*Attempting* To Drive Across Europe in 24 Hours | Van Life (2/2)

Seven countries, 1,934 kilometers and 24 hours of driving is what stood in front of us to reach our homes in England, all the way from Croatia. After realizing that we'd failed van life in part one of this series, we knew that this challenge wasn't unrealistic to do, but it was going to be tough and with the Eurotunnel booked for tomorrow, we knew we didn't have time to waste. We've decided on this trip back to not take the toll roads. It was only going to save us about two hours overall. Oh look at all the gear! Oh my god, let me get it on the camera. Wow, look at Maud, just looking at us. Well there we go. That is why we're not taking toll roads. Yeah. That is so cool. So that's the reason why we're not taking toll roads, because it was going to save us about two hours. It's about the same distance in kilometers and with this type of scenery around. Yeah, I think we'll be able to drive a lot further when we've got so much to look at. Yeah, we learned that on the bike especially, didn't we? Yeah. Slovenia is absolutely gorgeous. Don't look, don't look. I know. Oh man, I've never had this much emotion for a long time. I don't know how I feel at all. Now to save you hearing us ramble about our problems for the next six minutes, I'll just break it down. Our heads were all over the place. The first thing is we had absolutely no idea if we were making the right decision to go home. Part of us felt like we were failing for not making it to the full year away that we'd planned, but also we knew that if we'd stayed, both of us and also the videos would suffer as a result. Because we were making big decisions like this quickly, it made our emotions jump all over the place. The biggest reason as to why we believe going home is the right thing to do is because we've realized over the past six months that we struggle to travel full time slowly. Without having goals and adventures in mind, we just find it boring. Don't get me wrong, lounging at the beach is nice for a while, but pushing ourselves and coming up with things to get us going is definitely how we plan to travel in the future. So driving through all this beauty and possibility for adventure was killing us. Going home to change our living situation was something we knew we had to do to make it possible in the future, and having this massive discussion two minutes into our journey left us feeling a little bit like this. Trying to block the thoughts racing through our minds, we put a few hours into the 24-hour journey that was ahead of us. This... Come on, everyone's skiing! Where are we? We've gone up in elevation a little bit and there's snow around us. The snow drifts at the side of the road are like three, four foot high. It's ridiculous. This... Honestly, the scenery is insane and I've not seen this much snow and it's so normal. Everyone's just so casually... I don't think I've ever seen this much snow in my life. We're in Flatnitz. Flatnitz. I don't know where that is, somewhere in Austria. Because it's so sunny, it's beautiful, but it says it's minus six at the moment and it gets to minus 14 today. So it's definitely not warm. It looks it. It looks like it's probably not that bad. But I even just put my hand out for the camera outside and my watch steamed up when coming back into the van. It was freezing. But this is just crazy. It seems that we might have found the perfect spot to stop for some lunch. We were just driving through and we just came across a massive ski resort. So we've just... Oh my god, I can't even tell. It's so bright. Yeah, it's so bright. But we've just been able to get a spot right in front so we're just watching all the snowboarders and ski... Skiers. Skiers. Skiers come down and we've just had a quick cheese sandwich, got some carrot sticks now and then I'm thinking that we probably need to get going again. I know. We haven't got time to waste. You can't just start munching a carrot while you're recording a clip. Sorry. You've got issues. Oh my god. Oh shit. Can you not? No, I f***ed up here big time. F*** sake. What are you going to do? Because if we just slide and go into a car... No, that's fine. That's what I wanted to happen. I really thought I'd messed us up then. Thank god for that. The thing is, I don't understand this. Like, there's no more cars here. So how do they just all get stuck all the time? Because I don't know why I did it that way around. I wasn't thinking. I shouldn't have drove the way I did then at all. It was that stupid. Sadly, this scenery was about to quickly change as we pulled up to the border of Germany and was met with a rather deflating realisation. What's the destination? England. England. Okay, and where are you coming from? From Austria? Yeah, in Austria. You're here for holidays? No, we've been travelling for a whole year. We've been living in this van for a year. Thank you, bye. Why is it so tall? We're on this for 113 kilometres. Oh, no. Is this the end? Oh, no. We've just passed over into Germany, but this is the first bit of motorway. Oh, no. I think that's the rest of the driving done. I think that's it now. It's just straight road all the way. Yeah. How much more are we going to do today? It's half three. 