After relaxing yesterday we had a fairly long drive from Whitehorse to Dawson City. The road was better than we expected and we arrived in Dawson City about 3:30 pm. For the first time on the trip we experienced a little bit of rain, and the temperatures are cooler than normal for this part of the world. The lows later in the week are forecast in the mid-30’s.
The first stop was the Northwest Territory Visitors Center to check on the status of the Dempster Highway. We were told that the road was in fair to good shape and the weather was forecast to not have any real impact on the road. So we are going to give it a shot tomorrow.
We signed up for a walking tour of Dawson City put on by Parks Canada. It was fun and well done with one of the rangers playing the role of an American heiress who visited Dawson during the gold boom. After the tour we visited the Jack London Lounge to see a Sour toe drink made.. We decided on beer instead. We will probably spend another night around here in a few days after we return from the Dempster.
The Yukon River is a big part of the Dawson City experience.
Today we set out for the Arctic Circle on the Dempster Highway. It is a spectacular drive even though the weather was not cooperating with us. It was raining with quite a bit of cloud cover so a lot of the views were covered in clouds. It was quite beautiful but not super photogenic so pictures were limited.
The first 200km’s of the drive were pretty easy, but at the Ogilvie Summit we ran into about 80km’s of muddy rough road that was a test. We made it through all of that and on a nice smooth pull into the Eagle Plains Campground we lost our rear tire and even more unluckily it was the sidewall so the tire was not repairable. We must of caught a rock going up the hill. At Eagle Plains there is a tire shop and we were able to find a used tire that is the right size to use to head back to civilization.
A typical stretch of the Dempster.
It looks like Inuvik will have to wait until next time. And though we had bad luck the first 350km’s of the Dempster are stunning and I will highly recommend them to anyone.
A picture of Scout about 11pm. It never did get totally dark. Note the mud along the bottom half of the truck.
Today was an adventure. We decided that the Arctic Circle was only 30km North of us so we started the day heading there. We also figured it would be a good test for the used tire we had mounted. We made it with no real problem and have now driven across the arctic circle.
On the way south after about 15 km’s there was a loud bang and the used tire had blown. Fortunately we were at a nice flat spot and on a long, dry, firm stretch of road. But for the first time Ron was going to have to change a tire on Scout. A sparsely traveled road 10 miles south of the arctic circle and 220 miles from the nearest paved road was not the ideal place to test our tire changing equipment. Ron was regretting not doing a dry run before with the tire changing equipment. Everything was going ok until it was time to position the bottle jack to lift the truck. Because the tire had failed completely the rear axle was too low to put the heavy duty bottle jack Ron had bought under the axle. But luckily two fellows who worked for the Yukon government came along and stopped to help. They had a jack that would fit under the axle, but was only rated for two tons, which was not enough to lift the truck. But it would lift the axle enough to get the heavy duty bottle jack under the axle, so success. The tire was changed with the help of a third guy who worked at the Eagle Plains gas station who wandered by with a water truck. I never did get the names of the two guys who had the jack that made the repair possible but I really appreciate them taking the 45 minutes it took for me to use their jack.
The next stop was Eagle Plains to assess the situation, as we were back to the same problem as the night before, 365 kilometers from the nearest pavement and no spare. We were forced to make the budget busting decision to buy a new spare tire that worked in a pinch, but we will be discarding when we get to civilization and can buy a matching tire for the one we lost.
After getting everything sorted in Eagle Plains we took off for Dawson City about noon and after a very cautious drive arrived about 730pm. A very long day.
A bush plane along the road. I am truly not sure where he landed. Possibly on the road.
We debated our next drive; do we do the Top of the World Highway which is a mixture of asphalt and gravel with our mismatched tires, or do the 750 mile detour back to Whitefish and drive the Alaska Highway. Ultimately we decided on the 176 mile Top of the World figuring the road could not be any worst than yesterday and the mismatched tires held up yesterday.
The drive was really beautiful. A great road running across ridges with super views on each side. We crossed back into the US in the most northern most land border crossing. They actually seemed happy to see us at customs, I think it was a slow day.
After an uneventful drive, the first in a couple of days , we arrived in Tok. We spent part of the afternoon knocking the large chunks of Dempster mud off of Scout, kicking back and researching how to find Nitto Terra Grappler tires in Alaska.
