WE RENTED THE ENTIRE CASTLE (want to see what's inside?)

Hidden in the hill country of Texas is a 20,000 square foot castle that wouldn't look out of place if you moved it to a hilltop in Europe. It's recently been listed on Airbnb, which means anyone with a spare $2,000 can be king or queen of their own castle for the night. The Falkenstein Castle is our home for the next 24 hours. So let us show you around.

Before we get started, we wanted to let you know that we are partnering with Omaze to give away a sprinter van with $80,000 worth of customizations. For more details, just go to omaze.com forward/karanate.

We're Karen. Nate. After spending four years traveling the world full time and documenting our journey to 100 countries, 2020 brought us back to the US where we bought a converted Sprinter van to explore our own backyard. After sleeping in an underground nuclear missile bunker in Arkansas, we made the eight hour drive to Central Texas.

So let me quickly explain what's going on here. Last weekend when we were filming this video was Kara's 30th birthday.

I cannot believe that this is my last day of my 20s.

And she knew that I'd arranged for us to stay at a castle. But what she didn't know is that her sister and I had been scheming behind the scenes to pull off a little birthday surprise.

I told her I'd still be working, and I'm totally not working right now. I had to lie. I'm sorry, Carol. I cannot wait to see you.

I'm trying to figure out how to put into perspective just how much Kara's sister means to her and how little time they've gotten to spend together in the last five years.

Okay. Do you think she has any idea that we're coming?

Not in the slightest.

She's pretty easy to surprise, so anytime.

They get to see each other is a big deal. Her sister's probably her favorite person in the world. I like to think that I'm a close second.

Maybe 30s. Are the new 20s.

A little stressed? Carina, are almost here.

No way. You never know this driveway led to a castle.

No, overall, I'll be in like this. I feel like I'm in Germany.

Happy birthday.

Yay. I seriously think we got her surprise up until this point. That's the security guard. Look at this entrance. Can we drive through that?

Well, I'm scared we won't be dead. I'd hate to take the castle gate off.

That would be sad.

Whoa.

Wow. This is crazy.

Just park the van right in Front of the castle. Because why not?

Oh, sweet home.

You are a Queen for your 30th birthday.

This is not a bad way to spend my last day of being 29.

Ooh.

This is crazy.

So we'll close this.

And up to floor number two. Oh, gosh, that was quick. Anytime you can see the wall through the door, it's a little scary.

It's not very fast. No.

Whoa, whoa. What in the world? I feel like I'm in a museum.

Game room.

Nate.

Nate, you've been lying to me.

This is amazing. Amazing. Hi, baby.

Hi, Kara.

Babe.

Happy birthday.

What did you do? You look at us. I can't believe it. I had no idea. Like, no idea.

I changed her name to Castle lady in my phone.

Castle Lady. This is gonna be the best. I know. I can't wait. Yay.

The rest of the night was devoted to celebrating Kara.

Don't want to shoot it into a piece of art and break it.

Cheers, y'. All. To 30. And surprises. And castles. And sisters. Best birthday ever. Happy birthday. Thank you.

We attempted to fit 30 candles on a birthday cake. We'll get another one. We'll get another one.

No, we're good. Happy birthday to you Happy birthday to you Happy birthday, dear King.

I love it. Can I just eat it out of the pan?

It's your birthday. You can do whatever you want, love. So we have pizza delivered to the castle through the gate.

Perfect.

There are no guards.

Pizza. Oh, yeah. This is a Texas sized pizza.

We gave her some presents.

Foldable yoga mat for the van. Omg.

We played some games.

All right, Nate, what you gonna do? Yay.

And spent time catching up with two great humans who we don't see often enough.

Happy birthday, Cara. We love.

Happy birthday. Thank you.

How's it feel to be 30?

So far, so good.

See that lake out there?

Yeah.

I wanted to do something really special for your 30th birthday. Something that you would always remember. So I contacted the state of Texas, and I have that lake named after us.

Obviously, I didn't have the name of the lake changed. I just thought it was pretty funny that the lake that we can see from our castle balcony is actually our last name.

You didn't change it? No.

If you're like us, you're probably wondering, why is there a castle in the middle of Texas? Well, yesterday, as we were checking in, we had the opportunity to meet the son of the couple who actually built this castle. And the story goes that they were inspired to build it after a trip to Germany. On this trip, they Visited one of the most iconic castles in the entire world, the Neuschwanstein Castle. This castle was built by King Ludwig II in the late 1800s. And if this castle looks familiar to you and you've never visited Germany before, that's probably because it was also Walt Disney's inspiration for the Disney Castle. While the Youngs were visiting this castle, they stumbled upon a set of drawings that King Ludwig had made for another castle that never ended up being built. The castle was supposed to be called Falkenstein, and they used those drawings as the inspiration to build this castle here in Texas.

All right, I'm going to give you a full tour of our 20,000 square foot castle. On the outside, we are surrounded by 113 acres of Texas hill country. And even though we don't have a moat to protect us, we. We do have a giant brick wall and a 40,000 gallon koi pond with a waterfall.

Look at this giant carp.

I absolutely love the contrast of our sprinter van home parked outside of our castle home.

