When we first picked up the keys to our motorhome in Europe, we had visions of waking up to Alpine sunrises every morning, sipping espresso in cobblestone piazzas every afternoon, and effortlessly gliding between countries like characters in a high-budget travel documentary.
After 365 days, thousands of kilometres, and more than a few ‘where do we empty this toilet?’ moments, the reality looks a bit different. Don’t get us wrong — it has been the most life-changing experience of our lives. But the lessons we’ve learned weren’t found on a fancy Instagram reel. They were found in the rainy Tuesdays in industrial car parks and the long stretches of highway between the “Must-See” sights.
Along with the iconic sights and the stretches of highway in between there is a heck of a lot of learning and bonding as a family that makes the European motorhome journey an adventure.
So if you’re planning your own European escape and looking into buying a motorhome in Europe, here is the unfiltered truth and a few tips from a year on the road.
Hey! We are AWAY WITH THE STEINERS. Want to know more about buying a motorhome in Europe?
Lessons Before Motorhome Life in Europe
Remember that before buying a motorhome in Europe as a New Zealand family, we’d already been on the road travelling around Asia, Pacific and the Middle East for three years. That is three years of fulltime travel. That’s a lot of learning already!
But these tips started when we arrived in Europe with the dream of driving to every country in the European mainland continent. We rocked in to the Netherlands, bought a campervan in Europe and set off to do it.
Here are a few (honest) lessons and the highlights that come with travel in a motorhome in Europe.
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1. You Learn to Live Closely (Like, Really Close)
In a traditional house, ‘personal space’ is a room. In a motorhome, personal space is putting on your headphones and closing your eyes. When you live in 12 square meters with your partner and kids, there is nowhere to hide. You learn each other’s rhythms, moods, and annoying habits with startling intimacy.
You learn to apologise quickly, to communicate without words when someone is ‘hangry’, and to appreciate the sheer luxury of a solo walk around the supermarket.
We usually give a new country or city what we call a ‘24-Hour Rule’. This is where we don’t make judgement straight away as often we arrive tired or at night time and things don’t seem immediately as glam as we had hoped for. In the van, it’s more like a month to iron out the first bumps.
It’s a pressure cooker for relationships, but if you survive the first month, you’ll come out the other side with a bond that’s unbreakable.
2. The “Country Counter” Trap by Motorhome
One of the biggest mistakes we see (and one we almost made) is trying to “do” 20 countries in 100 days. Unless your goal is simply to collect magnets for your fridge, this is a recipe for disaster.
Europe is dense. Every border you cross brings a new language, a different cultural etiquette, and a unique history. If you rush, all you see are highways and the inside of your windscreen. Not to mention that there are some very serious toll charges for those epic-sized highways that make it faster…
We learnt that even in a motorhome and even within the continent, countries need time. Trust us, you need a week just to figure out how the bakeries work in France or why the shops shut at midday in Spain. Slowing down allows you to understand what makes a place tick.
The best memories aren’t the landmarks; they’re the conversations with the local mechanic in a remote Bosnian village, unhurried skateboarding mornings by the beach in Contis or the afternoon spent lunching with Latvian truck drivers sans a shared language. These are the moments that make motorhome travel in Europe one for the memory books.
3. Not All Days are Instagrammable
If you follow vanlife on social media, you’d think every day involves parked-up beach views and fairy lights. And there are lots of those. Gavin honestly thought he’d be throwing the fishing rod out the back by a quaint little stream in Sweden on the daily.
But the truth? Some days involve grey skies, mud tracked through the van, and the realization that the ‘scenic spot’ you found on an app is actually a noisy truck stop next to the gigantor motorway. There are days like this. Though sometimes these aren’t necessarily a downer. That giant truck stop made a great skate park, had an enormous food court and we ended up sharing a Sunday BBQ with a bunch of Ukrainian truck drivers who treated us to Kiev Vodka and homemade (roadside-made) sausage roll pastries.
There are days when the Wi-Fi won’t connect, the kids are grumpy, and you’ve been wearing the same hoodie for four days because the local laundromat is closed. It’s okay to have ‘blah’ days.
Travel isn’t a performance; it’s a life. Accepting the mundane makes the spectacular days feel even more earned.
Wondering About Buying a Motorhome in Europe as a Non-EU Traveller?
4. Things Will Break (Have a Plan B)
A motorhome is essentially a house that is constantly experiencing a localized earthquake as it vibrates down the road. Hinges loosen, pumps fail, and tires find the only sharp rock in the desert.
Albeit we didn’t have any major mishaps in either of our two motorhomes. (We’ve bought not one but TWO motorhomes in Europe!).
But we did develop rumbling wheel bearings in Gorazde, Bosnia and there was that time we needed a new fifth gear in Asilah, Morocco. Sounds major, right? Though these two experiences of maintenance in the back and beyond turned out to be an easy fix. Plus it turned into two experiences of hospitality and meeting locals that we wouldn’t have found any other way.