Today was planned primarily as a driving day. We are headed to Haines Alaska, and there really is not much between us and there. Along the way we ran into a German couple we had camped next to last night. We were stuck waiting for a pilot car when we realized they were in front of us. We followed them thru the border crossing back into Canada and ended up at the visitors center in Beaver Creek. Ton and the wife Anna ran in to use the internet, while the husband Hubert and I tried to carry on a conversation about trucks and Volkswagens. When we went in Ton, Anna and the two ladies at the visitors center were gushing over pictures of Anna’s two week old grandchild.
Today we covered only about 200 miles, but it took about 6 hard hours of driving. There is one section of the road around Beaver Creek where the tundra has always wrecked havoc with the road. The tundra melts because of the heat generated by the road, and engineers have tried multiple ways to stop it, so far unsuccessfully. There has even been talk of going back to gravel for that section as it generates less heat and thus less frost heaves.
I want to end the day by praising the Yukon tourism board. The visitor centers every where are just fantastic. The people manning them are uniformly well informed and friendly. The internet is always strong, and they recognize that travelers up here need a place to connect, so they have seating areas for internet users. Because of this we stop in nearly every town’s visitors center. The other thing that Yukon does well are their Territorial Parks. They are not fancy but they are well laid out and clean, and best of all cost only $12 per night.
Really very little to talk about today. Drove about 300 miles thru pretty country. This was the one major section that we doubled back on so we have already covered the road earlier. Tomorrow we will begin heading south in earnest on the Cassier Highway.
Another mountain and lake view from the window of the truck.
Ron always had fond memories of Hyder AK from our last trip to Alaska, so the plan was to drive the Cassier Highway to Hyder. Hyder has this frontier town feeling which was very fun for Ron. There is no US customs at the border in Hyder, and there is no police or fire, those services when needed are provided by Stanley British Columbia. The Americans in Hyder can be paid in Canadian currency as there are no banks in Hyder and the nearest American banks are over 1000 road miles away.
On our last trip we were held up for several hours at the junction of the Alaska and Cassier Highways due to a very large wildfire on the Cassier just south of the Alaska Highway. When we were finally allowed thru it was in a convoy led by a fire vehicle, and we actually passed thru areas where we could still see flames near the road. It was quite a memorable experience.
The remnants of the fire we passed thru seven years ago and a shot of the Cassier Highway.
This trip we had nothing that dramatic, but we could still see the effects of the fire from seven years ago for the first 50 or so miles. Other than that the Cassier Highway was pretty uneventful but pretty. We did see a black bear on the road but otherwise it was mostly covering a lot of miles.
I would like to say that Hyder lived up to the memories we had, but it did not. It had a ghost town feel, we could not tell if it was because they had closed up for the season, or because the town was in real trouble. We went down to the fish creek Forest Service observation deck, but there were no bears. By now it was a long day so we went to the only open RV park near by and paid for a commercial campground.
We were discussing options last night about what to do next. Our initial thought was to take it slow going north and spend another day in Washington before spending a couple of days traveling around the Okanagan Valley in BC looking at wineries. But the smoke and heat was getting to us. The air quality was categorized as unhealthy in Wenatchee, and unhealthy in Kelowna so we made the decision to just try to get north of the smoke. Below is an example of the smoke obscuring the views.
Today turned into a travel day with the priority being getting in some miles. It was an uneventful drive north except we came upon a very severe accident that stopped us for about 40 minutes, and then after entering BC we came upon another accident where the truck involved had caught fire and burned totally.
We decided to wimp out and stay in a place with power so we can run our AC. Between the smoke and the high heat we decided to put comfort over cost. Luckily we called ahead to find a place as it is a holiday in Canada today, and even more lucky the place we called had just had a cancellation and we got their last spot for the night. It is a very nice campground above Kelowna on a working farm called Orchard Hill RV. We highly recommend it.
Another lazy start to the day. The original plan was to head towards a Provincial Park to spend the night and take in some sights, but as we were heading north out of Kelowna the smoke from the fires continued to get worst. Ton finally said that maybe we should just get to Alaska and come back and see British Columbia after the fires were out. It made a lot of sense as the intensity of the smoke is hard to describe.
We rerouted ourselves towards Dawson Creek on the most direct route which took as thru Kamloops. Kamloops had the most intense smoke we had seen so far on the trip, with visibility down to a mile or less in some places. As we pulled into Kamloops there was a sign showing that Route 97 was closed due to fire activity. As you can guess Route 97 is the direct route to Dawson Creek from Kamloops so we needed to reroute. We ended up on a 80 mile detour around the fire to rejoin route 97.
