Harsh Reality of Winter Truck Camping in the Arctic

I'm driving to the northernmost point in Europe in the dead of winter and truck camping along the way. There's a lot of really nice bays everywhere but they're just completely covered in a metre of snow. As it turns out, this road trip is challenging and things go wrong. Either my battery has died or my heater has died. The harsh realities are starting to kick in. I don't like the cold. From being unable to find a spot to camp, to shoveling snow, a dead heater I can't camp out here. I never expected it to be easy but the reality of overlanding to the Arctic Circle in winter on my own is starting to catch up with me. Whoa, that was just a huge... God, like a little avalanche of snow that... It must have been a snowplough that had just chucked in in our direction. I mean, it's really tricky driving in conditions like this because you're driving along in the snow and then another truck approaches from the opposite direction and it just flings all this snow at you. It's just like a cover of white. And all you have to guide yourself to stay in your lane are these red poles that stick out of the snow on the right-hand side of the driveway. And that's really the only thing that you can look at to just make sure that you don't skid, that you don't slide off, that you don't go into the snow. So this makes for really tiring driving, really exhausting, like you have to be super focused the entire time. So one of the things that keeps happening as I drive and it's really annoying is that my windscreen wipers keep freezing up, like the ice kind of like freezes up in them. You see, they failed to wipe this really significant part of the windscreen. So I'm gonna have to go outside and clean them for the third time today. So funnily enough, the book that I'm listening to right now is called Endurance by Alfred Lansing and it's basically the story of Ernest Shackleton's expedition to Antarctica in 1915, I think it was. And like it failed and everybody who, like all the men who were on the expedition had to survive a very long time in such incredibly hard conditions on a freaking ice flow for a year. And listening to that book just makes me really appreciate the comforts that I have in this little truck. The fact that it's warm and despite the difficult driving, I'm fine. Even without the book, I think about these things a lot. Endurance, resilience, like how can you know how much you're actually capable of in the face of challenge? Our lives are so comfortable so much of the time that it can be hard to know our own strength. I'm not saying my trip is very extreme in any way, but I do love the challenges, big and small. It throws my way driving to the Arctic Circle in an 18-year-old truck with basically zero modern features. So my windscreen woes continue. There's actually two issues now that I'm seeing. So one is just that there's a whole bunch of ice that keeps accumulating on one side and keeps blocking the wiper from going all the way down. So I'm going to have to go and clear it out. But then another perhaps more serious issue is a crack that has appeared out of nowhere in my windscreen. And it's pretty big. It's approximately the size of my hand. And I don't know much about glass, but I just hope that it doesn't spread. That would be terrible. Also, I really need to pee. I'm in the middle of the road. It doesn't matter. Just do it. You can get up before anyone sees you. Okay. This is probably the most public place I have ever peed in. Yay, we're back on. Today, my goal is to reach the Arctic Circle, a few hours north of where I am right now. After that, I'll still have a very long way to go until the northernmost point in Europe, but the Arctic Circle definitely feels like a big milestone in my journey. So another wiper issue. My wipers are now frozen to the windscreen. It was about to get dark, so I had to turn off onto a country road to try and find a spot to park for the night. Camping out here in the winter isn't always the easiest thing to do because there's a lot of really nice bays everywhere, but they're just completely covered in, you know, a metre of snow. So I've been driving around for the last almost hour unable to find anything, like any bay large enough to feel safe with the truck to have enough space. So I stopped here and I'm just going to have to dig. I think I'm just going to have to shovel some snow away to make a slightly bigger space for the truck. Well, let's get to it. Oh God, yeah, you're going to love this, aren't you? You stink, don't you? A kind of surprising but good benefit of travelling here in the wintertime is that I can just put Vilks meat right here outside of the car in this bag and it stays frozen the entire time. So I've got like 10 kilograms of raw meat in here. Just for you, buddy. Just for you, yeah. A journey like this is bound to have so many different unknowns and it can be really easy to get overwhelmed by that. I've been learning to cultivate stress resilience for a while now and a big help in that is my mindfulness practice, which I make into a habit with Headspace, the pardon of today's video. So ever since I started getting into different mindfulness