10 hours and 55 minutes left. Oh, it's still on. 10 hours and 55 minutes. We want to try and leave ourselves like nine, ten, eight or nine hours to do tomorrow. So it'll be, yeah, I think about halfway we'll be about right. Okay. And this is only to Calais, this isn't even to home. Yeah. So. Asphalt. Well, now it's going to be pretty much straight road, watch the sun go down. Yeah. And try and find somewhere to sleep tonight. Oh, I'm going to get so bored so fast. It's fine. We could just talk about how much we love each other. Time will fly. Feeling extremely brain fatigued, we pulled into a truck stop for the Let's just say my cheeks would have come into contact with a biohazard before reaching that toilet seat. A rough night's sleep in sub-zero temperatures woke us up a lot earlier than expected in order to hit the road and get the engine running. Fell asleep at like nine o'clock, woke up at four o'clock, waited two hours for Martha to wake up and then drove for an hour and a half to wait for the sun to come up. And now we've just stopped to have our breakfast. Yeah. We've got seven hours and twenty two minutes left until we reach Calais, which is plenty of time. We need to get there by nine o'clock tonight. If we don't stop, we would reach there by half past three. So we've got plenty of time spare. So we'll have a few more stops today and take time a bit more. The continuous straight roads through Germany slowly whittled down our enthusiasm and it wasn't going to get any better. Today was going to be a test on how long we could stay sane staring at the back of another car. We've finally come across our first proper looking service station in what feels like this whole time that we've been driving. We've got to a McDonald's and I feel like there's a few other bits around here as well. We've just come off the motorway. We're still in Germany. I think we're close to going over the border to Luxembourg, though. So we've just stopped here. Mitch has gone inside just to go to the toilet. So I've just sprayed some perfume because I've been realising that we've been in these thermals since Tuesday, which is really bad because today's Friday and I don't plan on getting out of these thermals until I shower tomorrow when we actually get home. So, yeah, that's really minging and the mood's getting a little low. Not going to lie. It's... what time are we on? Half ten and we've been driving since, I think, six-ish, I think. And, yeah, Mitch is just getting bored of these roads. It's boring. It is really boring. Here's Mitch. See how he's feeling. The van's bloody filthy. What have you been spraying? I just sprayed because I stink. I do too. Have you said that we've not changed our clothes in four days? And I said we've got no plan of changing them either. Oh, I was going to put some different socks on. Do you want my socks? No. Oh, I'm so sick of this straight road. Yeah. I was just saying that it's just not getting any better. No, I don't think it's going to until we get all the way home. It's gone great. There's nothing to look at. We're running out of stuff to talk about. I'm going to ejectocito you in a minute. Yeah, and we didn't sleep well last night. Yeah. But we'll get there. Just a little chip. Like, a millimetre thing. So not too bad. We had to pull over because a car came past us and picked up what sounded like a big stone. And luckily it's not done as much as it sounded like. I think the front of the van's so dirty, you can barely even see from the salt on the road. It's going to need washing when we get back home. That was a bit scary though. Well, I'd rather have been a little bit on the bonnet than the near windscreen. Yeah. But yeah, I think we got lucky there. Mr. Grumpy Pants. We're ready to kill each other. How many more hours have we got? Four and a half to Calais. And then another four and a half. To home. Nine hours. Oh my god. So this is how it's going in the van now. I've had some food. I've got an apple. And I'm going to bribe Mitch with some dark chocolate to be happier. We're doing well. You are. Sat there with your feet up, enjoying the view. Enjoying the view. You can't