We drove to the ARCTIC CIRCLE | Sweden Winter Vanlife

Hey guys, welcome back to our second week driving through Sweden, but we have just officially made it to our first Arctic Circle sign. I can't believe it. It's full of stickers, so of course we've got to get out and put one of our Travel Juro stickers on there too. Shall we? Let's go. This is so cool. Fletchy, we're in the Arctic Circle. Olive brought us all the way here. It's beautiful. I'll let you find our stickers though, because I have no idea where they're going to be. Where are you going to put it? What are we going to do? What's the plan? I feel like it's got to be on the big one. So you're going to jump up as high as you can and slap one on. Which one are we doing? I think we should put the Fletchy one on. Fletcher? Yeah, I like the Fletcher. Why don't we do all three? All right, one on here, one down there. Jump as high as you can, I don't want to just go anywhere. I'm going to go one there. So one there, we've made it. If anyone comes and sees this. And then one over here. I'm trying to see if I can see anyone I actually know. I'm going to put one here. Nice, like it. Guys, if any of you have been up here and you've put your sticker on there, please let us know in the comments and you're watching this, because it'll be really cool to check out any of your other stickers. So I'm going to take a little video of this and I can watch it back if you guys tell me where your sticker is. We're in the Arctic We've actually made it with Olive. How cool is that? I'm so proud that we're here. So am I, and this is still the beginning. Like what we've done so far, I'm like, we smashed it. I mean, it's been amazing, but to think there's still so much more to come. It's mad. Don't be fooled though, guys. I know we're in like little thin t-shirts, but we're so cold. What are we doing out here with no coats and no hats on? It is cold, but with that sun on, it does make it a lot better, doesn't it? It's my nose. Your nose is actually freezing. Right, let's get back on the road. So today guys, we are doing something very, very exciting. Something that's been on our list since coming to Sweden, and that is visiting this ice hotel. They have a hotel made of ice, and it's a really popular thing here to do in Sweden. So we could not come and do it. Let's I know we haven't even done this yet, but I'm already looking at some sort of souvenirs to take home. It's just me though, isn't it? So we are in, we are inside the ice, well, we're not actually inside the ice hotel. We've gone through, we've paid for our tickets. Uh, they were 750 kroner for both of us, which works out to be about 28 pound each, which isn't too bad. We're not sure if we're a little bit underdressed though, because everyone else was like big, fat, fluffy overalls and things like that. And we're here in like, I don't know, we are layered up, but I'm in my etnies. Sam looks a bit better than I do. If you ever see me in the vlogs wearing this blue thing, it's like a tent on me, but it's been a game changer because I can wear literally so many layers underneath it. So good. So it's not about fashion out here in the Arctic, guys. It's about keeping warm. Are you cold? What's in the tent? It's just a big fire pit and like there's a seat. Oh, cool. That's actually an open roof. So not very good if it, uh, snows, heavy rains. It needs to be an open roof for the fire, surely? Yeah, that's what I meant. Oh, that's a good idea. Actually, I didn't think about that. There's me, Mr. Firefire. So yeah, if they want to turn this fire on, that would be great. So these are our tickets for the ice hotel. I think they're little stickers, but she did say they're not very good. So perfect for your wall though. But I did like team. There's apparently lots of different rooms that artists from all around the world come and decorate. So I'm really, really excited. I don't even know where to go first. No, let's have a look. Let's get out of this tent. These doors have got like antlers on them. That is literally just ice. This is a room made of ice. That's mad, isn't it? I dare you to put your tongue on it. No, I'm not that stupid. Down here, it looks like this is where the guests actually stay. So if you wanted to stay for the night in the actual ice hotel and experience it, I assume it's down here because this is where all your numbers are. It's like a proper hotel corridor, isn't it? Yeah, I believe they open them up during the day. So this is our first one. Oh my God. Oh wow. There's a face. Wow. Wow. That is just unbelievable. How on earth is it not like... Please don't sit on the bed. Don't sit on the bed. I won't sit on the bed as much as I would love to sit down. I just want to see how comfortable it is. No, I'm not doing it. I touch it. That's rock solid. I wouldn't want to stay on that bed for the night, but I'm not really funny. How do they keep warm in here? You'd have to sleep in like 10 layers, wouldn't you? Because even though I've got everything on, like my extremities