Touring Europe might be a crazy idea.

For the next four months, we will be homeless vagabonds while touring Europe. Going to Europe and leaving our RV in storage might be crazy. Right now, it seems like a crazy idea, and it is only two weeks away. We are storing our RV and heading to Europe in under a month. Our plane to Europe departs LAX, flying directly to Rome in two weeks. Instead of bringing everything we own along everywhere we go in our RV, we will pack only what we need into carry-on luggage. Our bags are almost packed, and we won’t check luggage on the plane.

Three years ago, an RV trip to Alaska seemed like a crazy idea. Two years ago, we drove our RV across Canada and made a lap around Alaska, and it was great. Last year, when we started planning our trip to Europe, it also seemed like a crazy idea. With only two weeks left before our departure, touring Europe still seems like a crazy idea, but I think we can make it happen.

If you missed our stories about our lap around Alaska, here is a link. FoxRVTravel Alaska.

Changing the blog.

My blog doesn’t usually tell stories about what we will do. Instead, it focuses on what we did. But going to Europe will significantly change our lives and the blog. My intentions may not pan out, but I intend to publish pictures accompanied by only a few words. Instead of a storybook, my blog will be a picture book. Instead of sending emails to alert you to my newest musings, I’ll rely on Facebook to announce each new photo collection as it’s published.

I will be publishing a few of the photos on Facebook, so that you can keep up with my new posts. Each Facebook post will link to my blog, where you can see the rest of the pictures. FoxRVTravel on Facebook

I’m not a big Facebook guy, but this will probably be a good transition. Trusting Facebook to keep you up-to-date isn’t my style. Since I don’t focus on other social media, I think this might be a good way for you to keep us updated while we are in Europe.

Instagram

I consider myself a Facebook novice, but I’m even less experienced with Instagram. There is probably a word for it (Luddite comes to mind). You can consider my FoxRVTravel Instagram account haphazard at best. I won’t be posting all my pictures on Instagram or Facebook, but I’ll post something every few days to let you know about a new blog post.

I hope you enjoy visiting my blog, and I promise to update it frequently.

Blog e-mail changes

Instead of one email a week announcing my newest post, I expect your weekly email will contain links to several separate articles, each with photos of the places we visit.

Our crazy tour of Europe

Starting in Rome, we will take trains from place to place. Next month, beginning in April in Italy, we will become uber tourists. In May, we will cross into the former Soviet Union countries I never expected to visit. After working east to Budapest, we will return to Austria, Germany, and Czechia. From Prague, we will head north to visit Denmark and Sweden.

Schengen restrictions

The Schengen Area includes most of the European Union’s countries. One rule is that we must exit the Schengen Area (European Union) in less than 90 days. Rather than cut our trip short, after more trains to Belguim, we will head to England before our Schengen visa expires and spend the next 30 days in England, Scotland, and Ireland. Here is a link to the most current Schengen rules. Schengen

Our tour of Europe is complicated.

This is the most complex adventure we have taken yet. We will be in Europe starting in Rome, visiting 15 countries, and departing from Dublin in just over 120 days. Our tour of Europe will include at least 40 train trips and approximately 40 accommodations. Places to stay so far are all reserved (unless we change our route). We have identified and reserved most of our train trips in Italy. That only leaves 90 days unplanned. I am both excited and terrified.

One of our very first full-time RVing goals seven years ago was to slow down and relax. I think we have finally mastered that in the RV. Our European trip will be hectic if we don’t manage our time and learn to relax while on the journey.

Going by Eurail

We have been planning this trip for over a year, and the planning stage continues even after we arrive in Europe. Our Eurail pass is valid for 90 days, so we’ll start using it after arriving in Italy. It will expire in England before we reach Scotland and Ireland. I thought getting a Eurail pass would save us lots of money (probably true) and make planning easier (so far, this is not true).

Tricky packing two backpacks

Since we are not checking bags and will already have our boarding passes, our first stop in the airport will be security. As long as you can move your luggage and assume each item will fit through the X-ray machine, security doesn’t care how many items you pass through security with. Instead, they worry about what dangerous items you will carry onto the plane. Security restrictions seem to be changing all the time.

Under the bed in our RV, we have one carry-on-size two-wheel roller bag that is slightly bigger than the limits described in the next photo. This roller bag will carry a very lightweight backpack holding all my clothing. I don’t expect the roller bag to survive the trip, so the backpack will act as a backup. Not only is the roller bag slightly larger than desired, but it is also nearly seven pounds, which is more than 1/3 of my weight allotment. Roller bags less than 5 pounds are rare. My backup backpack weighs less than a pound.

At the departure gate is when I am a little worried. What if they want to weigh my carry-on bag at the gate and then want to send it to the baggage compartment? We need to be clever enough to have every critical item in our carry-on bag. One advantage is that I am entitled to an additional medical item beyond my carry-on and personal items. If they object to my roller bag at the gate, I plan to unpack it and transfer the contents to my backpack on the plane.

My second backpack is slightly oversized as a personal item, but it will fit under the seat on the plane. My plan for this second backpack is to mainly contain soft items so I can stuff it under the seat in front of us while on the plane.

Right now, I am only worried about getting to Rome. I don’t think my luggage will survive 120+ days of continuous travel, and we might have to discard or even replace some things before our flight from Dublin back to LAX. As I understand it, we could get new luggage or clothing in Europe.

I hope my concerns are unfounded and we will breeze onto the plane uncontested. But I have a plan just in case that isn’t true.

Less than eighteen pounds

Getting the RV ready for storage.

I mentioned previously that we were going to store our RV. We have never done this in the last seven years of full-time RVing. Getting the RV ready for our tour of Europe is quite the project. In the next two weeks, I will install a new skylight (to solve that leak), fix our slide motor, which has a cracked gearbox, and fix our propane shut-off valve.

Fixing our main propane shut-off valve isn’t required, but I have been trying to use all the propane (every last drop) for over a month now. You want the tank to be empty so you can replace the main propane shut-off valve. Our propane tank gauge has read “empty” for over a month and is still working fine.

I will fill our fuel tank to full and treat the fuel to prevent it from gumming up while we are gone. The day before our departure, I will flush and drain our storage tanks so they will be ready to be used when we return. I will remove the water filter element on the freshwater tank so I can replace it as soon as we return.

I mentioned our electrical system change so that our solar array would charge our chassis battery when we were gone without using our inverter. If you missed that article, here is a link. Solar charging RV chassis batteries.

Final thoughts

With only two weeks until our departure, I feel a little out of my element. This idea of touring Europe might be crazy. I thought that changing from RVing to train travel wouldn’t be more demanding than RVing. Right now, it looks like traveling in our RV is way easier than our tour of Europe, and we haven’t even departed yet.

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Schengen

Solar charging RV chassis batteries.

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