We Tried Van Life Above the Arctic Circle (bad idea?)

That was a lot of fun. Until it wasn't fun anymore.

A portion of this video is sponsored by Viator.

It is currently past midnight and we are dragging our suitcases down the icy roads of Tromsville, Norway. If you missed our last video, we just finished a week on a ship in the fjords of Norway swimming with orcas. And it was as magical as it sounds.

I can't believe we're doing this.

And now it just so happens that our friends Craig and Amy are actually driving their bus through Norway. Norway. So we've decided to head south and see what bus life is like above the Arctic Circle. The only problem is it's not exactly easy to get around. Northern Norway as the crow flies are only about 150 miles south. But our options are take a 10 hour bus. Take a flight that has multiple layovers and takes most of the day. Or the option that we chose, which is actually the longest but sounded like the most fun. Take the overnight ferry.

Play my walk on us.

I broke the curtains last night.

So the fairy. This was our room. It was much nicer than expected. The views were beautiful. But the biggest highlight was definitely seeing these two moose. Mooses, Mace. They were just in someone's backyard. Don't moose, like kill more people than sharks or something?

Besides that, we explored the ship. I kind of feel like there's no water in it. Ate $12 sandwiches, got off and stretched our legs in this cute Norwegian village. They all have all of their Christmas lights to love. Ate the biggest pizza of our lives. Got some work done, and before we knew it, 22 hours later, we had arrived in our final destination of Stamcent.

Now where do we go? We're gonna go this way and hope that our friends are here to pick us up. That was actually really nice. I would highly recommend taking the overnight ferry if you come to Norway. It is a great way to travel around the country. See the fjords.

I can do that for 11 days, no problem.

And surprisingly affordable. The signage for getting on and off the boat could be a bit better.

I see the boat.

Oh my God.

Our friends Craig and Amy are really special. They've been traveling the world and documenting their lives on YouTube even longer than we have. And they have seriously done some of the most insane adventures like buying a tuk tuk and driving it across the country in India. They're so cool. But more importantly, they have some of the biggest hearts of anyone we know. And we can't wait to spend some quality time with them.

First question. Will the giant bags Fit in the bus.

We're gonna have to ditch these guys.

We'll make it work. I have seen so many videos of this bus. We were just watching it on the ferry. Oh, it's so cozy.

Look at these soft slippers. What a beautiful g. Thank you.

These guys really are the best hosts. Not only did they pick us up from the ferry port at 10:15 at night, they also brought us slippers and are just letting us move into their bus for four days.

We've hung out before, but we've never hung out together, just the four of us. And now we're all cramming into a vehicle to live together. So we're gonna figure out real quickly whether or not we get along.

So everything's broken.

Everything is broken in the last 24 hours. Everything's broken in this van. Pipes frozen. The top of the air con blew off me. We got a new hol hole in the back. Well, not everything. Things work, but there's like workarounds. So we've got running water, but the pressure's so low on that you have to drag the shower from the bathroom.

The question is, has the ferry left yet?

We had hot water.

The bus was literally parked on an ice skating. This is gonna be a crazy few days.

Morning team.

Is this the part where you get up and you make everyone coffee?

Just. I'd like to show everybody where Craig slept. They said, yeah, come on, we've got plenty of space. And then last night they pulled out the second bed. It is about 4ft long. This is actually how Craig slept with his fe on the suitcase. We're going to take it tonight. No. Yeah, no, we're going to take it tonight.

I'm just going to put this into perspective. The power that we have in our van. We can barely boil the water that makes the coffee in the morning and I'm frothing milk. Just have to use your imagination a bit.

Here you go, Craig.

Oh, thanks, babes.

That was a really good.

You want a kiss on the head as well?

Today is a very special day. We have now been in Norway for almost two weeks and we have yet to actually see the sun come above the horizon. I'm not sure if you can tell how pink that mountain is behind me, but today is the day that we're seeing the sun for the first time. I think the human body is meant to see the sun. I just feel happy this morning. I mean, we are staying with our friends in a van, but it just. It feels good. I feel awake. I feel alive. Also that White building right there. That's where we got off the ferry last night. So we pretty much just drove around here and parked.

All right, so we are currently driving across the peninsula to do something that sounded like a great idea two weeks ago when we were all sitting in warm Airbnbs. Wow. This is so beautiful.

Oh, yay.

Craig. What's it been like driving this massive bus down the snowy roads?

For the most part, it's been okay, but there's been a few moments where, like, the back end of the bus, like, slides out and when you're driving something this big, it's, like, terrifying.

Thanks for telling me that, Craig.

Most of the main roads are, like, really good and really clear, but in Sweden, we had a lot of snow, so it was like, going downhill is the scariest bit. We'll. Alright, I'll keep you safe.

I'm glad you got weeks of practice driving on the snowy road before we hopped in here with you.

There she is.

Does it look open?

We have just arrived in Unstad, which is supposed to be home to one of the best winter surf spots in all of Norway.

This is going to be so good. I'm so terrible at surfing, though.

Yeah, I'm a bit rusty. We'll do this, mate. We'll smash it.

