- So today is the day that I have decided
I want to live in my car for 24 hours.
Well, I don't want to, but I told myself
(cash register opening)
that I would do it for a video.
(water bubbling)
Why am I doing this?
Okay, I fell into a YouTube rabbit hole
of watching van life videos,
and I was like, "I really want to try that."
I don't have a converted van,
you know, with the bed and whatever else in it,
all I have is a very small city car.
I have my boot packed with little
Amazon packing cubes for my stuff.
I have a duvet, and the dog's car seat is there,
but the dog's not part of this experiment though,
because I don't really think it's fair
to make the dog live in the car for a day.
I was planning on going stand up paddle boarding
after this and I have my own wet suit
like every good van lifer.
Might bring the dogs to that.
I'm on my way to yoga in the park,
it is five euros, and I figure it is the best way
to start this day of living in the car.
I'm wearing a lot of clothes,
because I actually went to park yoga before
and I didn't wear enough clothes and
I was hungover and I was miserable.
I'm ready for this this time.
There's a market on in this park,
that's lovely!
Oh, but I might be able to get an iced coffee afterwards.
The thing about living in your car for the day
is that you don't want to sit in your car for the day
so it makes you get out and do stuff,
where as you'll sit in your house all day, no problem.
Okay, first hurdle of van life- parking.
Had to park miles back there
and now I'm walking back into yoga.
I'm already seven minutes late,
so I'm going to be at least 15 by the time I find it.
(cash register opening)
It was a good class, it was long.
Slower flow, maybe, than some of the classes
I've been to, but actually it was tough in a good way.
Half way through it started to rain so we had to
lag it in under the band stand.
There's this band stand in Buschu Park
that's been painted to look like
the screen that used to come up on your television
when the signal went out.
I need to go to the bathroom.
Here's our first problem.
I wonder, does this park have public bathrooms?
(cheerful music)
(cash register opening)
Got my coffee, but the but the urge
to go to the bathroom is now earned.
Okay, so I went to the toilet in Hannah's Cove
and just got ladied twice in a row.
Let's go pick up my dog and go to Denary
and try and get in some stand up paddle boarding.
I drive a lot anyway, so I'm almost kind of
like half set up for this.
I have a carabin, very important,
my Fitbit charger, my phone charger,
the only thing I'm thinking is that
I won't be able to charge my laptop.
Something that I didn't consider at the thought
of living in the car for a day- traffic.
I'm stuck in traffic.
♪ Hair toss, check my nails ♪
♪ Baby how you doin' ♪
♪ Feelin' good as hell ♪
Wow, look at that.
So, sorry about that, I accidentally had
turned down the quality of the video to VGA.
I don't know how I did that.
Okay, so Danary is terrible for parking.
I had to drive around to find an ATM I could get out at.
Like, as in, I could park nearby and got out at.
Then, I took off on a shop that I parked nearby
so they could give me change, because it gave me cash,
because that's what ATMs do.
Then, I was driving back, and Millie is getting annoyed
about being in the car.
So she's trying to jump down on the floor,
and jump out of her bed.
My camera's already low on battery
and there's no way to charge it in the car
because it's one of those plug chargers.
Listen, van life.
Fuck me.
Dry as an actual bone as well, which doesn't help.
And my formally broken fingers
have absolutely no pull strength to them.
Okay, so my GoPro wouldn't work at all on that,
I don't know why, so no footage of us in the water,
I'm afraid, and my camera is actually dying
and I can't charge it again.
Van life.
So yeah, that was good fun.
My arms are killing me now.
I barely stood up as well
because it was pretty windy
and then any time I stood up, Millie would just run
from the front to the back of the board.
So that made it quite difficult, so...
She started crying and I was like,
"What is she crying for?"
And then I realized she thought the buoys
were balls and she jumped out
thinking she wanted to fetch a buoy
and eat it, so I pulled her back in.
That was very, very funny.
And being in there is good fun,
I feel like I'm not wet enough,
like I feel like I want to just go in
for a couple and swim there.
I feel like I've got a very romantic view of
surfing and water sports in general.
But like, that was awful, the wind was tough,
now it's cold, poor Millie's shivering.
Oh, she's pissed off at me, hang on.
Do you want to go to your bed?
Yeah, oh that's a good girl.
So your bed going to be wet now,
but you prefer to be back there, that's fine.
Also, if I was like a real van-lifer,
me and my dog would probably share a towel,
though I don't know hygienic that is.
To dry her with and then dry me with it.
My car is pretty much van-life already.
There's shit everywhere.
Starving, I just want to go home and sit on the couch.
But to make this a real experiment,
I have to get dried and changed
back into my clothes in the car.
Voucher lesson- that's a great angle.
Okay, wetsuit is off, and bagged.
There's actually two things I was planning
on doing in the water,
I was planning on sticking my head in
and getting my hair wet so I didn't have to wash it.
