Want to tour Europe with your camper? WATCH THIS FIRST!

Are you heading into Europe? Are you a little bit concerned about the low emission zones and you're not entirely sure what to do and you're a little confused and overwhelmed by the entire thing? Then this video is for you. Hey I'm Kat and welcome to Wandering Bird where we share tips and tricks for motor homers and campervaners exploring the UK and Europe and today we're talking all about low emission zones. Now this does apply to the UK, there are definitely some zones popping up all over the place. Portsmouth is one near where I live that has become a thing lately but mostly we're going to be focusing on Europe although the ways that you find out about them applies to both the UK and Europe so just because I focus on Europe don't think that you can't look at it for the UK as well. Before I dive in if you're new to the channel hi welcome we share tips for motor homing and campervanning and if you'd like to see more by all means hit subscribe. Okay let's dive in. So let's talk about low emission zones. First of all what are they? A low emission zone has been set up by either the government or the local council to reduce pollution. It's that simple and the main way that they are doing that is by restricting high polluting vehicles coming into the confines of normally a city, normally the biggest city. So who does this apply to? You can assume as a general overview it applies to pretty much all road users apart from cyclists and the way that you know how it applies to you is going to be down to the individual scheme and also the category that you've got on your logbook and we'll get to that shortly. Some of these are closed completely to vehicles of a certain pollution category. Some of these have set hours that you can and cannot enter through the city and some of them you have to buy an emission sticker before you enter in order to be allowed to enter and not get a fine. I'm going to start this off with an answer to a question that I get all the time. In Europe the crit air stickers are often called a vignette and a lot of people seem to be getting confused by a vignette for low emission zone and a vignette for the toll roads. They are not the same thing. If you are visiting somewhere that uses a vignette for the toll roads like Switzerland or Austria you pay for them at the border you will get the sticker on your windscreen you still need the vignette to get your stickers for the low emission zones if you are going to be traveling to a low emission zone. I just want to make it really clear at the outset that they are not the same thing and I know a lot of people have been getting confused about that because just because you've got one doesn't mean it covers you for the other. The other thing I'd like to say is we have been touring Europe for several years now and we have never ever had a low emission zone sticker. Not once! Now I'll admit we don't go to the big cities and we tend to prefer the mountains and the wild areas so we avoid the zones quite easily. It's not like we are actively driving around them we just don't go to them. But you do not have to have a low emission zone sticker to go to France or to go to Germany or to go anywhere to be fair. If you're not going to go to anywhere city don't even worry about it turn this video off go get yourself a cup of tea and have a choccy biscuit you have made your day. However if you don't know where you're going to go if you do enjoy going to cities or if you're going specifically to somewhere like Paris and you know although I wouldn't recommend driving into Paris with a motorhome or campervan park outside the zone get public transport in don't get a low emission zone sticker and save yourself a headache. That's my top tip for the day don't drive into these big cities with your big motorhome it'll make your life so much easier if you don't. Having said that of course we have the motorhome and we have two motorbikes on the back. If we decided to park up outside Paris and drive our motorbike into Paris I'm not sure I'm that brave either in fairness but just say we did we would need low emission zone stickers on those bikes we need one each so it is one per vehicle. In Germany it doesn't seem to apply so much to motorcyclists but definitely in France it does apply to motorcyclists so bear that in mind. Right I hope that all makes sense let me get to the bit that everyone really needs to know about which is how you find out about them. Now there is a website I will leave the link in the notes called urban access regulations and they have this fantastic map which basically tells you all the different schemes all across the UK and Europe and what you need to do to comply. One thing that a lot of people seem to be getting quite confused with not necessarily for the UK but certainly for Europe is you only need one sticker to cover you for all the zones say in France and then you only need one sticker for all the zones to cover you in Germany. So you don't need I can't remember how many of them I think six or seven different cities in France that have got a low emission zone on them you don't need a sticker per city it's just one that covers the whole of France and to be honest at the moment including postage I think it's about five euros it might even be less than five euros to get your sticker for a whole of France. So if you aren't sure or you think oh I might just skirt it or we might pop in we don't know our plans yet just get one. They can take up to six weeks according to their website most people tend to get them between two or three weeks but you do need to get them before you go and they won't send them to you as you're traveling unless you have a proper address that you can get it sent to and can