even say that. You don't even have the interesting conversation. You just talk about what colour the road is. Our brains are fried. I think it still hasn't caught up as to what we're doing. So our brains are just still fried and we're trying to make decisions and talk about things. But we're not ready for that. So it's really hard to keep any sort of interesting conversation going. We're just ready to get home. Yeah. We've got to that point. We're in the stage of acceptance. We're going home. And we're just still under the fact that we've got to sleep in the van again tonight. Which doesn't seem right. But we know we're going home now. So now we just want to get there. It's just a long way, isn't it? A long way. But it's fine. I reckon we get going. Have some dark chocolate. Stupid chocolate. I don't even want it. I always want something that tastes of something. You're so... Oh, you're such hard work. You really are. You said you'd have a couple of squares. That is a couple. There's six. A couple times three. Come on. Let's hit the road. I can't believe it, but we've made it to Dunkirk. We're only 30 minutes away from Calais at this point. And it's only around five o'clock. So since we're so close, we've stopped for some food. We've stopped at a Lidl, actually. We went in there to see if there was anything that looked more appealing than our dinner plans. But there wasn't. So this is really embarrassing to say. But we're having beans and cheese wraps. This is what we're working with. I can't wait for a roast dinner tomorrow. No, day after. Yeah. So this is how glamorous we're spending our final night in the van. But we've still got a fair few hours until our train tonight. I think we're going to try and go there a little bit earlier just to see if we can get on an earlier one. Wow. And then we're going to warm up the wrap a little bit. Don't judge all that because we've not got running water. Oh, yeah. I wonder if it's still not working. I don't know if we can try it. Negative. Oh, I'm ready to get back now. Yeah. How have you felt today? I don't know. Honestly, I couldn't tell you five things that have happened during this drive. My brain has just been like... Like that. Scrambled egg. Like nothing. But we're nearly there. We're nearly there. I'm actually glad that we've got a couple of hours to chill now. Oh, yeah. I just want to turn off for two hours. Yeah. And just watch crap. And then we'll get on the Eurotunnel. I don't even know if this camera is even going to be able to pick up the light. But it's dark. Getting colder. Not as cold as it has been. It's 20 to 8. And we've made ourselves a ginger... I made a ginger tea with some mandarin honey in. And because Mitch is feeling a little bit sick, he says like he just... Well, he just feels ill, like getting ill. And I think it's just because we're just so tired. So we've had this and we're now getting ready to go to the Eurotunnel. It says about half an hour drive from here. I'm feeling okay. I just feel like I'm running. But knowing that I've got to be somewhere and do something is like keeping me from not like crashing. But I said to Mitch as soon as we do crash tonight, like I'm going to crash hard. I'm just hoping that we get a better night's sleep because it'll be a bit warmer in the van. As this morning, my pillow was stuck to the door with frost. I don't know if I mentioned that already today. So that was good. So hopefully that shouldn't happen tonight. As it'll be about, I think about six degrees, hopefully. When we go to sleep. But this lighting's awful. I don't know how much we'll be able to film going on the tunnel. We've both never done it before. So I don't know what it's going to be like. And it's obviously pitch black. But we'll try and film as much as we can. And yeah, make our way to England. It's kind of crazy. Oh, he's been here before. Oh, could we have gone to any of these? I don't know. No, none of them are open. Oh, that one is. They're all the same. Oh, there we go. Yeah. 20 past nine now. So we've got 50 minutes to wait. Hey. Bonsoir. Good evening. I'm fluid in front, aren't I? I bet he thought I was fresh. This is so weird. So. Oh my God. So that's the train track. Where? That. Right. Oh, right. So it's got like loads of different lanes then. We're getting on this. Oh, so this is... It's a proper train station. Why did I expect it to just be one train? I did. I expected it to be like one big like mole train. It just like goes through the middle. This is not why I expected. So there's just like multiple running backwards and forwards. Yeah. Are we getting on? Yeah. Am I on right or am I going? Follow. What? This is insane. How? My thing just crashed into me. Oh