practices, I've been much more aware of my emotions, which makes it a lot easier to navigate life, you know, face up to different challenges, big or small, and find the joy in little things. And, you know, that makes a lot of sense because meditation practice has been around for millennia and it's been scientifically proven to decrease stress. But all those things need to become a habit in order to actually work, right? So having the Headspace app on my phone and notifications turned on gives me that daily reminder to just take a moment to myself. You know, realistically, I can't meditate every single day because on some really busy days, even 10 minutes seems like too much. But I try to meditate as regularly as possible and it's great that on slow days, the Headspace app lets me do a longer 20-minute session, while on the busiest of days, I just hop in for a few minutes. You get guided meditations, you get breathing exercises, you get eyes-open exercises like mindful runs. I recently tried an intention run on like a pretty lazy day and it was just such a great motivational push. So if you want to try Headspace for yourself, you can try my special offer with my discount code, which is in the description box below. Good morning. I just woke up and I realized that it's cool in here. It's chilly, which means that my heating is off, which means that either my battery has died or my heater has died. Oh, God. Well, it would really suck if my heater died. It would basically make the whole trip impossible. Okay, buddy. Yes, yes, yes. I know you're here. Hello. Good morning. Oh, good morning, Winter Wonderland. Okay, go. Good boy. Oh, my gosh, it's so beautiful out here. But we have to check the heater. So the problem is, if the heater stopped working for whatever reason, that means I would have to get it fixed. To get it fixed, I'd have to find a specialist who knows how to work on these things. And until then, I won't be able to sleep in the car. It's just, it's too cold. So, oh, I see. Oh, yeah. There's an error popping up. Oh, that number is preliminarily telling me that it's a battery issue. Probably the auxiliary battery has died because of the cold. So now, A, I hope the heater is working. I guess we'll only find out later. And B, I hope the car battery is not dead. Let's try and start the car, see if the main battery is still alive, okay? No issues. Oh, smooth. Okay, so auxiliary battery. This guy is happy. Now you are happy, boy. Do you like the snow? Do you like the snow so much? Yes! You know, you really do need a lot of optimism to pull off a trip like this solo. And I think that optimism can be even more powerful than experience. I'm not talking about being naive or forcing yourself to be cheerful. What I mean by optimism is just having the unshakable belief that things will work out. So in a few hours from now, I should reach the Arctic Circle, which is really exciting. Now, don't get me wrong, there's still a very, very long way to go until the North Cape, which is like my ultimate destination for this trip. But I think this is a pretty good milestone, honestly. And kind of crazy to think that this is going to be my first night camping in the truck within the Arctic Circle. The first night out of many. Because for the next month or so, this is just where I'm going to be. So this is the Arctic Circle. Everything you see above the dotted line. I'm traveling in Sweden and Norway, marked pink and yellow. And if you think about it, the next month I'll be so far north that it's actually further north than Iceland, parts of Greenland, and a good chunk of the Yukon and Alaska. Within the Arctic Circle, you get to experience 24-hour darkness in the winter and 24-hour daylight in the summer. So I just got a coffee at the gas station and the lady working there, when she heard about my trip to the North Cape, she was like, wow, you must really like the cold. And I was like, actually, I really don't like the cold. And it's true. Like I spent the last few years actively trying to escape the cold of winter and, you know, wintering in warm places. But that's exactly why I needed to come out here this year. Because this year I really needed to challenge myself. And I really needed to come out here to see what it would be like to spend such a long time in a place that is like way beyond my comfort zone. I don't like the cold. I would much rather be in the sun. I am dead serious. How can you know who you really are if you never push beyond what you thought were your limits? Doing the things we know all our life is fine, I guess. But it will never show you the true extent of your potential, your strength, your power. I, for one, I'm super curious about this. What kind of person will I become when I hit my limit? When the going gets really tough? Will I like her? Will she persevere? Or will she crumble? Okay, I think we're just about to arrive at the Arctic Circle. There it is. Oh my god, the snow is so deep. I did not expect that. It's official! I made it to the Arctic Circle in the middle of winter. That's it. This is it. We're here. And where do we sleep? Well, for now, it doesn't seem to be significantly colder or wilder than any of the other places