Woken by Angry Locals – Why Scotland HATES Campervans

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Woken by Angry Locals – Why Scotland HATES Campervans

Vanlife in Scotland is as good as it gets but the locals don’t think so. Scotland is the only country we have had issues with angry locals and in this video we discuss why that is and if it’s justified.

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Hello and welcome to our channel! We are Alex & Emma, a British couple who have been exploring the world together for over 10 years – from backpacking to vanlife:

2012/13: We both embarked on our own solo backpacking trips through Southeast Asia, where we would eventually meet at a hostel in the mountains of Thailand and begin traveling together. After a year and a half of backpacking around Southeast Asia & Australia, we returned home and to the corporate world!

2015: Travel Beans was born and we filmed our first videos on a road trip around Europe with friends! This was our biggest trip yet.. and you can go back and watch the entire adventure because we filmed ALL of it! This trip took us through Russia, Mongolia & China, on the longest railway journey in the world. Followed by highlights such as staying on a local island in the Maldives for a month, going on safari in Sri Lanka, couchsurfing & hitchhiking in Korea, seeing the snow monkeys in Japan, island hopping in the Philippines, trekking 60km through the centre of Myanmar, exploring the Indian Himalayas, and checking out some of the incredible US National Parks.

2016: Despite an unbelievably memorable year and a half of travels, which we were incredibly grateful to have had the privilege to experience.. we found ourselves in New York City, battling depression. At this point, we decided to go home and confront this problem head-on.

2017: After 6 tough months at home we decided to go away again, but this time with a goal in mind.. to turn travel into a lifestyle. We left the UK with just £500 in our bank account and a dream to make a continuous travel lifestyle happen! We both got online English teaching jobs to be able to fund our travels and to keep creating videos. We can’t quite believe that our younger selves decided to take this plunge but we are so grateful they did as we are still on this journey today!

What now?
Over the years, we’ve discovered that we LOVE road trips and even decided to renovate our very own little VWT4 van into a campervan to be able to enjoy vanlife and spend more time on the road. We are now the proud owners of 2 awesome little campers – one based in the UK and one that we keep in the USA. You’ll often find us using one of these vans to explore Europe and North America. If you enjoy this kind of content we’d recommend checking out our Italy Road Trip series, USA vanlife series and our Japan in a Tiny Van series as well as our UK vanlife content.

Our time spent overcoming depression has influenced our outlook on life dramatically! We are now traveling the world in search of what makes us happy. We love sharing the highs and lows of our trips through our videos and hope to spread a little positivity and light to all of the beautiful people who take the time to tune in and watch each week!

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BEANS OUT!

