This blog post describes the content of the video, which you can see below:
In our very first video, you see us prepping for our road trip through Europe.
We will travel through Europe for 6 months while working, living, and sleeping in the camper. Marten quit his job and will be finding new work while we are on the road, and Natalie will be taking her business called Digitalie with her on the road.
And before we leave, there are a few things we want to take care of.
New custom mattresses for the camper
We get new mattresses from Qmatras in Nijkerk, The Netherlands. These matrasses are custom-made, so you can get exactly what you need/want. The store’s owner helped us figure out the shape of the matrasses (we wanted fewer elements) and the firmness. We even got different mattresses to try at home. In the end, we ended up with a medium and a hard section so we can both sleep better if this is to be our bed for the next 6 months.
New bikes, new e-bikes, new eMTBs?
We both got new bikes, e-bikes. Marten found a great e-MTB in a store, which they almost sold him and then realised the bike was actually already sold…. (Yeah, weird story, right?) But luckily another store we had already been to before had one of them and so we drove for 2 hours, to test that one. And Marten was in love with his new Haibike allmtn 3 2021. This store also had a great e-bike for Natalie, but she needed the medium and we weren’t sure if we would get that in time.
Cleaning out and packing the camper
We are also emptying the camper of everything so that we can start packing from scratch and decide on the following:
- the best spots for everything
- what weight is not worth taking
>> Check out our setup when we started our trip <<
Read all about how to figure out which camper organisation will work for you
We also make a list of everything that needs to be bought like chairs, safety measures, extra pans, etc and go shopping at Obelink (a big camping store in the Netherlands) for that.
Installations
Marten is also very busy with upgrades on the camper. He installs a new Pioneer car radio. This radio has a big screen giving us the option to see our route through Android auto on screen (with Google Maps or Waze, for instance). It also has Bluetooth, meaning we can use Spotify for our music if we want something other than DAB+.
Our mirror got hit by a cone on the German highway and did not fully survive the impact so we bought a new one, and Marten installed that too.
Now we are about two weeks out of the start of our trip. We’ve hit that point where two more tasks get added for everything we do. But we are getting a lot done and are really excited about the trip.
Bikes and Mattresses
We start with picking up our new mattresses and Natalie’s new bike. They weren’t sure the bike would be in on time, but luckily it came early! Natalie’s new bike is a trekking bike. This a bit sturdier bike and able to handle going off-road but not an e-MBT.
Custom mattresses are fun, but you also need custom bedding. Natalie spends time making special L-shaped bedding. She uses a normal full-size sheet and cuts out parts to make it fit. It might not be the prettiest bedding, but it does do the trick.
Installing a bike rack in the garage
Marten received a package from Fix-Fork.com (not sponsored) with our new bike rack for the garage of the camper. You can fix the bikes’ forks to the rack to keep them set in the camper. He shows in the video how he puts the bar in the garage and makes sure both bikes fit.
Removing unnecessary weight
We remove the satellite dish from the roof and the bike rack from the back of the camper. We don’t use either of them, but they both add a lot of weight to the camper. Since you don’t want any unnecessary weight (the camper can weigh a max of 3.5 tons), we are removing anything that is useless to us.
Special vlogging lens
We buy a special vlogging lens for our Canon EOS M50 camera that gives us more width while filming. The difference is really big and will help with filming ourselves better.
LPG Gas in the camper
Marten installs an LPG gas tank in the camper to fill our gas tank more easily and have an ‘unlimited’ gas supply during our long trip.
Time to start our travels
In the last few days, we packed the camper full of everything we wanted to take with us. This was still a LOT of stuff, even though we were careful about what we took.
>> Want to know what we packed? Check out this article <<
We also cleaned out the fridge and freezer, did the last bit of laundry, cleaned the house and cleared out bins. And now we are ready to go!
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