What do you “need” for full time van life?
A Legal Address:
Once problem right away is you need an address for things like van insurance, driving license, travel insurance, NHS and Doctors, vehicle V5, pet passport & Vets, your bank and credit card company amongst many others.
You could use a relative or friend’s address but in our case we don’t want to burden family or friends with this responsibility, plus we have a small amount of finance on the van left to pay over the next 2 years and wouldn’t want this debt to be registered against a family member or friends address.
We looked around and found Van Post who offer this service and for exactly our situation, there fees are quite reasonable considering they can forward post on or scan and email it to you and all for just £220 a year, they can even text you when you get post.
Van insurance:
One thing we found is not all campervan insurances are the same when it comes to european travel, most might give you a few days or even a month or two to drive around europe but we wanted to make sure we could, if we chose to do so , drive around europe for the full year and the best insurance we found which allowed this was The Caravan and Motorhome insurance, which is available for non club members as we are not a member of the club.
Not only was the CMC insurance far cheaper than anywhere else it also gives us 364 days cover in Europe. Our insurance was just over £260 for the year and they were fine with the Van Post address too.
Medical Insurance:
As you travel you do open yourself up to more medical problems than if you just stayed at home, so we wanted to find a medical insurance policy that covered everywhere we wanted to visit for a full year and this is where we found a problem, the most travel duration we found on an insurance policy to offer was 90 days continuous travel, then you had to come back “home” for 30 days before starting another trip for 90 days.
We went with Insure & Go and paid £85 for the 2 of us for the year with good medical and gadget cover too.
Travel Money:
This aspect is all down to fees, spending £s when in other countries involved an exchange rate being calculated on the day you spend and sometimes a transaction fee too, this can all mount up and 3 months way you could have wasted hundreds of £s.
So we chose to setup a Revolut account, you can have a bank account and credit card. You pay money into the bank account and have direct debits like a regular high street bank account. The credit card has to be loaded upfront too, which is great as it means you can load £50 and then you can only spend £50. You get a great mobile app which you use to transfer money to the card and account, it shows you your spending and loads more too.
Importantly for travel though the Revolut card doesn’t charge a transaction fee, so you just use it wherever you are and there are no fees, use it in the UK or europe or USA and it’ll just give you the best exchange rate on that purchase and that it.
They usually charge £5 to setup the card and that covers posting it out to you, but our blog has a link to get you setup without this fee from https://bit.ly/33jH9pH
Storage:
Big Yellow and Safe Store are the two companies we found to be most professional and each offers to price match so once we have a moving date set we will be then seeing who can do the best deal, they offer with our without insurance and easy access to your storage unit.
We won’t be storing furniture, just sentimental items and important documents and then winter / summer clothes and that was perfect for a 25Square foot storage unit which worked out to be around £400 a year. Which we thought was quite reasonable considering the services they offer and the facilities.
Of course you can use a family member or friend to store your things, or maybe evenly distribute your stuff around your friends lofts. For use we wanted to not burden anyone with being responsible for our stuff so the storage unit is our preferred option.
Pet Passport:
With Brexit looming we decided to go belt and braces with cooper and get the usual pet passport with rabies injection and also the additional blood test 30 days later which will allow him into europe if there is a no deal brexit.
Driving License:
For us to travel everywhere we needed to in Europe we’d need an international driving permit, well actually we’d need more than one as they are grouped into countries, so we got a 1968 and a 1949 permit. We also found out our driving licenses only had 1 year left on them they only are valid for 10 years and then you have to get a new photo and get them renewed. So the nice lady at the post office got our driving licenses renewed and we went back and got the permit sorted afterwards.
Each permit is £5.50 for driving license holder and you need a passport type photo for each permit too. The driver’s license renewal fee was around £25 and that included them filling out the forms, taking the new photo and sending it with priority post.
Mobile Data:
I’ve got a video on how to setup the best mobile data hotspot for your van, not then expensive kit from motorhome wifi which is the same gear as in my video but they charge 4 times the price.
I suggest EE network for the best coverage but we have now got the Three unlimited data deal, £10 for the first 6 months and then £20 a month and that works really well for us both working online, we have it setup in the house now as we cancelled sky ready to move out, so we’ve got the entire house running from the little mobile hotspot and using Three unlimited data sim.
Make sure that your phone and data account & sim can be used in roaming mode too, and be aware even with unlimited or 100GB monthly allowance when Roaming in Europe there might be a data cap of as low as 15GB per month, and extra fees for more data.
Vehicle Breakdown Cover:
Most van insurance companies offer this, so just make sure you are covered for european travel and check their travel duration terms. With our van we got Fiat european cover for 3 years but after this we’d go with a company who offered at least 90 days a trip and included hotel and vehicle loan should the van be out of action.
We looked around and you can get really good policies for around £150 a year from websites such as Eurobreakdown.com who offer a range of policies to meet every budget.
Accessories:
This part you might overlook but it’s probably one of the most important aspects.
If you have a gas bottle you should be aware than in europe their bottles are different, so won’t swap your bottles over. If you have LPG refillable bottles or tank then be sure you have the 3 different types of connectors to change the filler neck connector to our UK bayonet fitting. https://amzn.to/2TIZTdC
Carry a multi plug converter, just in case you do end up in a hotel or using the campsite shower block, you’ll need the right mains converter.
If you are going to use electric hookup then make sure you have a euro adaptor and also a cross polarity adaptor too as some sites really do just like to keep you on your ties.
Get a breakdown kit as some countries, like france, have a law that states you must carry certain items in a vehicle, like high vis jacket, spare bulbs, warning triangle and even a breathalyser kit.
Check up on the driving laws in each country, for example your van might be restricted to certain speeds by its weight, or like in Germany when if the traffic stops on the motorway and if you are in the outside lane you must move over as far left as you can to make a lane for emergency vehicles.
Make sure you have a GB sticker and that it’s on the rear left of the vehicle, not the drivers side. Don’t buy other countries stickers and put them on your van as this will not let others know if you are a left hand drive or right hand drive vehicle (which is what the sticker is there to say).
Our monthly budget:
Not really related to what’s needed but we thought we’d include it anyway. We have travelled a fair bit around europe over the past year and these costs are therefore pretty accurate.
Our ongoing monthly costs to live full time in the van are £650 and that includes the Van Post, Storage unit, Insurances, Diesel and LPG, staying on campsites a few nights, laundry services, visiting the gym for workout and showers, mobile phone and data fees, amazon prime, netflix, now tv and also food and groceries. It doesn’t include our van repayment as that would be different for everyone.