after over 2 years of Van life there is only one country where we have felt unwelcome they even called me the seaword by a 60-year-old lady the locals are renowned for their disdain for camper and motor homes due to the ever growing popularity of band life in Scotland after being confronted in person and online by these angry locals we nervously revisit and investigate why we are not welcome here we are starting our day just south of the Scottish border in one of the most beautiful parts of England in my opinion and that is the Lake District more specifically windir lake is that right really l so how this works is that I do the research and then I drip feed Emma lines and information we go so yeah what about this Lake I’m like where where are we it’s England’s biggest lake this is the perfect stop off on the way to Scotland because although it looks small the UK is surprisingly quite big so when you look where we are on the map right now in relation to the whole of the UK we’re like basically like halfway yeah well it’s very long isn’t it long and thin there’s a joke there that I’m not going to make say it no absolutely not it doesn’t apply to me small and [Music] [Applause] stubby there are towns all over the lake and lots of little fairies that connect between all of them so we’ve jumped on a ferry and we’re making our way to the north of the lake what’s the name of the place I have no idea amble sign what is it I don’t know oh my God I’m just quickly scrolling my phone we’ve made it to amble side and you know that there is so many good things to do here when number five on the list of things to do is a garden center so you know you’re spoil for choice of exciting riveting I mean to be fair I feel like all little Villages like this are the same they’re there to eat drink and walk around and take in the nice scenery that’s basically it we still had a long way to go to get to Scotland so we hit the road making our way up North hey we made it in Scotland first time with Noah in Scotland hello there you went to sleep in England and you woke up in Scotland you’re right there my ly don’t listen to your dad pull your truers up this terrible accent pull it pull your truers up stop it first word it’s got to be truers now I’m already not feeling welcome here in Scotland it’s like they’ve turned the temperature down the second you get in here is this your way of keeping us out as it was late we decided to stop at a service station along the route for the night first night done and we felt very welcomed here in Scotland mainly because we had to pay £10 for the privilege of doing so but we had probably the best showers that we’ve ever had in a service station we recently talked about how good the truck stops are in the UK and this is a great example of why they’re so good okay I really don’t think it’s that big a deal that we feel welcome at a service station because obviously they have money to make the real test is going to be how welcome are we going to be out in the beautiful Scottish Countryside which is what we’re really here for let’s face it let’s go to lck lman a couple of hours later we found ourselves in the village of lus on the shores of lch Lomond how cute are these little houses along here I’ve not seen houses like this before anywhere they’re quite unique I wonder if that’s a lock lomman thing or if it’s this region of Scotland thing either way it’s very very cute lock Lomond is home to more than 39 Islands so we jumped on a boat tour to get a closer look one of the islands here is surprisingly home to a bunch of wallabies native to Australia what the hell are Wallabees doing here that’s what I want to know well thanks for asking Emma cuz the reason is that lady Aaron the crazy old witch apparently she’s very eccentric no no she was very lovely she was just very Ecentric apparently and she had a love for exotic animals and that included bringing loads of wab on here and they now still live here to this day she is dubbed the world’s fastest granny because she was racing sorry who this she’s been clocked at doing the highest speed woman on a speedboat randomly on Lake windir where we were yesterday I love it I feel like she’s one of those like hard old ladies that just doesn’t give a sh what anyone else thinks and she’s like Breaking All the Rules and going really fast and causing havoc on the lake she went 103 M an hour that is mad having stayed in a service station for the first night we really wanted to make sure our second night in Scotland was a more memorable one the plan is to Wild count tonight so we are on the lookout for a really great Park up spot luckily Scotland is riddled with these incredible Park UPS so we are just currently on the hunt trying to find a good one for tonight we use the app park for night to find our spots uh and I’m filtering it by places that are surrounded by nature and we’ve got this one here right next to a lock but also it is right next to the main road it’s pretty loud it’s very very loud yeah it’s pretty though really pretty and you can walk all the way down to the beach down there unfortunately I think this one is going to be a no because it is too close to the road and we have had a bad experience with this in the past which we will tell you about in the next spot we’d like to take a moment to talk to you about today’s video sponsor ag1 are you banging on about ag1 again yes I am I love that stuff ag1 is a daily foundational nutrition supplement which supports whole body Health it is really easy to make and it tastes so good all you have to do is mix one scoop of ag1 with 8 to 10 oz of cold water shake it up and you’re good to go we also find that the travel packs are super convenient when we’re on the road because one pack is equal to your daily scoop and they’re really teeny tiny so they’re really easy to slot in and take with you anywhere one of the benefits that we have found from starting our day with ag1 is that it sort of sets the whole blueprint for the rest of the day and it really does help to motivate us to make better health choices as the day goes on one of the main reasons I personally love ag1 is for gut health benefits and