🛑 EUROPE TRAVEL: Are YOU making these mistakes?

Planning a trip to Europe? Make sure you don't make any of these 10 common mistakes. Hi I'm Kat and welcome to Wandering Bird where we share tips and tricks for motor homing and road trips. Now I know a lot of you are planning epic adventures into Europe this year and I wanted to share some of the most common mistakes that people make and a few that I have made myself. You ready? Let's dive in. Number one, verify your insurance coverage. This is so simple and yet something so many people overlook. Usually if you're in the UK you've just got UK only cover for your motorhome because most people don't go abroad and then suddenly you decide you're going to go abroad and you completely forget to upgrade or tell your insurance company. So if you are going to go abroad and you don't have European cover make sure you get that added to your policy. You don't need to bring physical proof of your insurance but you do need to make sure you know your insurance number just in case you have a little accident. Number two, underestimating driving distances. Now this is something I personally am so guilty of. It may sound obvious but Europe is shoot like shoot shoot and you sort of look at a map and go yeah I can do 500 miles each day not a problem at all and you can that's perfectly doable but you're not going to see anything if you do that much driving. Don't forget of course that there are two ways you can approach your tour. You can either choose to use motorways or toll roads and they are generally going to be quicker but you're not going to see so much of the country that you're exploring or you can take the more scenic route but it's the slower more scenic route which means you're not going to travel so far in however much time you've got each day to travel and that's how I would organise your trip. Say I want to go two or three hours driving I don't recommend you do many days more driving than that because it does get really tiring and just go as far as you can. Now if you don't have to book all your campsites up in advance it really helps if you can use the air system or something like that you can choose how far you want to travel each day if the weather's not great you don't want to drive very far that's fine or if the weather's amazing and you want to stay and use that time to explore outside you've got much more flexibility if you just go on the number of hours you want to drive rather than the actual miles you want to cover. I find that puts me under so much pressure oh I've got to do another 100 miles so I can have a break and that's not a good mental place to be driving a large motorhome in. Number three assuming that every country in Europe uses the euro they do not most countries in the EU use the euro but not every country in Europe is in the EU us included other notable countries and I'm going to read my list here to make sure I get it right that don't use the euro in Europe are Norway because they're not in the EU and then you've also got Bulgaria the Czech Republic Denmark Hungary Poland Romania and Sweden and of course us. Number four not having a plan for your LPG now whether you use refillable bottles or whether you use exchangeable bottles they will not work the same in Europe as they do in the UK and I am so guilty this is one of the biggest mistakes that I made when I first started touring Europe was I didn't realize that the connectors we have in the UK don't work or don't fit anything else in the rest of Europe shocking I know even better the ones in France aren't the same as the ones in Germany and the ones in Germany aren't the same as the ones in Spain it's all good it's all good so if you have refillable systems whether that's a refillable tank or refillable bottles and that is by far your easiest option you need to make sure you've got three different types of connectors that go on the nozzle for the refillable systems and then when you fit get your system fitted whatever system you choose to go with flow I've got flow gas have I got flow gas I don't know which one I've got big yellow ones I'm losing my marbles I can't remember the name of my bottles anyway when I got them fitted they had a pack for Europe so that had the three little nozzles you just screw them in depending on the country that you're in and you can get the nozzle to fit onto your UK system easy peasy if you have got exchangeable bottles what you need to do is take pigtails which basically the hoses that go from the bottle into your system into the motorhome and you will have to change the little pigtail hose depending on the country that you were in for to fit the bottle that you have got don't forget of course if you are doing an exchangeable bottle you're probably going to have to leave one of your UK bottles behind unless you only take one with you assuming you've got space for two in your van and then you're going to have to pay the deposit to get the new bottle you're going to have to give some sort of address although some places do take a campsite address and then if you go from one country to another country those systems aren't going to work either so you're either going to have to leave that exchangeable bottle behind in the new country and then pay again the deposit and go through the whole system all over again or it all gets very confusing which is why if you're going to do a lot of touring in Europe I would suggest investing in a refillable system it's so much simpler and I know things are a little bit tough in the UK at the moment but they are although they might be disappearing from service stations there are plans in place apparently for motorhome centres and other things to get LPG tanks fitted so I don't believe it's going to be absolutely dire I've still got a refillable system in my van and I'm planning on keeping it that way for now number five not bringing the correct gear with you when you go into Europe there are rules in Europe about things that you have to have you have to carry certain things in your van like a high vis jacket and a warning triangle and loads of other stuff that we don't have here in the UK if you want a full free checklist of everything you need so you don't forget anything I'll leave the link below you can find that from the wandering bird website you can just download that and check it all off as you go to make sure you've got everything that you need the same also applies with a little bit of paperwork but that's on that checklist as well number six only using campsites so I mentioned this briefly before when you're planning a route but if you only use campsites you miss a little bit of the freedom and the flexibility that Europe is so amazing for seriously I