We're just whipping up a little Bree. Captain Bannister is nice us some porridge. I'm chopped in some.

Every one of Keira's accents, whether it's Australian, New Zealand or British, just sounds the same.

It's hard because we just came from New Zealand, so I was practicing my New Zealand accent. Now I'm thrown into whales.

Say, whose coat is that jacket?

Whose coat is that jacket?

You're warming up with some porridge. How are you feeling?

It's one of those things in this current moment, I'm like, why are we doing this? Like, we have this perfectly warm, cozy bus. We could just sit in here and have a great time, watch a movie. But it's like, I know it's gonna be this crazy adventure that is probably gonna be very uncomfortable, but I already can't wait until it's over so that we can come in here and be really cozy and, like, feel really proud of ourselves. My goal is just to stand up on one wave.

Just one.

How hard could it be?

Oh, my gosh. I cannot believe we're doing this.

I feel like I need to do some jumping jacks to get my body too fast.

I'm already not very good at surfing and now I'm supposed to catch a Wave with lobster hands. If you see good footage of someone surfing, it's probably Craig.

Hey, mates. How are you feeling?

There she is. One little seal.

So I talked to the guy and he said we can drive down this. There's a car park I got on the beach. Oh, nice. Let's do that 15 minute walk.

Shaka, bro.

We did it.

They fit the banana truck now.

Oh, yeah. Look at those. They look like fun waves.

It's gonna be great.

Anybody wants to know, it's 50 degrees in here and it's 36 outside.

Sun's already setting. We've got about an hour of daylight.

Team seal.

Let's go.

I can barely pick this up.

It's a joke. Do people actually do this or do they set this up for tourists so they can watch and laugh?

We do a bit of ice skating before we do some surfing. I see my feet like a crab.

Like a crab.

Come on, people. We can make it. Oh, no. Oh, no. When the wind catches the board, you actually can't move forward. It's like a sail. Oh. Oh, no. We literally can't walk across the parking lot.

Rescue mission.

Okay, we've made it 10ft from the bus to the other side of the parking lot. We still have to make it all the way down there. That is, without a doubt the hardest I've laughed all year. I think the tears are frozen to my face.

You made it. High five.

I'm already exhausted.

Oh, no.

They got a lesson.

My face is frozen. Time for a cup of tea, I think.

Make a run for it while it's not windy.

That was a lot of fun. Until it wasn't fun anymore.

I'm so cold and it's so windy and I can't feel my face.

My face is frozen. Am I smiling? I can feel my bottom lip doing something really weird right now. In the water, I was totally fine until three waves in a row held me under. And that had, like, the worst brain freeze.

Let's go to the sauna.

Oh, this is gonna be amazing. The place we rented our boards from has a sauna and a hot tub.

Whoa. This is epic.

How cool is this?

So good.

Let's hope we can get this fire going now.

Man.

It'S flammable. Nice.

Ah.

Oh, I hope it's warm.

Here I go. Fingers crossed.

Oh, it's not warm at all.

Oh, no. Does it need water?

Truck's a war on.

It's like sitting in a barn.

We are hungry. Oatmeal was like 20 hours ago. I've missed Van Life I feel right at home.

Smells lush, doesn't it?

Yeah, it does.

What a day. I surfed a wave above the Arctic Circle in the winter. It does not get better than that.

Now the girls are cooking a curry. We found a spot to park for the night. The same spot that we parked in to go surfing. We're not really sure if we're supposed to be here, but we are on an ice rink.

So we're hoping that we don't pick up a bit of wind and slide into the ocean tonight.

Gordon Ramsay in the house.

It's so beautiful. Loaded with veggies.

Oh, my gosh. Smells so good.

Oh, my gosh. Garlic, ginger, peppers, cauliflower, onions. Mmm.

It is 6:30pm and if I make it 30 more minutes of being awake after eating this meal, it'll be a miracle.

It feels like midnight.

The cold just zaps all of the energy out of your body. But what a great day.

Do you normally vacuum your windows in the morning?

Pretty much, yeah.

Never seen something like this before. But this is actually made for the windows.

Yeah. So it's got like a little thing that catches the water and then if you're really thirsty, you just drink it.

No, no, no.

Good morning. I really thought I was going to be able to talk everyone into another day of surfing today, but for some reason nobody wants to get back into the water with me.

Not okay.

Since I can't talk anyone to getting in the water with me today and we're just, just hanging out, catching up with friends and getting some work done, I thought we'd show you around the bus because Craig and Amy have done an incredible job building out this bus. And they did it completely from scratch. Like they bought it when the seats were still in it. Like the seats, like when it was a school bus or whatever it was in its previous life. And they completely self converted it with the help of really cool guy named Gary to what it is today. Let me show you what I mean. So here's the thing that blows my mind about this bus. And I still don't know if I believe it, but according to the Internet, this bus is the exact length as our van. And it's also a foot wider, but it feels twice as big. Like, I would actually guess the bus was five feet longer than our van. Okay, so let me show you around this incredible build and show you a few of the ideas that we're getting to make our van better if we ever get back in it. This is the coolest trash can I've ever seen. It's like a collapsible trash can. It's always such a pain figure out where to put trash in a van. They have a massive full size sink. We have a similar water filter set up. And like, so this is kind of the size of our kitchen. We have like a tiny little burner over here. And somehow they fit an incredible second kitchen into this bus. So gas stove, full coffee maker. If we were going to use this in our van, it would immediately start beeping because of low power. And we've made like 10 coffees in this thing.