I've been so far. But I think it's only going to get worse. The further north I go, it's only going to get colder and windier and darker. I would have loved to wild camp out here but I haven't seen a single viable pullout in like 30 miles or so. So I'm just going to see if I can stay at their campsite here in this little village. That should be fun. A bit of human contact can't hurt once in a while. Here we have a little shop and reception. I'm actually quite impressed that they're open in winter but you know, there's a lot of people passing through here, I guess. I'm not the only one. Um, I was wondering, do you have a campsite here, right? Yeah. Can I stay for one night? Now in the wintertime, it's booked all winter. And there's not a single space? No. It's just for one car. It's like a four by four. Okay, okay. They will have space, you think? Yes. Okay. All right, cool. Thanks. So no luck here. The lady at the shop said that they are booked up all winter. Can you imagine? All winter. So I'm gonna have to find somewhere else. Yeah. So I kind of struggle to believe that they don't have a single spot just for one person here. You know, this is not a huge rig but that's fine. I have to move on. So a little bit worried though because yeah, I haven't seen any wild camping options in a while. And the other campsite that they said I could try is not too far. But who knows, maybe they'll say the same thing. And if I can't stay here then I don't know where I'll go. Camping in your car in the winter is tricky because it's so hard to find good spots. With the snow, you know, reaching up to your waist in places. Nothing to do but keep going. Noticing how the chest expands as the lungs fill with air. It'll be fine. Well, to me it looked like there was a lot of space to camp and there was barely anyone there but no can do apparently. The Swedes must really love their winter camping because it seems quite busy. So I kept driving to the nearby settlement of Vågatjärn, hoping that they'll take me in. No, I'm sorry, we don't have any space. We have space only in the cabin. Oh, there's no space to park at all? No. No, no. Do you know where I could go? I have no idea to be honest. So that's a no. I can't camp out here tonight. It seems like all the campsites in this area have a policy where they don't allow overnight hikers, overnight campers because they only rent out their spots seasonally, which really sucks. But there's good news. They agreed to rent me a cabin for a really, really, really, really good price. So I'm going to stay in a cabin tonight. I'm going to have my first shower in like six days. I'm so excited because look at my hair. I'm like ashamed to show you this. It's so, so greasy. Okay, I'm just going to put this back on right now. Okay, forget the sauna. It's okay to stay in a cabin in the Arctic Circle. So this here is the cabin. It has the most spectacular view you've ever seen, but it's still being cleaned, I think they said. So I'm going to take Vilk for a run on this frozen lake in the meantime. So this is a classic example of a potentially really annoying situation turning into a really good situation. This is my cabin. I've already spread out all my stuff. Obviously, there is a TV and a nice sofa and a table and another table. It's actually lovely. It also has a pretty simple but nice kitchen with a sink and an oven and a fridge, of course. And if we just keep going down this way, this is my bedroom right here. And out of this window, I can see Odyssey. And Odyssey has quite the view. Check that out. Very nice. Very, very importantly, there is a shower. Yes. So one of my main issues in life, I guess, is that I gravitate towards thinking that it's either all or nothing. So when they suggested that I can stay in the cabin as opposed to camping, I was like, no. At first, I was like, no, I have to camp. Because that's what this trip is all about. It's about winter camping. And then I was like, oh, actually, it would be really nice to just stay in a cabin. Actually, that sounds really great. Take a shower, just rest, relax, not have to think about a million different things going wrong, potentially. Why not? And so I decided to stay for a couple of days. I'm so excited, excited, so excited. Are you excited? Are you as excited as I am? Oh, God, my lovely dog who hates cuddling. OK, OK, I'll leave you alone now. Laundry day, finally. So I actually haven't washed my clothes in like 10 days, maybe a little bit longer since leaving Poland. So I'm really excited about laundry today. Yes, we're going to start with the eyes open and some big, deep breath. Turns out this extra bit of space and warmth was all I needed to relax, recharge all my batteries, physical and mental, and plan out the upcoming leg of the journey. A shoot I had been planning fell through at the last minute, so I had to reroute and find something else to do. That's just part of it. But one really cool thing came up. As it turns out, this settlement has a mountain cabin far off in the mountains in a place so remote that the only way in is via snowmobile or on foot. And when I heard about it, I knew I had to go and check it out for myself. So that's coming up in the next episode.