The impact of the fire is massive. Tonight we are staying on the grounds of the Williams Lake Stampede(Canadian for Rodeo). Sharing the grounds with us are about 10 fire engines from various towns in BC and Alberta. A helicopter with a water bucket just flew buy, and in the mall in town is a large Red Cross evacuation center staffed with about 20 people. Talking to a local this is the biggest heat wave BC has had since the late 50’s and the most fires in one season since 1961. Right now they have fire crews from all over Canada, the US, New Zealand, Australia, Mexico, and Chile. It really is something traveling thru the middle of a natural disaster.
So despite our best intentions of taking it slow we are back in the miles per day race until we get north of the fires.
We woke up to a very smoky morning. We thought we may have been thru the worst of the smoke when we went to bed, but sometime during the night smoke blew in and it was as bad as we had seen yesterday.
We planned a long day driving today to get out of the smoke. We had targeted a town called Chedwyn, but as we pulled in the two parks in town were packed. It seems Chedwyn and Dawson Creek are having an oil boom with all of the good and bad that comes with it. Both towns were noticeably bigger than 5 years ago, and the quiet RV parks that were thrilled to see tourists are now very full with oil workers. Chedwyn was offering temporary parking in a parking lot in town. We decided to push on to Dawson City. As we pulled in it looked like the same problem. We checked in with the visitors center and they said it was rodeo week and they recommended we head up the highway.
The good news is that we are well out of the smoke and we have blue sky for tomorrows drive. Now we can try to slow down, even thought the next town is about 300 miles away. Also today we reached the official beginning of the Alaska Highway.
The beginning of the Alaska Highway with a Safeway Grocery in the background featuring Liquor and Cold Beer!
Today was a driving day. There is not much to see between Dawson Creek and Fort Nelson so we got up and headed up the road. We made a short diversion to the last of the WW2 era wooden bridges. It is no longer on the main road and is being preserved by Canada as a historic site. Ron liked it but Ton was not too impressed.
The big change since our last trip is a natural gas boom in the area. There is much more traffic on the road from Dawson Creek to Ft. St. John and a little beyond. It reminds us a little of the Bakken area of North Dakota where Ron just finished up working.
The other change is an overall improvement in the quality of the road. It is much better than we both remember, even though there are some rough patches on it.
We arrived in Fort Nelson around 2:30 pm and stayed in the same RV park we stayed at on the last trip. As usual in these small towns we went to the visitors center, and were told enthusiastically that there was a program on the history of Ft. Nelson in 20 minutes. The air conditioning was good and the staff looked so happy to have someone that we stayed and were the only attendees. It was well done and interesting so we were glad we stayed.
A great collection of “stuff”.
Across the street is a museum that we think is a must see if you make the trip. It is full of interesting stuff and vehicles. We had stopped on our last trip to Alaska and had fond memories. The staff is very proud and glad to answer questions. If you have a chance check it out.
Ton has begun to refer this trip as the Fire and Rain tour, with all due respect to James Taylor.
Today we began by debating our next designation. The direct route would be to Prince George BC, but we had been reading about Prince Rupert so we decided to head there. As we were discussing Prince Rupert Ton mentioned that maybe we should check the weather there. We did not have any service at that point, and by the time we did have service we were already committed to Prince Rupert. As we got closer to Prince Rupert the rain was coming down in sheets, and the wind was blowing a gale. It was a serious storm. When we pulled into town it looked like a nice enough place, but there was no way to walk around town without getting drenched and blown around. The campground situation was not so good, and the BC Park we had as our backup was soaked, so we made the decision to double back to Terence BC.
A glacier on the Cassier Highway (before the rain).
By the way the road to Prince Rupert from Terence is spectacular. You are going to have to take our word for it as we could not get any pictures thru the rain. There are a great many ribbon waterfalls, and a couple of proper waterfalls. The road follows the gorge formed by the Skeena River, and near the end broadens out to an estuary with mountains on either side and multiple islands. It is really a nice drive.
As the trip winds to an end we are getting focused on miles over seeing things. Today we found ourselves on good roads where cruise control was the norm. When we arrived in Prince George we did a little poking around the town before finding ourselves in the Walmart parking lot for the night.
While there is not much to talk about we actually enjoyed the day. The sights were nice and while not as spectacular as Alaska still varied and pretty. We have found we are getting comfortable with a variety of places to stop for the night, even urban camping in Walmart.