Coffee makers named Van Cough.

Also, if you're from the uk, you drink a lot of tea. So they have a kettle here. Keith the kettle. Everything in here has a name. Also they have a full cook stove down here. It really starts to feel like a home.

We have the same fridge. Twinsies.

We pretty much store all of our food in these top little cabinets in our van. And there's not very much space. And when you open them, it all comes falling out on you. Look how much food storage they have in this thing.

So right where Kara is standing right now is where we hung up the projector screen last night, which was pretty cool. Like we all four just laid back in the bed and then and watch the movie. This bus is just so comfortable. So the windows in this bus are probably my favorite one. You have like 360 views when the window shades are down. But also I just love the window shades. And this is probably the thing I'm most excited to steal for our van. Look at this. They're built in. They got them cut to size and you can just so easily put them up and down.

Not only are they easy to put up and down and takes two seconds, but you don't have to store them anywhere. Like our window covers, when they're not on, they have to go so somewhere and they take up so much space.

Should you explain to people why you're wearing a wig?

Can you explain the wig?

I think I've brought maybe six wigs. So a few years ago, quite a long time ago now, I was diagnosed with cancer and I lost all of my hair. So I started wearing wigs back then and I think I just fell in love with it really. You know when you can just put on a new girl? Well, most of them are boys actually. This is Jonathan. But I change, change it up every single day, like depending on how I feel and who I want to be. And Craig gets extra girlfriend. They're just great. I've just brought them with me. Throughout life. And I just love it.

I'm wearing Kevin.

This is a top van. Life hack. This is basically double glazing. You can't see it. This is just a plastic film that goes around the rubber so it, like, creates a pocket of air. They don't freeze. It's so good. And it's so cheap, this stuff as well. So if you've got a van, I would recommend this stuff.

It's hard to appreciate this unless you live in a vehicle, but in order to keep a bus like this cool in the summer and warm in the winter, that's a pretty big accomplishment. And between the double glazing and the thermal blinds, we have been so toasty in here.

Also, this guy, the diesel heater.

Also over here on this side of the bus, we have the bathroom, which is quite a bit larger than ours. Also have a bee funnel. It's probably about the same height, but definitely it just. It feels more comfortable. You have a lot more room to sit down on the toilet. Ours is, like, raised up a bit. And it's really weird to try to go to the bathroom when your legs aren't touching the ground. And then this one, you don't have that problem. Also, they ran their diesel heater into the bathroom. It comes out right down here. So if you have wet stuff, like a wetsuit and you need it to dry, you can just throw it in here. And just having a room that you can dry stuff in in a van is genius. Also, technically, the bus can sleep four people, But I do just want to give Craig and Amy an extra shout out because they have been the best host ever. I thought it was going to be like four people are sleeping in one vehicle. It's every man for himself. But they have taken such good care of us and have refused to not let us sleep in the big bed in the back, which is one of the most comfortable beds I've ever slep slept in. And they have slept on this bed like this.

This thing pulls out, and then Craig.

Put a pad down and he slept like this last night.

I wake up feeling a little guilty, but very well rested every morning. Okay, over here on the back half of the bus, they've turned their bed sideways. So in our van, we lay like this, which takes up half of the room of the van and their bus. It's just big enough to lay like this. So it feels like they have so much space back here. This is a table that pulls out. We had the projector set up on it last night. Very comfortable to work at again, like, you can actually live in this bus where our van just kind of like moves us from place to place and gives us a bed to sleep in each night. And finally, I asked Craig what was the most unique feature of the bus, and he said, the bed that lifts up with all the storage underneath. And living in a van, you know, if you've seen any of our past tours, Kara really loves storage.

Start with some storage. Tons of storage.

And just look at how much storage is under here.

Oh, buddy.

That is an insane amount of storage. It looks like a dark hole. And that's exactly what it is. A dark hole where you can just stuff so much stuff. You took a school bus and you turned it into this, which is absolutely incredible.

That's cool.

And I would say one of the best fields I've ever been in.

Oh, yeah, no doubt, no doubt. If you've been craving more Van Life content from our channel and we haven't been giving it to you, I'm sorry, but get your Van Life fix from Craig and Amy's channel. They are doing the most epic road trip two months through all Scandinavia, and they're getting into some crazy stuff. It's some of my favorite videos they've ever made. I'm so happy we get to be a part of it for a little while.

And last but not least, I think they have a pretty fun adventure plan for us the next two days, so you can head over to their channel and watch that one that we will be taking part in. Begrudgingly. I don't know. I'm on the fence about this one. Thanks for having us. Always.

It's been great.