are freezing. Toes and fingers, toes and fingers. So guys, there's going to be a lot of rooms here and I don't think we're going to bore you and show you every single room. But what we will do is we will record the best ones that we see. Wow. Oh my God. Oh my God. By far the best one yet. This is so clever. How do they chip it out of the ice like that? The detail on this is unbelievable. Whisker holes, the eye. Oh wow. Look at those eyes. Here everything began. Do you reckon this is like the original? Oh my God. That's so cool. Wow. It feels like you're in a storm. They have like sounds in every single room as well. Like some of them will have relaxing music. The one with Tom and Jerry and the cat and the mouse was playing like purring sound. This one's got the thunder in it. Yeah. And there was one where the beaver one had the water You can actually walk right behind this clan. It's like one of those dens you build when you're a kid. The first corridor done of rooms and so far I have literally been flabbergasted by what we've seen. The skill that goes into making these arts is unbelievable. Someone's left their shoe there. Oh my God. Oh wow. Hello. Wow. Missing a little bit of detail but. And I love how there's a child's teddy bear in the same room as the naked woman. Just need to warm our cockles up a little bit team. Let our fingers come back to life. Yeah they are absolutely killing. I haven't got big gloves on. I think they're rubbish. This looks like where you can order some drinks at the ice bar. This one is so cool. It's like chameleons everywhere with little crowns on and everything. I mean he's a bit scary. Look at him. The sauna. Let's hope we can warm up a little bit because it is chuffing. Oh no. Still made out of ice. Wow. This is pretty cool though. I'm in the bathtub. Does that feel comfy? It's a double bath isn't it? We could have a nice ice bath together. Definitely a goal on this trip to get in the cold water. I'm not gonna lie team. I am really getting cold now. Probably been in here about an hour total and my tips of my fingers are so painful. Please make sure you wear some great gear. In fact I think you can actually hire some bits off the actual ice hotel themselves. Yeah. But yeah I just keep dreaming of getting back into Oliver with the heating on. I'll see if it's still running. Yeah it will be. So it's still running because we're actually really low on gas. We've actually hit the red line for the first time this trip. So we're gonna go and get some this afternoon. This one might just be my favourite. It's like you're at a train station. That is so cool. Really sorry guys but we're actually late for our train so I'm just gonna hop on. See ya. I know it sounds really weird guys but it's not until you actually see a physical picture of a heart that you realise that it's nothing like you think it looks like. We've all got one of these beating inside us right now. All by itself. We're not controlling it like that. It's such a gift. This one's a bit freaky. Hang loose guys. Hang loose. Hang loose. Do you know what's mad? When we actually go outside now it's not gonna be any warmer. Normally when you go to like an ice bar or something like that you go outside and you feel all that warmth again. We're literally going outside and it's gonna be no different to what it is in here. We're done. We smashed it. High five. Smashed. I'm so glad we came though team like to actually see an ice hotel. This has been here for 30 years. It was one of the first ones in the world and yeah. Definitely recommend it. It's worth doing 100%. And for only 28 quid. You can't go wrong really. I know it might cost you a bit to actually get here or drive your van up like we have. Such an epic road up here. So so cool. Are you nice and warm in there with the heating on? I'll just show the team that we've got the heating on for him. Look at this. He's got the heating on. He's lovely and warm. You've been a good boy? Yeah. Have you been a good boy? Hello. Where you been? Hello. Oh it's nice and warm in here. It's so toasty in here. Keep the heat in shall we? Let's give you some treats. Oh my god thank you so much mom. Thank you so much. Yeah my hands are cold. You want to warm them up for me? Oh like feeding a reindeer. Isn't it? Oh you've been a good boy Fletch. You've been a very good boy. Right time to go and get some gas. Yep. For our heating. Where is it we're going again? Caruna. Let's go for a walk around shall we buddy? You can't have any more. No. Okay team so we've arrived at the LPG tank. This is probably a good this deja vu of last week. Fletcher wants to get out. Fletchy come here. He's coming back. It's about three hours away from the other LPG tank that we used. For those of you that don't know we use LPG for our heating and we also use it for our cooking and at the moment we've seemed to be ranging around five or six days until... We can still fill up yeah? Thank god for that. He just said that we haven't got the right adapter but thankfully they've