Starting a New Life in my DIY Van Camper - Travelling, Foraging Mushrooms, Cooking and Camping

I recently finished converting my van into a little camper which is now my new home. I've been traveling for the past week around Europe. The other day I left England, I packed up the van with everything I would need to travel for the foreseeable future and go on the biggest road trip of my life. I've got a super early tunnel crossing from England into France tomorrow so I've got to get up at like three in the morning and then I'll be driving to my first destination. Let's go on the biggest road trip of my life. I'm scared. This is gonna be the longest I've ever spent away from a proper brick house. Now this is my home. This is my life now. I'm on the road. This is the freest I will ever be in my life and it feels scary but also incredibly exciting. Coffee, cinnamon roll, that's all I need for the 10-hour drive. First stop is gonna be near Basel where Switzerland meets France and Germany, where the three countries borders meet. I'm excited. The fresh French air I've ever been in my life. I drove for about seven hours through France into Germany where I met up with a good friend where we had some really fun adventures. We were right on the border between Germany, France and Switzerland so we did quite a lot of walking around the three different countries. Went to the city of Basel for the day which was really nice. It's a really beautiful city with the river Rhine flowing through it. We also found this really cool wireless phone charger thing next to a bus station. Charge your smartphone. No way. Yes look. Whoa. That day in Basel I also learned that not all bananas are yellow. One of the days whilst riding our bikes around the town we found this chicken of the woods mushroom on a tree. Now these things are edible and they taste amazing so we couldn't help but take it. It turned into quite a funny day because once we had taken this mushroom we didn't really know where to put it. So it ended up going in the basket of one of our bikes and so for the rest of the day whilst riding around the town it was with us and we got many odd looks from people like looking into the basket thinking what is that? What is that alien looking thing? Anyway we eventually got the mushroom home and chopped it up and fried it in breadcrumbs and it was super nice. It actually tastes of chicken. It's mad. It's got the texture of chicken. The slight taste of chicken. It's one of my favorite mushrooms to eat. We decided to take a trip to the Black Forest in Germany. Now the Black Forest is a huge forest. I think it's 6,000 kilometers squared in size and we wanted to find some mushrooms. Not just any old mushrooms. We wanted to find some edible ones so we could take them and then cook them up in the back of a van and have a nice feast. Welcome to the Black Forest. Wow. This is so nice. Just found what we're looking for. That's a big juicy bulbous one and there's a baby one there. That's the most beautiful thing in the world. Yay. Mushrooms. We only found two mushrooms so we need to find some more otherwise we're not going to eat very well tonight. Go on further. I think we will see them. Yes. Stop. Only found two of these. Penny bun, boletus edulis mushrooms but we went to the supermarket and bought some other things as well so we actually can have a proper meal. Shallots, garlic, mushrooms, beer, potatoes are boiling Chives. Oh I know what it's also missing. There's the finished meal. All cooked in the back of the van. This is the second time I've cooked in the back of my van. Taste test. Oh it's really hot. I put too much pepper in but other than that it tastes really good. Just finished our meal and eaten all the lovely food. That was so good. Oh I love foraging mushrooms in the woods. There's nothing better and hopefully there'll be plenty more of it over the next couple of weeks because it is prime mushroom season now. The next day I left my friend in Germany and began traveling again. I'm leaving Germany and I'm going to Switzerland. To drive on the roads in Switzerland, Slovenia and Austria you need a vignette which is one of these little stickers that you stick on the windscreen and it means that you've paid for the roads there. I think you need one for all the big motorway roads. That peels back and then I stick it somewhere. There we go. I am currently quite awkwardly sat in the back of my van in a shopping center car park waiting to meet a couple of people who I've been speaking to on Instagram. They are currently complete strangers. I don't know them yet but the other day I thought when I go on this trip around Europe it'll be a bit boring if I'm just on my own the whole time and I thought why not ask some of the people on my Instagram and see if anyone is on route. See if anybody would be up for meeting up and doing some fun stuff together. I was quite surprised to see how many people replied to my Instagram story. This evening I'm gonna meet up with a couple of guys. I think they said we're gonna go climbing like climbing up rocks but looking at the weather it's been raining so much recently. It might be too wet like the rocks might be too slippery. Hey good to meet you. So you guys are climbers? Yeah, climber and also a super anchor going into caves. Oh wow, you sound more adventurous than me. Maybe more stupid. I think they're brothers Joel and Jonas. Wow. We're going to the cliffs where they do the climbing. This is where we climb up this. Yeah. Nice and slippery. Wow this is the first time I've ever been like rock climbing on a proper rock like not in an indoor place. I'll give it a go. Oh wow. You are told that's an advantage. Yeah. You can reach far away. Yeah. It's okay. Even if you fall you won't go far down. I'm so high. Wow such a good view. Quite impressive the first time. Oh cheers guys. Wow that was crazy. It was a lot harder than the other one for you or? Oh yeah yeah I could feel my fingers like are they just going to give up. Yeah yeah. After climbing I needed to find another place to go camping. I went on the park for night app which is a really neat app which allows you to find places that you can camp. But I found a nice spot next to a river where I slept last night. Then this morning I woke up and drove into the town to grab some food and supplies and then found this little nice spot in the countryside where I've parked up. I've opened up the van to air it out. Today is going to be the first day editing in the back of my van. One of the main aims when I was building this van was to make it in such a way that I could edit my YouTube videos off grid. I didn't want to have to go to a campsite to get power or go to get accommodation or an Airbnb to have power. I've got a solar panel on the roof which will be working very well today because it is nice and sunny. It's going to be the first time I've ever edited a video not at my desk at home. It's like an almond croissant, pasty liquidy stuff in the middle which is so good. I realised with a small van you very quickly make things messy. Fruit, snack, more fruit. I don't know what they said. The solar panel is currently working and as it charges the battery I'm going to slowly drain the battery by working. Oh my goodness it's actually working. My laptop is charging. That's so cool. First day of editing in my van begins. You are an influencer? Kind of. I make YouTube videos. YouTube? Yeah. You can sleep well. Yeah. That's good. It's my new home now. Yeah. And you make stories? Yeah. Stories, good. And YouTube. It's for YouTube. Have you had a good walk? It's very nice here this way. Very nice. Bye. Have a good day. It's time for lunch. It might look like I'm making sandwiches for the whole village but no this is all for me. One for today, one for tomorrow morning, one for tomorrow lunch. I'm doing everything in bulk. Cheers for watching this first part of my European road trip. If you want to keep up to date with my adventures and travels head over to my Instagram because I post more regularly on there like regular updates and Instagram stories. But for now I'm going to crack on and keep editing. Thanks for watching. I'll see you next time.