And then, I was also, planning on
doing a TikTok
on the board, but I couldn't,
because my GoPro stopped working.
Last step now, jeans on.
Skinny jeans, why do you pick skinny jeans?
I want to go home!
All right, I have no hair brush,
I remembered deodorant and CC cream,
and no fucking hair brush.
How does somebody do that?
Oh, I want to go home so bad!
I would need to eat dinner,
and then have an evening in the car,
and then sleep in there if I was
to complete this experiment.
Ahh- I mean I think if I was in a van
with a bed in the back this would be different,
but I'm actually just in a car.
I also might have said that already.
I'm repeating myself at this point.
It's cause I'm going mad already.
I will say, if I lived in the whole time,
this is the sort of lazy shit that I would do.
How can you live a no waste lifestyle,
if you're living in your car?
It's a lot of take-away coffees and food and stuff, no?
Not that I currently live a no-waste lifestyle,
I'm in no way saying that, by the way,
I'm just saying, wouldn't it be harder?
I've convinced Alex to get a takeaway.
(murmur). So chalk that up,
add that to the cast of this experiment.
(upbeat music)
Thank you, here I got two lids.
Oh, oops, he was distracted.
(Cash register opening)
What are you going to do without me Alex?
- I'm probably going to watch TV,
but I'll be so lonely without you.
Would you not come in and watch a movie?
- Oh my gosh.
- Oh, nightmare.
So you're actually going to spend the night in the car?
- That's the plan.
Unless someone tells me otherwise.
- That's so stupid and...
- Okay, so, it is late now,
and I have gotten
the duvet out of the back.
Actually, what am I doing?
I should probably use my torch here,
the problem is, right, that I don't want
to draw too much attention to myself
in terms of the neighbors wondering
what the fuck I'm doing.
(video playing)
Okay I'm tired now, it might be bedtime.
Are you happy there or do you want
to move a little bit?
Lie down, please, honey.
Millie, lie down.
Millie, lie down!
You're not going to be able to sleep out here are you?
Uh, it's going to be a nightmare.
That poor shyster makes me fucking nuts.
That's it honey, relax.
We're weird, but we're okay.
Fuck me, I never realized how noisy my street is.
Oops, fart.
Millie, sitting on my head is not helpful.
Are you going to go to sleep at any point?
Okay, this experiment is continuing
without Millie in the car.
Do you want to go to your own bed, honey?
I'll miss you, but I'll also, maybe,
have a shot in hell at sleeping.
Good morning.
I did not have a good sleep.
I wasn't cold, weirdly, very like camping,
but like, oh my God.
The roads, like it's just so noisy,
I never noticed how noisy my road was.
And I let Millie out last night
before I put her into her own bed.
She barked, so that was at like fucking
half one in the morning.
Either my neighbor purposely got me back this morning,
or Karma got me back because their dog
was just bark...
pause...
Bark.... pause...
Bark... for what felt like 40 years of my life.
So annoying!
I have makeup wipes here.
It was not that bad, it was just like camping,
to be honest.
So, you know exactly what it's like, you know.
I don't know would I camp indefinitely,
and I don't know that I could live
in my car indefinitely either.
I would have to own a lot less stuff.
I would ideally have a bigger car.
This part of the car is actually fine.
Like, this is long enough for sleeping.
I'm a very short individual.
And I quite liked how I could put this down
and sleep on it like a single bed,
and ten not disturb all the rest.
I watched a van life video, this couple,
that they basically dismantled their whole
back of their van to put a bed in every night
and I'm like, no thanks.
But I think I would need a bigger boot.
I could barely fit the duvet, a pillow,
like my outfits for the day in the boot.
Actually, I probably wouldn't need a bigger boot.
You know, if I was living in my car,
I'd have to cop on a bit.
Listen, it is definitely an option
if I'm going anywhere and it's too expensive
to book a hotel.
One thing, though, about living in the car,
is the cost of it.
So there's obviously the up front cost of the car,
the insurance, and the petrol, and the tax.
There's a cost involved in eating out all the time,
like I'm starving now and I have no breakfast.
I'm going to have to go and get breakfast.
If I lived in the car, I would skip meals,
so I wouildn't have to go and pay for them.
There's a cost to the gym, I guess.
You have to think very carefully about when you
need to go to the toilet.
Like, you can't get up in the middle of the night
and need to go to the bathroom, you know what I mean?
You have to be real careful about
when you need to go to the bathroom.
You can't charge things that need a plug.
If you want to do things to entertain yourself,
like stand up paddle boarding, or yoga, or whatever,
they cost money.
Good bye, thank you for watching, please subscribe!
One final update on this is that, I stink!
And, I mean, I don't think I've smelled this bad
in a while, so I don't know if van life is for me.
It's essentially just living without running water.
Which I don't think I would want to do.
(upbeat music)