got one. Obviously we do not want to run out of LPG because it's what keeps us warm at night. So like I said in last week's video make sure if you come up to Sweden and you rely heavily on LPG you've got a trauma system for your combi heater then make sure you're plotting out your routes for LPG because it really is sparse up here. I think this is actually the most northern point that we can fill up LPG before we go into Finland. Now Finland doesn't have any LPG at all which is really sad because it will mean that we won't be able to spend too much time in Finland. So I believe that just cost us £32 to fill up our LPG tank which to me is an absolute bargain. Back in the UK it will last us around six, seven, eight weeks. Over here five or six days because we have the heating on all night to keep us toasty. In fact there's been some night's team where we've actually said we're really hot at night time which is a really good thing that we're here in the arctic with our van and we're actually way too hot at night. Fletcher's lovely and toasty as too. He's got his dressing gown on most times after he's been out in the snow. He's sulking now. Fletchy! You love your dressing gown. What's going on? Why have we got an emergency? We've got an absolute disaster. We were just driving along and I thought I could smell something and we've basically had this bloody soy sauce. The whole bottle is gone and it's gone all down into our light here. So screwed that light up again. All over our oven. All down the floor. It's in this whole cupboard so we're gonna have to stop and sort this van out team. It's disgusting. Right I think we've sorted that out as the best we can. We're stinking of soy sauce. The whole van is stinking of soy sauce. Today is a bit of a disaster. We've got no water at all. Our water pump stopped working because I think the pipes are frozen unfortunately. So we're gonna have to make sure that I go and sort that out in a minute while Sam makes us a nice lunch. I think we're just gonna go and find a park up for a minute team. We were gonna go and have a look around Karuna but I think we might save it for another day or might not even bother because we're hungry, we're thirsty and we've still got some cleaning to do. So guys as we stayed here last night in the car park we've decided this morning we're gonna have a nice chilled morning. I'm gonna get this big ass log burner lit and yeah just enjoy a bit of fire, flame, a nice bit of heat. All over Sweden you'll find these little log cabins that have like fire and firewood for you to be able to use for free which I think is amazing and we've been here for almost two weeks. Our time in Sweden has come to an end and we could not come and use one of these huts so we're just gonna sit in here, enjoy the fire. It's very cold in here still but it feels really nice. Brought our notebooks, gonna do a bit of gratitude and just have a nice morning in here. It's blowing a hoolie out there which makes it even more cosier. We did it, we are sat in the most picturesque spot in the middle of Sweden. We have driven all the way to Sweden in our tiny home on wheels. There were a few moments where we thought this trip might not happen but here we are. I'm excited for the coming weeks in this magical part of the I've just taken the stick with him, a little souvenir from the log cabin. I really enjoyed that, that was lush this morning. It was good. Really really good, loved it. Nice and warm now, a bit colder out here. Come on in. This is the real deal right here. So we've got our little Swedish potatoes at the bottom, we've got Sam's five bean chili on top, a little bit of grated vegan cheese, got some chilies in there now. We're manning up a bit and trying to get a little bit hotter every time we go. And then we've also got some crispy onions finished off with about half a jar of jalapenos. I love jalapenos. This is the best meal ever. So we thoroughly enjoyed our chili with our Swedish potatoes, they were delicious. We are now on the road back to Abisko National Park. We were literally parked just on the outside of it this morning but we're going back in to have a nice little walk around. Just the road and the scenery here is unbelievable and apparently Abisko has its own like little weather front. It's like you can never tell what the weather's like because it's always got its own little forecast and right now it's great. I can see bits of blue sky, it's lovely and clear, so perfect conditions for a little stop. Guys we've actually brought Fletcher some snow boots. We've not tried them on it yet but we're going for quite a long walk and we're worried about his little tootsies. He's gonna hate these but we're doing it for you buddy. We're gonna keep your feet lovely and warm. You're gonna be so warm you're not gonna know yourself. Harness? Yeah good boy. How does that feel Fletch? What do we think? What are you doing? Good boy. You want your new boots? I don't think you hate them. What's he trying to smell? What do we think