We’ve learnt that mechanical or habitational issues aren’t ‘if’, they’re ‘when’. You do need a basic toolkit, a healthy sense of humour, and a Plan B. Whether it’s a budget for a sudden garage visit or a backup battery for when the solar isn’t enough. Being prepared for things to go wrong stops a minor hiccup from becoming a trip-ending catastrophe.
5. You Become a Modern Hunter-Gatherer in a Motorhome
In our old life, water came from the tap and the rubbish was collected and vanished once a week. In vanlife, you are constantly scanning the horizon like a hunter-gatherer. But instead of berries and flowers, you are hunting for:
- Water: Where is the nearest tap? Does it have the right thread for our hose? Is it drinkable water?
- The Toilet: The ‘black water’ mission is a constant mental background task.
- LPG: Finding a place to refill gas in a foreign country where the adapters are different is a legitimate survival skill.
Your life becomes governed by these three pillars. You can’t relax until the tanks are full and the waste is empty. That’s the undisclosed truth!
6. Not Everyone Wants the Details
When you first start out, you’re bursting with excitement. You want to tell everyone about the miracle of your 12V fridge or how you managed to shower using only two litres of water.
Here’s a tip: Most people don’t care. To your friends back home, you’re ‘on holiday’. They want to hear about the Eiffel Tower, not your intricate strategy for finding free parking in Munich. Keep the van-specific geekery for the other travellers you meet at the Aires—they’re the only ones who will truly appreciate your solar-to-battery ratio.
7. Travel Fatigue is Real
It sounds spoiled to say ‘I’m tired of traveling’. But travel fatigue is a very real physiological state. Constantly being in “new” environments — new roads, new languages, new currencies, new foods — is cognitively draining.
After a few months, even the most beautiful cathedral can start to look like “just another church.” We learnt that you have to take “holidays from your holiday.” Check into a house for a week, rent an AirBnB even with your van parked outside. Or stay at a high-end campsite with a pool and do absolutely nothing when the time needs. If you don’t rest, you stop appreciating the journey.
8. Motorhome Travel is Tiring
Driving a 3.5-tonne box through narrow Italian streets or over Swiss mountain passes is not like driving a car. It requires 100% concentration, 100% of the time.
When you add in the logistics of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle mentioned above, you realize that vanlife is actually quite hard work. It’s rewarding, but it isn’t ‘relaxing’ in the traditional sense. You’ll find yourself going to bed at 9:00 PM more often than not.
9. The “First Van” Regret
Looking back, we spent way too much on our first motorhome. We fell for the “more is better” trap. We thought we needed two separate living areas and a garage big enough to house a small army.
What we actually wanted was something with more character—something a bit more “us” and a lot less “rental fleet white.” We wanted retro, we wanted cooler, and we wanted a smaller footprint.
We wish we’d had the confidence to follow our gut and buy the “vibey” van instead of the “sensible” one the first time around. Don’t buy for the features you think you need; buy the van that feels like home.
10. We Would Do It All Again
Despite the broken pumps, the travel fatigue, and the lack of personal space, motorhome travel in Europe is absolutely incredible. It has fundamentally shifted our perspective on what we need to be happy. It’s life-changing in the truest sense of the word.
If we could go back to the start, we wouldn’t change the decision for a second. The road is calling us again, though with the vastness of Africa and the Americas looming on the horizon, we might just have to find a new “us-shaped” van to take us there.
Buy That Motorhome in Europe
Thinking of taking the leap? Don’t wait until you have the “perfect” plan or the “perfect” van. Just get on the road—the lessons will find you soon enough. We are now seven years of travel in and with 2.5 years of vanlife in Europe under our belt with no end date in mind.
Arriving to Amsterdam to buy your motorhome? Check Ibis Schiphol, Hyatt Place Amsterdam Airport and Radisson Blu Hotel Schiphol to start your trip.
Read More About Travel in Eastern Europe
- Things To Do In Bucharest, Romania.
- Border Crossing: Romania to Moldova.
- Border Crossing: Kosovo to North Macedonia.
- Things To Do In Podgorica, Montenegro.
- Things To Do In Belgrade, Serbia.
- Border Crossing: Serbia to Bosnia and Herzegovina.
- Border Crossing: Bosnia to Montenegro.
- Things To Do In Chisinau, Moldova.
More Useful Links for Your Travels in Europe and Beyond
These are the companies we use and can recommend for planning and booking travel.
- Booking.com – The best all-around accommodation booking site that constantly provides the cheapest and lowest rates. They have the widest selection of budget accommodation. It is easy to filter and sort into price and availability with all the extras you are looking for personally.
- 12GoAsia – Book trains anywhere online.
- Skyscanner– This is by far our favourite flight search engine. They are able to search small websites and budget airlines that larger search sites often miss. We book all our flights through Skyscanner.
- GetYourGuide– Get Your Guide is a huge online marketplace for tours and excursions offered all around the world. Everything from walking tours, to street-food tours, cooking classes, desert safari’s and more!
- SafetyWing – A global travel insurance that covers people from all over the world while outside their home country. You can buy it short or longterm; and even if you are out of the country.
- World Nomads – Make sure you have insurance before buying a motorhome and planning van life in Europe!