collect it from there. So of course if you're visiting family or whatever you can get it sent to them but generally you need a proper address that you can get it sent to so that is definitely something to plan before you go. So how do you get these? There are countless spam websites that are set up and admittedly they're not all going to steal your money and then you'll never hear from them again but they've been set up to charge you a fee for getting a low emission sticker and they charge you a heck of a lot of money. If you're on the site that is trying to charge you more than a few euros you're on the wrong site and I will leave a link to my post that's got the links for France and Germany and also to the Urban Access Regulations website and those are the proper government websites. The Urban Access Regulations website isn't a government website but that has got the links on it to the proper government ones. Make sure you use those and not a spammy one that's got an ad at the top of Google or something because you'll end up paying way more money than you need to. So the government ones only cost a few euros they do take a few weeks to arrive so you do need to plan that into your schedule as soon as you possibly can. So what do you need to do to get one of these tickets and let's talk about France to give you an example so that you can work through the website with me. There are a few things that you need to have before you sit down to order your sticker and let me read from my list so I make sure I get it right. You need to know your vehicle registration number. You also need to know your date of first registration and you need to know your vehicle category. Now that is found on your logbook and it can be found a couple of places depending on how old your vehicle is how old your logbook is but you will find on there somewhere a vehicle category and that's the category that you are. You also need to know your fuel source of your petrol of your diesel you need to know your VIN number again you'll find that on your logbook. You need to know the make of your vehicle and you need to know your euro standard emission also found on your logbook. You will need to provide an upload in pdf or photograph png of your logbook when you apply for it and that's so they can make sure you're not making this all up and that the vehicle is as you say it is and that literally means so you can you can take a photograph and then you can change that into a pdf but most of them will just accept literally take a photo with your smartphone and airdrop it to your laptop or email it to your laptop and then you can attach that to your application. One thing that a lot of people get confused with and I agree the way that they word a lot of these websites is a bit confusing and you can translate them all by the way they've normally got the en or the little union jack flag on them so definitely worth translating them but one thing that seemed to confuse a lot of people is for private motorhomes and campervans you are a private car. Yes I'm aware that a motorhome isn't a car but for the purposes of the application you are a private car not a commercial vehicle unless of course you are actually a commercial vehicle but for most of us we are under the private car category. So in France they've got six categories from I think it goes from zero to five because of course that makes sense and zero is lovely and clean and green and five is oh my god you're an awful horrible diesel smelly vehicle um so wherever that wherever you fall on that scale just make sure you know where you are. In Germany they have three um so it makes it a little bit easier but generally only green ones are allowed into the middle of the cities that are affected and the amber or yellow or whatever they call it and the red ones are not. So again the German process is very very similar in the way that you apply for it and again it takes a certain amount of time to get it but just beware that it will be a slightly different scheme and you'll have to obey slightly different rules if you are crossing from France into Germany. So when you've gone through all that and you've paid they take a wide variety of cards so you should definitely have one that works for you then you have to sit back and wait. It generally takes I mean they say it could take up to four to six weeks but generally takes most people that I've spoken to two to three weeks so it is quite a long time so definitely try and get that done as soon as possible. Once you've got it it is then valid for the lifetime of that vehicle providing nothing changes on it. You don't need to worry about ordering it a year before you're planning on going on your trip it doesn't expire you just keep the same one make sure you've fitted it properly on your windscreen I'm going to keep reiterating that because they're very hot on it but once it's fitted on your windscreen and as long as the sticker stays intact so it doesn't peel it's not faded it's easy to read all that stuff then you don't need to get another one at all it just stays there and you can go and out of the zones according to any other rules that might be there as often as you like. Of course if you don't purchase a sticker and you enter one of the zones then you are going to get fined and again they're quite hot on that so don't do that. If you are traveling to Europe don't forget to grab your Europe travel checklist so that you make sure you have everything that you need with you before you go. I hope you found that useful if you did a thumbs up is always very much appreciated and if you are new to the channel and you'd like to get more helpful videos like this then by all means hit subscribe. Thank you as always for your time and I'll see you on the next video bye