The front doors have to be at least 20ft tall and they lead into the first level of the castle, which is the chapel. The very echoey chapel. Yes, our Airbnb comes with its very own chapel. It's decorated with these beautiful paintings and stained glass. This altar is from a tiny church in France. It was built in the 1400s and it was shipped all the way from France to Texas. How crazy is that? The chapel leads into what I'm calling the banquet hall. It has all these really cool old medieval decorations. There's a giant cauldron on one side of the room and this huge table on the other. This is where I picture knights coming in and drinking out of stones. We haven't spent a ton of time on the first level because the main living quarters are on the second and third floors, which you get to via this very old school, slightly scary elevator. Oh, gosh. Okay, so you close the gate.

We'll start on level two. Gosh, that. Kiss me every time.

This is actually how fast elevator goes.

Find myself holding my breath every time we get on it.

As soon as you step off the elevator, you enter this foyer area with all of this beautiful artwork. We were told that there are over a hundred pieces of art in this castle and some of them are over a thousand thousand years old. So pretty much feels like we've been living in a museum, which is great, but we're also a little nervous that we're gonna break something expensive before we check out.

Right off the main foyer is the game Room where we had some pretty heated competition last night.

On the most beautiful pool table I've ever seen.

Right off the game room is this beautiful balcony. The views up here are incredible. We were told on a clear day you can see up to 50 miles of Texas hill country. And back inside we come into the kitchen which you've already seen. One of the great things about this Airbnb besides the fact that it's a castle is the couple who built it actually lived here. So we have everything we could possibly want in a kitchen, including not one but two full size fridge and freezers.

The kitchen leads into this living room which has a very impressive collection of DVDs.

Wow, that is a lot of movies.

Since we're staying in a castle, we to decided decided to end our night with one of Nate's favorite movies, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Just a flesh wound.

There's a near flesh wound.

This is the main dining area where we had a slightly awkward dinner last night. Kara.

I miss you. And we have come full circle back to the foyer to get to level three. We will take this grand staircase. Get all these pause.

Stairs are so.

Loud first thing in the morning. This is the master bedroom.

Which I love.

Thank you. Thank you. Is that much room for activities.

And right off our bedroom is our own private balcony. Balcony number two of four where we can overlook our Texas hill country kingdom, including Lake Buchanan. Please don't make fun of my accent. The master bathroom is legitimately five times bigger than our van. We have this jacuzzi tub. But my favorite part is the shower is inside the castle turret. This is definitely the tallest shower head I've ever used. Like the water is almost cold by the time it gets to your body. And down this hallway we have a laundry room and guest bedroom number one. This is the blue room. I am in love with this dresser. And in here we have a very Venetian style sun room, a guest bathroom and we have a slightly unexpected weight room with these old school kitchen, 3001, 3002. This is guest bedroom number two and it's probably my favorite looking bedroom. I feel like this bed frame is something you would actually see in a German castle. And this is the largest Jack and Jill bathroom I've ever seen. Which leads to guest bedroom number three. This is where Cassie and Nathan are staying and they also have their balcony.

And that is all 20,000 square feet of this giant castle. Don't worry about. Time to have some fun.

We spent the afternoon exploring around the castle. So this place is big Enough that it has its own hiking trails. And we are currently avoiding cactuses as we hike over an ancient lava tube.

Found a dinosaur. We think this is a dinosaur footprint.

The owner told us that there are crevasses in this lava tube that go down as far as 160ft.

He said, don't drop the camera or you'll never get it back.

It's down there.

After a hike, we drove a couple miles down the road to a beautiful local vineyard where we closed out Kara's birthday weekend with delicious wine. Cheers. Number whatever.

Cheers.

And great conversation.

Hi.

It really wants Nathan to love it.

Bye.

Always tears.

Always.

I've been trying to figure out my feelings on turning 30. It seems like every conversation that's happened about my birthday coming up in the last few weeks has turned into a negative thing. It's like, oh, your 20s are over. Like, oh man, you're gonna be the big 30. How you feel? You know? And of course I went along with it. Like, I was sad that I was turning 30. And when I really stopped to think about it, I think I know why. The last 10 years have been the best decade of my life. I graduated college in my 20s, I got married in my 20s, got my first full time job and this whole new career that I didn't even know was possible when I turned 20. And then of course, the last five years with Nate, traveling the world has been a dream. So of course I'm sad to see my 20s end. But what I think is so cool is at the beginning of my twenties, I was living in a college dorm room and I had no idea what the future held. And at the start of my 30s, I'm living in a castle and I still have no idea what the Future holds. But 30s are off to a much better start.

Are we ready?

I think yeah. Yeah. The experience.

Neuschwanstein Castle. Neuschwanstein Castle. I feel like I need to, like, not breathe out of my nose when I see him. Which Weinstein can't smell. That sounds pretty normal.

Bring me some coffee, please.

I was just talking about.

That is so. That is so weird.

After I bought him. That's weird. Are we getting into karaoke? It's me. That's what I was thinking. Yeah.

Karaoke night.

Never in a million years with my husband, you.

Because I know that I would never in a million years.