Today we headed to one of our favorite campsites on Naval Airstation Whidbey Island. It is located right on the Puget Sound and is really a great place to camp.
The initial drive was down the Fraser River Valley and is quite spectacular. I know we are sounding like a broken record but the trip to Alaska is full of spectacular drives.
Ron was focused on making it to the US before buying any more fuel. We made it but only just. Ron was sweating bullets in the line to clear customs, wondering what the punishment would be to run out of gas at the border crossing. When we pulled into the first gas station available after the border it took 33 gallons to fill the truck, a new record by 5 gallons so we really were on fumes.
We arrived early at the campsite at Whidbey and got the last space available. The Navy has spent a lot of money upgrading this park and it is the equivalent of the best campground you would see anywhere. On top of that the camp host does an incredible job both keeping the place clean and keeping gardens throughout the place. It really is special.
Today was a relatively lazy day. We started out a little later than usual, and parked for the night around 3:30 pm. As we drove south we saw signs of the fires that had closed the roads when we were heading towards Alaska. The firefighters did a great job saving property, but the land along the road showed that the fires must have been quite intense.
We targeted Spences Bridge because Ron had read that there was a log cabin pub there worth checking out. It turned out to be a real jewel. It is a very interesting building, much larger on the inside than it appeared from the outside. The owner was fun to talk to, and had a very refreshing view of life. It had been a tough year for them because the fires in this area were very intense and had the highway closed for long periods of time.
We have been keeping the blog of our travels in our Tiger RV in North America and also our Knaus Motorhome in Europe for the last 5 years. During that time we have covered the western part of the US pretty extensively.
Some of our personal highlights have been in Eastern Oregon, Eastern California, and the Alaska Highway. During this time one of our sons worked at Yellowstone Park, and we visited there three times.
We began traveling in Europe in 2018, so far it has been a great experience for us. We hope to add many more destinations in Europe in the future.
Note while Covid-19 is ongoing there are new rules in place that supersede the normal conditions for travel within the Schengen Zone. This article is based on our experience prior to Covid.
One of the most common questions that we are asked is how long can you stay in Europe? The short answer is simple, as Americans we can stay for up to 90 days in any 180 day period in the countries that are a signatory to the Schengen agreement. Let me begin by stating that this article is based on our experience traveling to Europe, and pretty extensive research on the internet, it does not represent in any way shape or form an official explanation of the ins and outs of the Schengen agreement. Below I will attempt to give a laymans explanation of Schengen and how we have managed travel since we began motor homing in Europe..
What is the Schengen agreement?
It is an agreement amongst the countries of the EU and Switzerland to allow for free movement of people within the borders of the signatories. Effectively there are no border controls and anyone who has legally gained entry to a Schengen country can cross from country to country during their stay. At this time it covers most of Europe with the exception of Great Britain, Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Albania, Bulgaria and Romania. These countries do not participate in Schengen, but for Americans all of these countries have visa free entry that will adequately cover travel in them.
Do I need a visa in advance to travel?
There are a list of countries that are allowed visa free entrance to the Schengen countries. That list includes the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Great Britain. This website has a list of countries that do and do not require visas, schengenvisainfo.com. So for us to travel to Europe, as long as we enter at an airport within Schengen and depart within 90 days, no paperwork is required beyond passports.
Managing the Time
For long term travelers managing the 90 day periods becomes an issue. If you are full timing in Europe you have to get out of Schengen for 90 days of every 180 days. Remember that list of countries I listed above, days in those countries do not count towards your 90 days, just insure that you receive a departure stamp on your passport at the border of the EU country where you leave Schengen so that the clock stops. Other options to stop the clock that are easily accessible from Schengen countries and have good tourist infrastructure are Morocco and Turkey.
Some travelers report that this requirement is not strictly enforced in all countries. We do not think this is a risk that you should take. On one of our trips when we departed Schengen thru Iceland, the immigration officer made a point of asking if we clearly understood the rules regarding length of stay, so in Iceland I can for certain say they are paying attention.
In our case we make two trips per year and try to utilize two different 180 day periods per year. This can be tricky and we have found a very good tool to help, it is published by the European Commission for Migration and Home Affairs. It is a short stay visa calculator, the website is ec.europa.eu, and it is an official EU website. In this tool you put the dates of your last visit, and the date you would like to arrive for your next visit, and it will tell you how many visa free days you can stay after that arrival date.