nutrient replenishment we try to get as much Variety in our diet as we possibly can but it’s not always so easy so it is really nice to know that as long as we can squeeze in one scoop of ag1 each day we at least have our nutritional needs covered if you fancy getting a head start on your health before the holidays make sure to check out our link which is down in the description by using our link you will get a free one-year supply of vitamin D3 plus K2 as well as five free travel packs with your first purchase of ag1 luckily Scotland isn’t sure on beautiful secluded Park UPS if you go looking for them we headed further away from civilization in search of the perfect spot with just a few obstacles in our path look at this place oh wow holy crap oh Scotland you beauty we have found our spot for the night and it’s a bit of a stonker we always say on this channel the camera never does Justice to what we’re seeing and this is another example of that and I’m looking in the screen right now and that is not what I’m seeing there this is as good as it gets get and for me this is what van life is all about getting into nature and finding these cool little spots which is just better than getting a hotel at least to me with something like this being free there is always going to be people letting the side down so as you can see here we got a fire pit which I’m not sure if that’s strictly legal or not I don’t really necessarily have an opinion about that but what I do have an opinion about is taking a and leaving it there I think one of the arguments a lot of people have for the wild camping thing in Scotland is why do it instead you could just stay in a campsite and it’s really hard to justify staying in a campsite when there’s spots like this that you can come and stay in get completely to yourself the whole place to yourself and you’re surrounded by Nature it’s quiet it’s tranquil peaceful and it’s free just to top it all off which is really nice show me a campsite as good as this and I would pay to say here like if this was 20 quid just to stay here on our own on this little plot I pay that it just happens to be [Music] free M is for monkey [Music] mon so let’s have a chat why do we not feel welcome in Scotland this is the only country we’ve had a problem in real life and online when it comes to Van life this is the only place that purposefully we have been woken up by locals beeping at us which is why we try and find places off the main road because here a lot of locals do not like camper bands absolutely not for reasons like the poop that’s outside I mean that’s a pretty valid reason to be fair at the end of the day the problem is that there are a few bad eggs letting the side down for the rest of us there have been reports of things like littering parking in the passing places emptying gray waste on the side of the road sleeping in inappropriate places like graveyards ignoring no sleeping signs and just being generally bad drivers so it should go without saying that show respect in the place that you are clean after yourself and leave no Trace but unfortunately not everyone does that I think that along with the growing popularity of things like the nc500 route has just been the perfect cocktail to create so much Havoc that the locals just end up hating all of us under one big umbrella we’ve also been attacked online as we gave an interview a couple of years ago with a newspaper explaining about the nc500 and why the locals don’t like it there is kind of an Infamous Facebook group where the locals basically just hate on all van lifers that come through the area pretty much anyone they posted about us and came at us they even called me the seword by a 60-year-old lady but all jokes aside it is particularly upsetting when we make such an effort to leave no Trace to be as respectful as possible to support local businesses to do all these things in the right way we also completely understand why people would be so upset with these kind of horrific behaviors like we listed before but it definitely isn’t the majority of people that are doing that it really is a few bad eggs but as a community I don’t think the majority should necessarily ignore the minority in this and like it is a real issue what is going on and if you are one of those bad eggs that are leaving rubbish and around giving the rest of us a bad name stop it stop it right now I think a lot of the problem here stems from the the interpretation of the law so here in Scotland they have the right to roam which basically means that you get reasonable access to pretty much all of the land here as long as you’re acting responsibly and acting responsibly obviously is open for interpretation to an extent but there are some rules for example leave no Trace no rubbish no evidence of fire pits or poops outside that is very much going against the right to R policy so van ERS have interpreted this rule as they can camp kind of wherever they like in their camper bands and this rule kind of actually just for wild camping in terms of tents camping in your vehicle is completely allowed and that sleeping in your vehicle is completely allowed but you do have to also follow the highway rules with that as well so not blocking things not staying on private property etc etc the list goes on basically showing common sense and not being an so with all that in mind let’s see how tonight goes good morning good morning from a very beautiful spot in Scotland look at this view out the back window I mean the windows are a bit grubby but the views nice it’s also very rainy today yeah it’s very drizzly very Scotty out there I think actually the weather in Scotland is one of the things that makes it so beautiful there’s something about the Moody Misty drizzly weather which is actually really Charming yeah I think it kind of represents a Scottish person what what drizzly and wet grumpy grumpy that’s so mean we met so many nice Scottish people I’m really joking I love Scottish people one of the big reasons Scotland means so much to us is actually it was on our first proper Road Trip Around Scotland where everything changed in terms of where our life Direction was going on