affluent Neighbourhoods
Before we drove to a new city, my girlfriend would look up the different neighbourhoods and find a few “good” neighbourhoods that were within walking distance of the city center.
We just felt safer sleeping outside big and well-kept houses than we would have if we’d stayed somewhere shady-looking.
Slopes
If you end up parking on a slope or hill, make sure you sleep with your head on the highest bit and your feet on the lowest bit. You don’t want all your blood ending up in your head!
Switch It Up
We tended to stay in the same spot for one or two nights. In Edinburgh, we ended up staying outside some random guy’s house for about a week and I think he got suspicious of us towards the end, so we simply moved a bit further up his road.
Be quiet, keep lights off once you get into your car at night, and try not to draw attention to yourself.
Keeping Clean
Toilets
Sometimes you’ll find a parking spot close to an alleyway or somewhere private where you can relieve yourself, but don’t count on this. Park near to a McDonald’s or other café and go to the restroom as soon as you wake up and just before you go to sleep.
Try not to drink anything in the last hour before you go to bed. One skill you’ll develop while living in your car is the ability to sleep even when you need a wee!
If you’re a guy, you’ll probably be fine. Girls, we tried Shewees, and I’m just going to say “no comment.” We also tried Peebols, which are essentially resealable bags. We only used them when we were desperate because we didn’t particularly like keeping bags of pee in the car overnight, but these were great. Stock up!
Washing Yourself
We used gyms and showered in them every other day or so. Look for gyms with free trial passes and cheap rates for one day passes.
McFit is a great option because they have gyms across Europe. Either join this gym or take advantage of its free trial.
The first time we went to a McFit, we were just let in without providing any details about ourselves, so we went again in our next city. This time they took a few details. We went again somewhere else, and they took quite even more details, but they didn’t seem to notice that we’d had free passes before. Finally, in Münster, Germany, they did notice that we’d been to more than one gym, but they didn’t mind.
If they question you, tell them you’re considering moving to a few European cities, and you’re checking them all out. I felt a bit bad about this but it saved us a lot of money!
Otherwise, we took hand sanitizer with us and used sinks.
Washing Your Clothes
The obvious way to wash your clothes as you travel in the car is to visit laundromats. Unfortunately, whenever we wanted one, we couldn’t find any. So we washed our clothes when we visited friends and one night when we stayed in a hostel.
If you’re desperate, you could wash your clothes in the sinks of café bathrooms, but I’d recommend holding out for a hostel, friend’s house, or launderette if you can.
There’s no need to resort to washing in lakes!
Eating
You’re probably not going to be able to eat the best diet while you’re living in your car unless you’ve got a lot of money to spend on eating out. We accepted that we probably wouldn’t be able to drink enough water each day and that we’d have to do the best we could with what we could find.
When I did InterRail in 2008, my friends and I lived on bread and Nutella. Tasty, but very unhealthy.
This time, we ate tinned tuna and vegetables, bread, cereal, protein shakes, and peanut butter. Again, not great, but it is possible to sneak some veggies and protein into your diet if you make a conscious effort to do so.
Despite the fact that we went to McDonald’s every day to use the internet, we didn’t really eat fast food. If you’re using fast-food restaurants for their wifi, buy drinks instead.
Drinks actually turned out to be quite problematic for us. We figured we’d be able to top up our water bottles from sinks, but we were rarely sure that the water was drinkable. Instead, we had to buy bottles of water from supermarkets, which was expensive.
Travelling On A Budget
While we worked our rough costs before we started our trip, we weren’t very careful or thorough about this at all. We also haven’t worked out how much we did spend, simply because we would probably be horrified!
But don’t let that put you off. Knowing the mistakes we made, you should be able to save yourself a lot of money and do the trip much cheaper than we did.
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