I Camped on My Dream Property… And Got Chased Off

It has been a very eventful week in my life. Summer is nearing its end here in the mountains of Italy. The days are hot, heavy and humid and I've been driving around to see if I can find a piece of land to start my dream of building an off-grid homestead. Back in May I had already found my dream plot in the dollar mines, the one that I haven't been able to stop thinking about since. And then after many weeks of silence I finally heard back last week. Guys, the agent for my dream property has replied to me after one freaking month and she wants us to come back and see the property again and meet the owner. I might be buying my dream place, what the hell? So this week I'm exploring a different corner of these mountains to see what else is out there. I'm reuniting with Risi and we're going back to my dream place to see it together for the first time. And honestly it's been a roller coaster of emotions navigating this biggest decision of my life so far. This episode was made possible by Quivity. So this week is a very exciting week because I'm going back to see my dream property again and we're going to meet the owner, or the owner's son rather because the owner is 90 years old and his children are handling the sale for that reason. And he's also allowed us to camp at the property which is something we've really wanted to do so I'm very excited about that. However before we do that we're going to look at another property in a new area which I've been exploring for the last couple of days. Still in the eastern alps but in a different mountain range. The reason being that there's a lot of cheap pieces of land here. The one I've been looking at has seven acres of natural woodland which is really nice and it's got a ruin to be restored which is what we want to do. And it's 90 000 euros which is kind of on the upper end of the budget we were imagining. But the land looks really nice, the house looks like it needs quite a bit of work but it could be nice once it's done. So I'm on my way to a park up to meet Rissi and then later today we're gonna go and look at the place. We can just live in this bit, this is intact. What do we think? Um I don't think I would take that one for free. That sounds so mean. I mean I think I agree. Like I was looking at the place and while I can see the potential of the house it's a very magical looking house especially from the outside with all the ivy and how overgrown it is. I can see the potential but I was feeling overwhelmed just thinking about how much work it needs. Yeah I mean there's two big parts to it. The first is access. Yeah there's no access road. We had to walk 300 meters to get from the nearest neighbor to the property and yet there's also a neighbor which is another thing we don't necessarily want. It needs so much work. Yeah. Half the building has fallen apart so I think you said the cement didn't feel great. Yeah even the bit that was still standing. This isn't something I know loads about but I sort of like had a little scratchy on the cement and it just sort of like crumbled apart you know. I think it's probably too old and you would probably need to rebuild most of it. Yeah and I'm not sure I would be ready to knock most of it down and start again. We don't really want to spend more than three or four years building a house and that's more of a six or seven year project at least I think. Maybe longer and you would need a lot more professionals as well. We want to do as much bit ourselves as we can and because so much of that would be structural we would need paid professionals to do a lot of the structural stuff. You need the sticker to say that it's safe you know. I do like this town that it's near. The nearest town feels quite nice. It's a nice town but I don't really feel drawn here you know. I feel like the other area I felt kind of a connection to that place and I can't really explain why. I just really like the mountains there. I really like the weather there and the river and this area. It's nice but it doesn't speak to me on a deeper level you know. It feels less wild I would say. Like it feels much more cultivated here. Yeah whereas like the other area also has towns nearby and tourist infrastructure and all that but there's a lot more wild nature compared to here. This area is a bit more farmy and a bit more towny. It's perfectly lovely. It's just not 100% what we want. The search continues. We're going to look at a few more places and the next place we visit is going to be my dream place and you're going to see it for the first time which is so exciting. Yeah you've already saw it back in May a few months ago. And I know the area because we camped in the area a while ago now. It was winter 2024. Yeah but first time seeing the property other than through photos and videos. Yeah how are you feeling about it? It's quite exciting. Yeah. You had a little cry last time you saw it. Yeah I think I'm going to have a cry again when we see it together. Our search for a home has taken us to over 10 countries in the last three years and a lot of that time we have spent hundreds of miles apart as we navigated building a life together whilst also pursuing our individual dreams and interests. A big part of how our relationship has continued to grow and thrive despite so much time apart is constant communication and openly voicing our hopes, fears and concerns during our many hours on the phone together which has been made possible by my travel e-sim from Quiberty who are the longest supporter of this channel and sponsoring this episode. Quiberty works in over 190 countries and everything is