that trip we visited the aisle of sky and it was on the aisle of sky that we decided that we were going to have children she’s not saying that we started trying cuz that’s where my mind would go that is just where we decided that we did want to have kids over the next year we would save money to be a ble to afford to feed him in our minds because we live in a mic lifestyle we were like okay as long as we have X amount of money in the bank we can do this because that’s essentially like our little safety nest and so yes so Scotland means so much to us that even Noah’s middle name is Sky after the aisle of sky and is just somewhere that we just want to keep coming back to all of the time and we have talked on the channel about moving to Portugal but one of the other destinations that we are interested in exploring is Scotland as well for that reason oh definitely and this trip is so special because this is the first trip that we’re coming back to Scotland with Noah last time we were here he was in my tummy and now he’s here with us last thing to do before we head off is to have my morning van life poop only joking I save this for the local establishments one of the things we love to do when staying in these types of Park UPS is to go and check out the local Villages and we always like to come especially for breakfast and coffee in the morning a because it makes it easier and B because we get to see these little places that we never would have come to otherwise one of the complaints that people have about band liers here in Scotland is that they are not contributing to the local community so they’re just coming here and just taking you know coming with food that they’ve bought from the home they got the fuel I kind of personally think that this is an unfair criticism as I don’t really think that people are just stocking up on food so they won’t spend a penny in the area we had found ourselves in the village of Killin and couldn’t believe our luck this is outrageously beautiful oh my goodness sometimes it feels like just the luck of the drawer what makes a place famous or not famous cuz I feel like this place is just like one social media post from from being riddled a tourist and it’s just absolutely briting maybe it’s just the autumn colors that maybe make it like something okay no they have an incredible waterfall on a beautiful old bridge I don’t think I’ve seen anything quite like this anywhere before but we have these rocks jutting out of the river bed and then waterfalls all around I could just imagine salmon jumping Upstream at the right time of year I love when you get a mix of human civilization with nature kind of symbiotically working together and at least somewhere like this just feels so natural and it kind of just feels like this is just a feature of the village it feels like in the past they built stuff aesthetically of like a nice place for humans to live and feel creative and now in the world that we live in and the construction just doesn’t feel the same or back in the day did something like that bridge look ugly to them having already stayed in a service station and a wild spot for the sake of comparison we thought we’d see what you get for your money at a paid campsite so how much does it cost £26 and yeah they’re really lovely and nice for that price we got a hardstanding pitch with nearby nature walks and the usual facilities I’m going to do something objectively pretty weird and bring you guys into the bathroom hello okay luckily no one is in here but the reason why is I wanted to show you what the facilities look like if you ever seen these before you know what they those are I hope you know what that is and the showers are over here and I would actually have to say that the service station that we stayed at the start of the video has better shower facilities I think for the price this place is perfectly fine but the truth is I’m probably not going to remember this in a number of years time but the spot we were at last night I will remember I and I think like these trips are made up of those moments right like those memories tend to be the ones that stand out amongst the rest although this is a really nice campsite it’s not like having your own secret little spot that you feel like you’ve discovered all for your own mhm personally I think these C kind of campsites are really well suited to sort of Caravans and big motor homes but it’s for these little like VW Camper vans like for us I feel like this isn’t the place to be I think it’s it’s the same price for like a van for us it’s it’s the same price per pitch right so if you have a big rig it’s well worth it value for MoneyWise maybe it’s not so worth it for a small one especially for a van like this which you can go off grid in we’re definitely not here to gatekeep you your vacations and I think sometimes a campsite could be like a hotel room it might just be a bed to you and then you can go off and have your memorable adventures and this isn’t that important for us the part of the adventure is finding the place to stay yeah it is fun isn’t it like not knowing what the place you’re going to be staying that night is going to be like where it’s going to be it’s always a gamble but then in turn it pays off yeah it’s a bit of a lottery and sometimes you’ll be sleeping in a Walmart car park and sometimes you’ll be sleeping under the stars in an absolute stoning place we would love to know what you guys think and what you would prefer to do yourselves would you prefer searching for a wild Camp spot which may or may not pay off or would you prefer the security of knowing you have all the immunities that you need at a campsite and have you been to Scotland and do you love it as much as we do and if you don’t and if you’ve not been to Scotland before your butts here get your butts here you won’t regret it just make sure you clean up after yourself yes if you like the video don’t forget to hit the big fat thumbs up button and don’t forget to hit subscribe for future content check the description for ag1 if you’re interested and nothing left to say but thank you so much for watching we’ll see you next time and bean [Music] Zoot