love motorhoming around Europe and one of the biggest reasons for that is because it's so easy to make it up as you go along and wander and wing it as I say um but you can because of the air system which are approved motorhome parking spots I'll leave a video here somewhere wherever the link comes up about all about what the airs are and how you use them and how you find them but they make it so easy to travel from place to place without booking a campsite months in advance of course if you don't want to travel around and you just want to go to one place and you want to be by a beach or by a place with a swimming pool or somewhere with a surf school or something like that on the Euro Disney book that up book that up as far in advance you possibly can because places like that book up so far and if you don't want to tour around that's absolutely fine but just be aware that you will have to book that up far in advance especially if you're going on the school holidays number seven not having a system for the tolls or the vignettes now I'm not talking about crit air stickers here I'm talking about tolls or vignettes which is the price that you pay for using motorways across Europe so places like France have tolls places like Switzerland have a vignette system if you're going to use the tolls especially if you're traveling on your own and you have a right-hand drive like I do I highly recommend you get a little toll beeper thing toll pass I use Emovis they're brilliant you just have it up there in the windscreen and it beeps as you go through and they charge you and on you go otherwise you have to do that crazy dash where you jump out on the right hand side you come back to the left you pay for the toll then the barrier comes up then you come back to the van it's all very exciting so getting a toll pass removes all of that vignettes aren't so much of an issue because obviously you pull up if you're going to go to a border or you go to a garage or gas station you can pay for them there it's not such an issue especially if you're traveling on your own but make sure you do have a system for the tolls number eight number eight worrying too much about things like angle more stickers or driving on the wrong side of the road so angle more stickers if you're not over three and a half tons disregard them completely if you are over three and a half tons and you're not going through france apart from that tiny little bit off the tunnel before you head into belgium or germany don't worry about them the only time you need to worry about angle more stickers if you're going into built-up areas in france so if you're going to be spending i don't know a few days in france and you're going to go into built-up areas then yes put an angle more sticker if your vehicle is over three and a half tons you can just put them on with glue tack or sticky pads or something like that so that you can then take them off again tv not magnetic ones your van's not magnetic and as for driving on the wrong side of the road within about 20 minutes you'll be absolutely fine don't forget that the road system in europe is set up to be on the other side of the road so all the roundabouts got arrows on all the flows work that way you don't have to think about it as much as you think you do and i've always had a right-hand drive vehicle i've never worried about it the only time it can be a little bit difficult when you're traveling on your own is when you're behind a slow moving vehicle on a single track lane you have to do that scary pull out oh my goodness there's a lorry coming pull back in again um that's the only time when it's a real bomb but otherwise driving in europe is great like i say within a short period of time you're not going to notice any difference from driving in the uk the trouble comes when you come back to the uk and you have that moment like i can't remember what side of the road i'm supposed to be on you have to really think about it but otherwise you'll be brilliant i promise you it's not that scary number nine being overloaded so many people don't think about the weight of their van and although in the uk we don't get that many checks i'm not going to say never because i know a few people have been but we don't have as many checks but in europe they do especially on the main road and they do pull foreign motorhomes over and they do have the little way pads scales where they can tell how much your vehicle weighs and they will make you take stuff off your motorhome and leave it at the side of the road before you can continue your journey so please please when you have packed up your vehicle make sure you take it to a way bridge somewhere in the uk make sure you're not overweight don't forget of course you don't have to drive with a full water tank and indeed if you're going somewhere like the mountains i don't recommend that you do and you don't have to drive with a full fuel tank although again if you're going to the mountains i do recommend that you do that's a lot of weight if you have a full water tank and a full fuel tank so you can reduce the weight in those in order to have extra weight elsewhere but please make sure you're not overloaded otherwise it can invalidate your insurance and mean that you have to leave a load of stuff behind in europe and lastly one of the biggest mistakes that people make when they are touring europe for the first time is not researching public holidays france especially are notorious for their public holidays everything shuts down like everything shuts down you might be able to get fuel at a main motorway service station but otherwise no shops no bakeries no boulangeries nothing is open on public holidays which can make it really difficult if you haven't bought certain types of food over and you need it and then you suddenly arrive and it's a public holiday definitely something to think about that a lot of people forget so make sure you research public holidays on the countries that you're going to be in or driving through and lastly is a little bonus tip a lot of people forget to do a prop of checks so make sure before you go you've done all your maintenance checks make sure your vehicle is ready for your long drive again if you want a checklist for this to help you maybe to go through everything on your van i'll leave it in the links below along with the europe checklist now if you are heading to europe and you're confused about the schengen zone the 1980 day rule watch this video it will explain exactly how the process works and how you can keep track of it in a really simple way i hope you found that video useful if you've got any other tips or comments please do leave them below and i'll see you on the next video take care bye