digital. There's no physical sim so you don't have to deal with queuing in the nearest village phone shop or getting into a new contract all the time. You just pick a plan, scan the QR code and you're online within minutes. I'm on a global plan and this summer I crossed from Sweden into Norway, Denmark, Germany, Austria and Italy and my data has just come with me the whole way. And when you travel in a lot of remote places like me that's not just convenient, it also means having access to maps, weather forecasts and being able to reach the people you love when your plans change. If you want to try Quiberty you can get 15% off your travel e-sim with my code ROOTS15 and I'll also leave the link down in the video description. So we had a change in plans because the owner isn't doing very well health-wise at the moment and his son is looking after him. So the agent has told us to just go to the property and camp there and just explore and we'll meet the owner another day and go back with land surveyor and yeah I'll be able to show Rossi around the property for the first time and we'll have the place all to ourselves for the rest of the day and night which is very exciting. I'm very nervous for you to see it. In case I don't like it. In case you don't like it well I don't know maybe there's like some red flags that I hadn't noticed before that you will point out and that will kind of burst the dream I don't know but I guess we'll see. I've decided to walk up the road with Heidi and let Rossi drive on his own because I'm an anxious passenger at the best of times. Confident driver, anxious passenger and this road is very narrow, windy and steep and takes quite a bit of maneuvering in a van and Heidi was getting anxious too so we're just going to walk up the few kilometers and meet Rossi at the top. He reckons I won't be able to get my van up here which would be really sad because that was one of the things that made this place appealing to me because I thought I could have the van up here. I thought the road was big enough. It is big enough but I think it's too steep so this might be the first reality check of many. Maybe I'll just have to get a small 4x4 and leave the van somewhere else for trips. It's not a deal breaker but I'm definitely not glad about it. It's nice. He hasn't seen the house yet. It was an adventure to get here. Yeah. And I was like this had better be worth all of this hassle as I was like zigzagging my way up janky road. I got here and I was like okay it's pretty nice. It is way nicer than anything else we've looked at. You want to come and see our potential future kitchen? It's very spacious. It is very spacious. It is nice and cool in here. It's really cool. It's like 30 degrees today but it's really nice and cool in here. So all of this has been redone like 30 years ago when the guy bought the place so it's in pretty good condition structurally. Just so I can keep an eye on you when you're cooking. That's fixable. Well there are a few small things that need fixing because like obviously he did it 30 years ago and while stone houses have like good longevity it hasn't been maintained since then. Yeah. So this would be your office I thought. Nice. Nice and cool. Yeah. Sort of the back of the house. Yeah. Nice forest views. You like it? I liked it yeah. Would you like this as your office? I would like it as my office. Nice and high roof as well. That's another thing. A lot of older buildings don't have such a high ceiling. Very important after living in a van. Priorities. Well it doesn't have to be as tall as this but it is nice. This is the living area and I guess we would build a mezzanine in here. This would be the bathroom probably. Yeah. And then there's the loft upstairs. I was thinking this would be a good library. Yeah you can just have like bookshelves going all the way up the wall. Yeah well that's what I thought. So that's going to be our balcony view. Yeah and it goes from the living room all the way to the bedroom which is super nice. Yeah. I had a balcony growing up but I lived in a tower block so it was a bit less nice. You don't do balconies in the UK really. Do you like it here Heidi Pye? What's that? You like it here? Yeah. Can I show you the food garden? If we take down this hazel which we can use for a variety of things then all of this could be the food garden. I haven't been to this part before that's exciting. Yeah so all of this could be the garden which is quite a lot of space. Yeah. And it's sunny. It gets a lot of sun because this bit is southwest facing. We found mushrooms but we don't know what they are. Are there any mushroom experts in the comments that can tell us what these mushrooms are? Oh my goodness there are so many. There's so many mushrooms here. Oh oh my goodness there's so many mushrooms here. That's a different mushroom yeah. Wow how are you feeling about it? Uh I like it. I like it a lot which almost makes it a bit scary because then it starts to feel like... Starts to feel real. Yeah. I'm going to take my shoes off and make myself at home. It's ridiculous how like some places just immediately make you feel at home when you arrive there. Whenever I come to this place just my whole nervous system just relaxes and I feel very at home here. Throughout this whole process I've been trying not to get too attached to it but as I said before I think that ship has sailed a long time ago. I mean I think Lizzie really likes it. Nice fringe. Got rock star hair. You do. Owls hair. We are abandoning the tent because we are surrounded by wild boar. Stay away! You can hear them screaming all around us. They were coming really close. Stay away! I