A personal example: Last year we arrived for our first trip to Europe on April 28 and departed on June 25 for a stay of 59 days. We originally planned to arrive for our second trip September 15, when I used the calculator it said we would only be authorized for 31 days, the remainder of the 90 days we had from our previous trip. Running thru the calculator I learned that if we arrived on September 26 we would get 31 days, but if we arrived on September 27 we would get the full 90 days.
It may have been possible to change our plans to drive to Bosnia or Serbia, and re-enter the EU after September 27 but we did not want to risk it. We adjusted our arrival date in France to be September 29 so there would be no problem. The consequences of overstaying your visa can be a substantial fine, and in the worst case a 5 year ban on travel to Schengen.
While it is hard to find someone who can clearly explain the ins and outs of Schengen, and the on line references are often contradictory, if you are conservative in your planning and use the EU calculator you should be fine. The bottom line is pay attention and you can spend substantial time in Europe every year, and with some creativity you can nearly full time in Europe.
Below is a summary of our experience with our Knaus 550. We now have 8 trips in one of these vehicles, one with a rental version, and seven with the 550 we purchased. As we have spent more time in François we have added some accessories to address upgrades we wanted.
We have now owned François for 5 years and made seven trips covering about 60000 km’s. We have had no mechanical issues with the Fiat portion of the vehicle. The only time we have had to bring him into a shop in those 5 years was in Albania when both headlight bulbs burned out simultaneously. During this time we have had to replace the water pump for the house water system in 2021 when we returned from our enforced Covid absence. There is a small mystery water leak when we drive in very heavy rain that does not occur any other time. Beside that we have had no issues with the vehicle. The vehicle as purchased was very basic as is common in rental RV’s. Over time we have added some accessories to give us some luxury we wanted, or to improve the livability of the RV.
Overall Design
The Knaus 550 is extremely compact at 19.6 feet long, 10 feet high, and 7.2 feet wide (In comparison Scout our Malayan is 22.5 feet long, 10.5 feet high and 7.5 feet wide). In fact it is shorter than most European RV’s. Despite the compact size the living area in the Knaus is from our perspective more comfortable for long trips than the Malayan. Part of that is because the Fiat Ducato (sold as the Ram Promaster in the US) does not have the hood of our Silverado, so more of the length is devoted to the house than to the engine, but also due to some smart decisions by the German designers. We particularly enjoyed having the bed at floor level, and still having a substantial sitting area. All of the space to the rear of the vehicle is used so the bathroom is larger than in Scout, and we have a floor to ceiling storage closet. In fact the interior storage is enormous compared to the Malayan. In addition to the closet and abundant cabinet space they have a clever way of accessing the storage under the bed. The slat bed folds up in half giving you access to about 8 x 6 feet of storage. We were able to put our suitcases under there with the two lawn chairs, a folding table, and the hose and electricity cords. This storage area is also accessible from the outside, though that door could use to be a little wider. The fit and finish and quality of the latches hinges and other hardware is superior to Scout. Much superior.
Base Vehicle
The base vehicle is a Fiat Ducato which is sold in the US as the Ram Promaster. The Fiat Ducato model we have has a 6 speed manual transmission attached to 2.2 liter diesel engine. We did some mountain driving in it and it handled the hills well. I imagine it would be a little more of a struggle with an automatic, having said that I have relearned how much I like automatic transmissions. We have had no issues so far with our Fiat.
One interesting thing that took us a little while to wrap our head around is that most European RV’s do not come with a spare tire. In Europe roadside assistance is included with all insurance so they do not require a spare, if you have a flat you are supposed to call for assistance and they will come out and repair the flat or tow you to the nearest place that can. You are required to have a flat repair kit on board, but our understanding is that they are rarely used by the repair services.
Electrical
The utility systems are simple compared to Scout due to the differences in camping styles in Europe. There was no inverter initially, and when dry camping you have only one USB outlet available. When we are plugged in there are plenty of electric outlets.
Electrical Upgrades
When dry camping the electric outlets do not work. We found that with proper management we could keep everything we needed charged from the one USB outlet, but after the first trip we did add an inverter so that we would have some more electric outlets available when dry camping. Eurocamping cars added the inverter and two additional plugs connected to the inverter. When dry camping the inverter powers these two plugs, and we have access to the USB port that works with the original house battery. After the first trip we also added an additional house battery, and a solar panel. While we have not had any issues with running down our one house battery we decided to give ourselves a little leeway.
Fresh Water, Gray Water, and Black Water.