my God. Hi. Yes. It's just for us. Yes. Oh, thank you. Yeah. I only just clicked what you said then. Yeah. Look. Mitch, I think we're on the earlier train. The what? We must be on the earlier train. There was one at ten to nine. Oh, they've let us on then. Private carriage. You know, I've just thought it's crazy about this. What's so good about having our van? We could have literally just got in bed and gone sleep for half an hour under the sea. 75 meters under the sea. How crazy is that? I know, if it was any longer, I'd be thinking about it. Although it's literally rocking you to sleep. I didn't realize how much it's moving in this van. Should we make a cup of tea? 75 meters under the sea. Yeah, you want a snack? That's so mad, isn't it? I don't know if this happens to many people. I did read some Google reviews and people said they were let on earlier. But we booked the cheapest one tonight. But I've been let on two times earlier than originally planned. Which has meant that we've saved like 40 odd quid difference. So it's always worth a try coming here. Because they say that you can get here up to two hours early. Oh my god, I think we're going. Oh! What? Oh! Oh yeah, obviously. They open up, don't they? Oh, what have we got? Oh yeah, that's the toilet. Thank you. It's like the smallest train ever! There was like four people on it. There was like no... What? What the hell? After the excitement quickly wore off, we crashed just like we expected to. We were hoping to make it past London to help with the traffic. But we couldn't make it far at all. So we parked up and hit the road early in the morning to make the final stint home. Thanks. The biggest coffee we've had in the past seven months. And it was no other than a McDonald's very cheap black coffee. And it's waking me up. It feels good. It felt really nice to be able to have that. I just feel so much more alive today. Yeah. Feeling so much better. We've both got a really good night's sleep. And luckily, I mean, I think it was like six degrees all of last night. And we were just saying the difference in this van. When it's like literally six degrees difference from like freezing to that. It makes such a difference. We weren't cold. We're able to take layers off. And it was just so much more comfortable staying in it. Which just made for us to both have a really good night's sleep. So we're feeling, feeling alive. And it's five to eight in the morning. And we're about two hours off from being home. So we're just sat here chatting, trying to... Which is happening in our brains all the time. We've got so many plans for this year. And like we can't pursue them all at once. We need to sit down and work stuff out. And all this drive has been is our brains constantly ticking. And not being able to do anything about it. Which is another reason why it's been so hard. But why we want to get back so fast. Yeah, yeah. We've got so many ideas. But I think today is the first day that we're actually like bouncing ideas and plans off each other. Whereas the past two days because we've been so sleep deprived. And just confused as to what the hell is going on. Nothing's gone anywhere. And then now like with caffeine and a bit of sleep. We're like bouncing so many ideas. And we're like we just want to get back. We want to take this weekend to spend with seeing friends and family. And then come Monday we get to work, get scheming, get planning. But we need to tell ourselves to just relax and enjoy this moment of seeing family first. We're four minutes away from being at my parents house. 24 hours in the past two days. Not going to lie, I'm going to be very happy to get out of this one. And I bet you're going to be very happy to stop driving. It's really weird. Very weird mixture of emotions. We were just saying a week ago we were in Hanoi. So being here it's kind of messing with my mind a little bit. There's a lot of anticipation now of what's to come though isn't there? Like that's the only thing that we can look forward to. With how much there is to look forward to. Yeah, yeah. It's so weird going back and knowing that this is just like a temporary stay. It'll be nice to be sat somewhere for just a little while and not have to move. It literally feels like the other day but here. I don't know why I feel nervous. Yeah, I feel nervous. How many of you feel nervous to see family? I don't know. I'm so excited for a cup of tea. What an emotional roller coaster it has been. If you've made it this far, thank you for coming along for the journey with us. We can't express the excitement that we have for what's to come this year. So we really hope you stick around and subscribe to see the next adventure unfold.