don't think that they're actually dangerous. Well if they feel threatened they can be. I don't think that they would attack them but still a bit scary because they can f**k you up. Yeah. Stay away! So Rissi is just grabbing the tent stuff and I'm shouting for them to stay away. Seems to be working. They were arguing with me a little bit and shouting back but I think they're... There's one right there. It was right there. Okay I'm in bed. It's going to be cozy because Rissi only has a single bed but chivalrous as he is he has offered to sleep on the floor. I guess if there's like a more established human presence they're not going to come here as often. The roots are in the wild. It's got to be wild. That's the whole point. Yeah. We're definitely safe in the van so we're going to get comfy and go to sleep I guess. Are you going to be comfortable down there? Not really but it's not as bad as I thought it would be I've slept on worse. Oh thank you my knight in shining armour. You would probably be comfier because you're not as tall but... Yeah I don't want to sleep on the floor. I'm sorry. Yeah well I don't want to sleep on the floor either Jess. I'm not much of a princess but I'm a bit of a princess with some things. I can't hear them anymore. I think I scared them away. I'd be scared of you too. Hopefully we'll have an uneventful night now. Good night my love. Good night. Hope you all sleep well down there. I do have a peanut left. Okay that's good to know. Thank you. So that was an interesting night. It was a thunderstorm at like... I don't know what time it was but it was in the middle of the night. There was a thunderstorm and heavy rain and Risley just slept through it. He didn't even notice. I saw that there was like the way that mountains seem to capture lightning. It really kind of like bounces around the valley. Before we could even hear it or feel like it was going to rain I could see the occasional flash outside. Yeah as we were going to sleep you could see like the sky flicker. It was very beautiful. It looked so cool. The boar last night were crazy. I think because there haven't been people around here for at least 30 years. They just think it's their territory. I think if like if someone's here they will just stop coming so much. But yeah they were just like making a little noise. We were properly surrounded. Yeah they were on all sides. So we were thinking let's just go into the tent. They're not going to do anything to the tent. But then they were all around you were like okay no. Yeah I've slept in a tent when there's boar around before and it's fine if there's just like a boar passing by or something like that. But there were so many. It was the number that sort of like made me a bit uneasy more than anything. I know they're not aggressive towards humans but it's still it's like it's a lot of boar. Yeah there were at least four or five. Yeah definitely a very adventurous first night. It's nice that it's so wild though. I do like that. I really like how wild it is. I feel like in the Alps the Alps have beautiful nature but most places are not very wild but this place is properly wild. You've got the village and the valley a few kilometers down the mountain but behind us it's just mountains. It's just wilderness for miles and miles and miles. I think we're going to drink our coffee and then explore the hiking trails nearby because you can from the property you can walk all the way up the mountain. Oh you're out of coffee. Oh that's sad. Do you want to make more? I want more coffee. I would quite like more coffee and then we can have some breakfast. We can have pasta for breakfast and then we can explore the hiking trails. I think I would like that. Bye house. I am sad to leave. Yeah. I want it. You want it. I want it. It looked like you were like a little bit uncertain at the start but the more time you spent here the more certain you were. Well it's a lot of work. Yeah. But I've just been busy so the concept of taking on a lot of work now is daunting but in six months time I'm sure I'll be. Well we probably wouldn't start until next spring realistically if we even if we can even overcome the Italian bureaucracy by then. Yeah we've got to buy it first. Yeah well let's hope we can buy it. Yeah. After spending that first night on the property we did really feel like that place was the one and the more we explored the local area the more we fell in love with its many corners of wilderness cold mountain rivers and dramatic peaks all around and we were determined to try and scrape together every single penny to try and make that dream work. Okay guys we are getting ready to drive to the city this morning where we will meet the agent and negotiate on the price a little bit. We really feel like that property is the place to be for us because nothing we've seen either in Italy or Norway has even come close to how beautiful and wild and untouched that place is so we want to try and get it. It's beyond the budget that we had envisioned but we might come to an agreement with the owner and do owner financing rather than a mortgage and that would be our preference as well because we don't like the idea of a mortgage and giving money to a bank so we would much rather pay interest to a local family. So we'll keep you guys posted both on here and on Patreon and I think even if things do move in the right direction it's going to be such a slow process that we're going to be on the road for at least another half a year and even that is hopeful I think. But we'll see. I hope you enjoyed the glimpses of the property and following this entire process and I will see you next week. Okay, bye!