The RV holds about 30 gallons (120 liters) of fresh water accessible by filling a tank on the outside. There is no provision for hooking up water and having it on demand. In European campgrounds there are central water points where you fill the tank on arrival or departure. If you stay longer and do not want to move, we noticed most people carry 5 gallon water buckets and they manually refill their water every couple of days. The access points for water are quite large to allow for this. On our second trip we purchased a water bucket with a spout for about €5, one of our best purchases. The systems for disposing of gray and black water are quite different in Europe, and I think it would be very difficult for a RV with an American Black water system to work here. We also have a cassette on Scout our American RV and I personally think it is less gross than the black hoses most people use. The gray water in Europe is disposed of by pulling over a grate and opening a valve, and letting the water run directly into the drain. Sometimes these drains are located in very awkward places. We almost had a disaster trying to back into one in Spain. I noticed that a lot of people keep a separate water bucket for disposing of their gray water when they are parked up for a while. I have begun carrying the gray water daily to the disposal as we do not generate that much gray water per day and it is good exercise for me.
SOG UNIT
Ton hates the smell generated by the cassette and we initially managed the smell using the blue tabs most RVer’s are familiar with. As we were traveling we began to hear about a system to manage odors called a SOG unit. It is a German designed accessory that adds a fan to the cassette that holds the black water. When you open the slot in the toilet to let the bad stuff go into the cassette the fan kicks on and pulls the odor out of the vehicle. I was skeptical but everyone we met who had one raved about them. After our spring 2019 trip to Germany I noticed that Eurocamping car had added them to their accessory list so we decided to purchase one. We have now used it on our last trip, and it does a pretty good job of managing the odor without having to use the chemical blue tabs. Ton still occasionally gets a whiff of smell so it is not a complete success, but it does seem to be an improvement.
Propane
The heater and hot water run on propane, François had standard cooking containers for propane when we purchased it. An issue that we did not experience is that there is no standardization of propane containers or fittings in the EU, so when you change countries you have to change fittings, and bottles, it is a pain but they cope with it. The heater/ hot water system is significantly quieter than the propane heater we had in our Winnebago, and also quieter than the Espar diesel heater in Scout. The heat is floor heating and works very well. We had a couple of nights in the 30’s on the trip, and were able to quickly warm the cabin when we woke up. The heater also heats the storage compartment. The refrigerator also uses propane when not hooked up to shore power.
Gaslow Propane System
We heard of a system developed in England that allowed you to avoid the lack of standardization of propane containers and regulators in Europe called a Gaslow system. This is a British system that allows you to fill reusable containers that come in the system. In Europe a significant amount of the cars and trucks on the road run on LPG. As a result LP gas pumps are available at a large number of gas stations. This system utilizes a filler system that is compatible with these gas pumps. We did some reading on this system and it looked like a good alternative. It is most commonly used by British RV’s and continental RV dealers do not seem to retrofit it. We talked to Phill and he said he would install it so we decided to have him install the Gaslow when we purchased François. Unlike the US the customer fills LP gas at the pump in Europe. (Except for Italy where the attendant must do it.) Once I learned the drill we have not had any real trouble with one exception. While the internals of the system work anywhere in Europe, the connector between the pump and the vehicle is not standardized across Europe. France, Spain, and Italy use one system, Germany uses another, and apparently Britain uses a third connector. Our system came with all three connectors. For the first two trips I had gotten used to the French connector and had no problem using it. The first time we got to Germany I realized that the German adapter was missing. I had lost it in Spain. Eventually we were able to find a replacement at a gas station, but it was a day of panic as we would have had to have a new replacement mailed to us from England. So if you go with a Gaslow system make sure you have a good system to keep track of your adapters. The other advantage of the Gaslow is LPG at the pump is almost half as cheap as the containers. I think the Gaslow has been a good investment. If we are not heating François we get 3 to 4 weeks between fill ups. When we run the heater we get about 5 to 6 days between fill ups.
Other Systems
There is no AC unit, but good windows of the same make as Scout and two roof vents without fans. We have experienced temperatures in the 80’s and 90’s, I bought a little USB fan one day in a Lidl that Ton finds amusing for how little air it moves. During the next hot spell we will search for a better fan. François did not have a screen door when we purchased it. After enduring a heat wave on our trip to Germany we asked for a screen door to be retrofitted. It was a great investment.
Safe
We added a small safe to store valuables in. When we depart François for the day we store some of our high value stuff as well as our passports in the safe.
