We live in a van travelling Europe – here’s what we spend in a week on the road

AN IRISH duo who are travelling around Europe in a van have revealed how much they spend in a week on the road.

For the past year, 22-year-olds Jamie and Martha have been travelling Europe in a lime green van that they’ve lovingly nicknamed “Kermit”.

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They have shared their experiences on TikTok, under the username
@kermit.thevann and have just shown what they spend in a week on their travels.

In the video, Jamie said: “We live in the back of our van, and this is what we spend in one week.

“We actually did two grocery shops this week and in total it came out to €88.96. We normally get away with one.

“We ran out of gas for our stove so we had to refill it for€12.90

“We spent €88 euro on diesel cause we drove a lot this week

“We got a bucket of beers for €7 between us.

“And we ended up going to two coffee shops this week and for four coffees it cost us €7.70.”

The duo also crossed the border into Spain from Portugal, and had to splash €15 on 50gb of data.

They spent six euro on showers and capped their week off with a potato peeler, costing them just €1.50. Bringing their total spend to just €223.10.

Van-lifer Jamie noted that their spending varies every week and it just depends on what the vloggers get up to, adding that they can run into unforseen costs.

Speaking to the Irish Sun, he said: “If we meet new people on the road and want to go out and do things together, maybe dinner or a few drinks, we weren’t planning that.

“But obviously not going to say no because we’re trying to budget, we’re going to go out, meet new people and enjoy ourselves!”

The Tiktoker acknowledged the unprecedented “huge rise” in fuel prices across Europe, noting that fuel prices were as low as €1.20 per litre when their journey began, and have risen as high as €1.80.

He said: “It’s actually changed how we’ve travelled around, because as fuel got more expensive, we stopped driving around as much.”

Jamie admitted that spending more time in certain places instead of moving from place to place has actually helped them get even more out of their travels.

The 22-year-old added: “It’s changed how we travelled, but we also enjoyed it more, taking it slower and getting to see more of certain places.

“We actually wish we did that more in the beginning of our trip, taking our time rather than just seeing a place and then going.”

CHEAP TRAVEL

Despite rising fuel costs, the recent DCU multimedia graduates have found budgeting to be “quite easy”.

Jamie said: “There aren’t many expenses when you’re living in a van, because we literally pay nothing in accomodation costs.”

He added that while you can enjoy yourself on a budget, it’s extremely important to be mindful of your costs.

He said: “There are a tonne of activities you can do for free, just don’t be going out every night of the week and buying drinks, because that can be a really, really big cost.”

The Irish pair, who are planning to return home to travel Ireland this Summer are currently working on the road in freelance multimedia, and with some smart saving methods, are making enough money to fund their dream trips.

Jamie said: “We’re able to do some freelance jobs on the road, like video editing and photo editing, that sort of thing.

“It’s handy because all we need is our mobile phones for hotspot, so we had internet wherever we went.

“So we just take a couple of hours during the day to do good work and sometimes we didn’t work, but it kept the money coming in just a little bit.”