Fletch? They're coming off him already. Well they were fun while they lasted. We're gonna have to get him some smaller ones. One snow boot down. Do you know what team? It's so nice to actually walk on a walking path. Since we've been here in Sweden everything's just been so deep with snow we've not been able to walk on it but seeing as those snow boots didn't last two minutes on Fletcher we're not going to be walking very far. It's a really hard one to judge actually because we see lots of dogs around here with no snow boots on and he absolutely loves the snow so it's hard to tell how long you can actually be walking on the snow without him harming his paws. We've got some really nice paw cream as well that you can pop on them to stop them cracking. I look at his paws every day just to make sure that they're not drying out or if there's any issues with them and they're fine so if anyone knows the advice on walking with dogs with snowshoes like I said we've seen so many around with none on we just want to make sure we're protecting him but we're going to go for a walk not too far and just enjoy this gorgeous scenery. You all broke me. You're right there Fletch. Someone had too much fun in the snow didn't you? Good freaking state you bloody. You need to defrost. You defrost in there right I'll be in in a minute. Okay so we are actually a few days later since we left you guys on that beautiful walk in Abisko National Park we returned back to Karuna to help a dear friend who was having problems with their van we spent the last three days trying to help him get it fixed well I didn't Chris did but unfortunately he's still got to wait for a few parts to get his van finished and get back on the road so sadly we said goodbye to him this morning. That's it our friend's gone we're leaving him just dropped him back to his van where he's got a special three days to crack on with it wait for his alternator but it's been a blast really enjoyed it it's been nice to get my hands dirty again get back on it. We're gonna miss you Alex. I'm gonna miss you guys as well thank you both. I'll go for a hug. Almost a kiss as well then. Hug the camera lady as well. Thank you. Yeah thank you so much mate. You've been a pleasure. Thank you for all the help. That's all right. You need to get back on the road. Send you a video when it's sorted as well. Yeah. We might see you again. Yeah we might catch up. Hopefully we will yeah. We might see you in Nordkapp or something. Hopefully so. Right. You never know. Enjoy mate. Catch you in a bit guys. Cheers buddy. Dog. Fletcher gone. Fletch in. Say bye to Alex. Your buddy. I'm gonna miss him. You coming to the front? Yeah. And now we are officially on our way to Finland. Whilst we were in Karuna we were able to get Fletcher his worming tablet. Because once you come into Sweden if you want to go into Norway or Finland you need to make sure that you give your dog a specific wormer treatment for him to be allowed into the country. So we managed to get that done whilst we were in Karuna which was incredible. So easy to do. Cost us about 40 pound and now he's officially allowed to go into Finland and Norway which is amazing. So our time here in Sweden is over. Sweden has been really really cool. I've absolutely loved it. Yeah it's been lush. I think it's blown our mind. We imagined we would be driving up through Sweden and really like skipping so much of it but as soon as we got like halfway up taking that E45 the mountain road up through Sweden was unbelievable. Some of the park ups we had, the amount of snow we saw, seeing him in the snow. It just made it really magical and to think from that point onwards that we've got so much more incredible things ahead of us and to go and see the countries that we almost really wanted to see. It's really mad isn't it? I know Sweden has blown us away and we fell in love with it very quickly hence why it's almost been two weeks team that we've been here. But sadly our time in Sweden is over but we've already been discussing this morning that we are most definitely coming back. Yeah 100% yeah. We really have loved every second of being in Sweden. We want to give it more time. We didn't see any of the coast side of Sweden so we're definitely going to be back next year. But it's time to head to Finland now. We've heard some really good things about Finland. We've heard it's a little bit like Sweden but there are some differences so it's going to be so intriguing to see exactly what it looks like, what the people are like. Yeah I'm excited for it. I can't wait but we hope you've enjoyed this episode and we hope you continue to follow our trip up through the Arctic Circle. What emoji are we going to have this week? Oh yeah what are we going to have? The Swedish flag maybe? Yes I love that. That's cool isn't it because that's where we are. If you made it this far in the video pop a Swedish flag in the comments just so that we know you've made it this far. We appreciate every single one of you and we'll see you next time. See ya!