if van life safety is one of your major concerns then you've come to the right video we are Shane
and Ane and we have been living in our van for the last six months so we have learned a thing or two
about one life safety so we have traveled all over Ireland and Spain and we visit some of Europe's
worst cities for Van life such as Barcelona so let's get over the video and we'll show you what
we know so just before we continue on with the video I just want to make it clear that we're
not trying to put you off van life but we're just trying to teach you how to be safe and to know
what to look out for and to know what to do just to minimize the risk of getting robbed or anything
we have lived in our van for over six months while traveling through Europe and not once have we been
Disturbed at night or we have anything rubbed out of our van at least we we don't know if anybody
tried to rub into it but if they did they weren't successful so I just want to make this clear so
you know we're not trying to put you off living the van life so first we're going to be talking
about how to keep yourself safe on the road so something really simple to do is to share your
location with family friends basically anybody that knows the route that you're going to be
taking so they can see that if you haven't moved for a while or your summer completely different
something could be wrong another thing that we do is we never let our phones die it may be something
really simple but it's so important when you're in the middle of nowhere your phone is the only
way you have to contact emergency services family in case you need help so super important don't let
your phone die and lastly we recommend to have a self-defense item beside the bed so if anybody
breaks into your van while you're sleeping you have something there handy to protect yourself
so next up we're going to be talking about how to be strategic when you come into a park up at
night so first of all what we do all the time is we make sure we read the comments on park
for night because you might see an area and it looks beautiful but you start scrolling through
the comments and then other van lifers have left comments like the locals don't want you
there young ones come to party people have tried to break into the Vans people have thrown stuff
at the vans so just always read the comments and make sure that the place that you go into
is safe secure and no other van lifers had a bad experience so on top of this make sure you always
arrive to your Park of during daylight because if you arrive at night and the whole place is Pitch
Black you're not going to know your surroundings you're not going to know what it looks like and
then it's going to make you feel uncomfortable so always arrive in daylight and you can scope it out
for yourself to make sure you're comfortable in that area so I know it sounds stupid but we
always Park under a light so if you race to a park up and there's like Lamppost around it's a good
idea to go and park underneath them and it lights up your van and also is stupid because you don't
want light coming in while you're trying to sleep but it just brightens up your van and I'm rubber
is not going to come and try to break into it if it's lit up and everybody can see it or if you go
into a corner of a car park and it's pitch black no other van effort can see you so it's a perfect
place for a thief to try and break into your van so just bear this in mind and always park on the
light just give you that extra bit of security but one other thing that we do when we go to a park up
is we try to find other birds and we can park up beside them well not on top of them because that
it gets quite annoying but if you do arrive to a place and there's nobody around it can feel a
little bit intimidating and scary at times because if something does happen then there's nobody there
to help you out so when we go to a park we try to find some Vans and that just gives you the
sense of security that if something does go wrong there's always going to be people there beside you
to help you out last of all is just to trust your gut instinct because if you come to a car park and
you feel like there's something not right it's a little bit dodgy then you're not going to enjoy
it so just jump into your van move off to another car park there's going to be planting them around
because if you don't you're going to be sitting there the whole night and you're gonna be hearing
noises you're going to think someone's going to break again and you're not going to enjoy it so
just trust your God I'll move off and find a safer place if you made it this far in the video we'd
really appreciate if you drop a comment leave a like or subscribe to the channel because it
helps us grow an awful lot so next up is always be ready to escape so we always reverse into our park
up so it's very easy to leave if anything happens on top of that if we can we park against a tree
or a Lamppost so we know that nobody can break in through the back door another thing we do is that
we keep our keys always in the same place at night so if we do need to escape we know where they are
and we're not looking around for them we have this little magnetic hook right beside the bed
and we put them there every night another tip is to always leave the driver's seat free so if you
do need to leave on an emergency you can just jump in and start driving so you don't have to take
everything that was in the driver's seat putting it away you don't waste any time you just jump in
and drive away and our last tip is to always make sure that your tank is not empty so in the case of
an emergency you're sure that you can just hit the road and you don't have to be looking for a
petrol station so you don't have to worry so next up on our list is protecting your van so your van
doesn't have to be 100 safe all it has to do is be safer than the other Vans around you so there is
many different ways on how to keep your van safe and I'm going to run through a couple of them the
first thing that you can do is to geolocate your van so this can be done by either using an air tag
or a Samsung tag and you can put these in your van you can hide them somewhere so that if you
are aware you can check and make sure that your van is not stolen and been driven off somewhere
or in the unfortunate event that your van does get broken into and I end up stealing it then you can
locate your van with these air tags or the Samsung tags so they're very cheap and it's an easy way to
help just give you a peace of mind and that your van is going to be secure so one thing we like
to do to keep our van secure is we like to use chains on the inside of a door because our van
is 40 Years of air Deluxe just aren't the best and it could probably break into very very easily so
we like to lock from the outside but also lock it from the inside so before we exit the van we just
put a loop around the door we have two two hooks and put a chain through them I've tied them with a
padlock so then if the seat does get the door open it doesn't open fully it only opens about half an
inch and it doesn't give them enough room to get their hand in to grab any items and it just gives
you a couple of more minutes that if the thief actually does break open the door he has to go
through another step to get into it and maybe someone May Scare him off in the meantime so it
just gives you that extra peace of mind to know that your van is that little bit more safer so
what are the things that you could do if your van has like sliding windows or windows at the back is
to put like a bar across the windows I know it's not going to stop anybody from getting in but if
they do manage to smash the window it limits the space that they have to get through the window to
grab your items so we have this bar that goes across our sliding window and it just halves
the the gap of the window so someone does break in it's going to be a tighter squeeze to get through
and even grab pull out bigger items so it's a very cost effective way it only costs a couple of Euro
but it just gives us that sense that we know if someone does break engine it's going to be even
harder for them to get our items so one other thing you could do is use blackout curtains so
these are very cheap and cost effective and just gives you a piece of mind and when you close your
windows you know nobody can see in so when you're in the town or whatever and your windows are all
closed you know that there's no chance of anybody seeing in and be able to see if you have an item
laying on your counter on your laptop or your camera or something so this just helps deter the
thief away and minimize the risk of them breaking in so highly recommend using blackout curtains and
also with the blackout curtains the thief can't see the bar that is going across the side window
so it's just everything helps in a situation like that there so make sure you get black eye
curtains and it just gives you that privacy and sense of security so next up is an alarm system
and we couldn't recommend this enough it gives you so much Security in your van so it gives you
that sense of security that if you are away and somebody breaks into your van it's going to alert
other people around them and hopefully they escape before taking anything that you own inside the van
so we have this alarm system we got on Amazon we live a link down below and you can check it out
so how this alarm system works is when you have a piece on your door and a piece on the pillar
so when you close the door and they make a contact that makes like the full circuit and if somebody
does manage to break in and open your door then the circuit is broken and it sets off the alarm
so we have the alarm hidden somewhere in the van so that if it does go off people aren't going to
be able to get it it takes a while to find it so it just it's extremely loud so it'll alert people
all around you so it's very cheap it's really like maybe 30 40 Euro so that it works like that there
but you can also use motion sensors so you can have them inside your van to have for example
if they break through the front window and you get into your van then they're obviously not
going to be breaking the beam on the door but the motion sensors will pick them up and then
it'll set off the alarm as well so this here is only like 40 Euro and it gives you such a
ease of mind that you know that if someone does break into your van then everything is going to
be secured next up we're going to show you some cost effective ways just to give you that extra
little bit of security and one of them is to use the little stickers that says that this vehicle
is alarmed so if you put this here on your van and the thief sees it then it's not worth the effort
of going having to break in the windows and maybe putting off the alarm and risk being caught so it
just helps to tear them away and one other thing you can use the anti-shatter film that you can put
on your windows so if he does break in then your windows duster could explode and it's a free entry
to get in everything will stay tight and it'll just make it that little bit harder for him to
get into the van so there is a couple of ways how to protect your van while you do it valve
so lastly we're going to talk about how to protect the valuables inside your van so our first tip is
to install a safe somewhere where it's not inside so you know that when you're away your valuables
are saved in there and if somebody breaks into your van first you have to find the safe and then
secondly they have to break into it another tip is to have heightened spots in your van
for bigger values that don't fit into your safe so this should be spots where you don't think anybody
else would look only you know so if somebody breaks into your van it takes them a while to
find your valuables basically don't leave your valuables inside so if somebody breaks into your
van it doesn't take them one second to grab your laptop and go another thing you can do is to have
dummy items in your fan so we all have like an older phone sitting in a drawer in our house so
what you can do is to get that old phone that is doing absolutely nothing in your house have it in
your van as an extra security layer so if somebody breaks into your van they find it and they think
that they put away with your phone and it's actually a phone that you don't care about anymore
so just have that phone not too hidden in your van so they find it and they get away with it it's
just one way to help protect your most valuable items so another tip is to be extra cautious
especially if you're in a city and there's loads of people around you so it's a good idea to put
your values away before approaching your van so for example if you have a big camera it's a good
idea to put it in your bag and then get into your van so that people don't see that you have that
big camera in your van and they know that if they break in they are gonna get it and lastly
a really simple tip but probably one of the most effective ones is to not leave anything on display
it's very important to not leave any valuables on the dash or in the front that is usually where you
can see more just be mindful of where you put the valuables in the van make sure that they aren't
on display so there you have it that's all of our safety tips so if you have any other tips
please share it down in the comments so we can all learn if you've been watching our videos we
realized that this is not actually Fergus we are on a different one and we're going to be giving
you a venture of this because we are going to be doing a couple of road trips over the winter in
this hair van so make sure you're subscribed check out the vanter that's published very shortly and
thanks for watching and we'll catch you in the next video bye and lastly you can drive away
to escape oh