Van Life: five free emergency places to sleep that you can find everywhere in Europe.
Sometimes you are just tired and need to find a place where to sleep ASAP, doesn’t matter if it’s romantic or not.
Hey! I’m going to share with you my top 5 spots that you can find almost everywhere in the western world.
Please consider that I am suggesting those places only as emergencies, because addition to not being nice spots the problem with public parking normally is that sometimes somebody uses them for activities they don’t want to do in public: sex in the car, drinking, drugs etc. Second thing to consider, is togo there only if you have a Van that is not obviously dedicated to van life, and still looks a little bit commercial.
Cemeteries: in my experience this don’t happen in cemeteries parking. But please, if there’s already a van, don’t go in the parking of a cemetery, because it won’t be long until they ban us from every public parking.
PRO: often there’s water and you have silent neighbours.
NEGATIVE: I hope you haven’t watched too many horror films in your childhood 😁...
Autobahn rest areas: truck driver sleep there, why not stop there with your van? Just be respectful, don’t be loud and don’t steal the spot of a truck driver, use the parking for cars. Truck drivers don’t have a easy life in Europe, so we must be careful not to make it even more difficult for them.
PRO: often there’s water
NEGATIVE: sometimes there’s movement and noise
Sport arenas/stadiums a little bit at the border of the city often have a huge parking.
PRO: many parks pot available
NEGATIVE: there could be movement, particularly the kind of above mentioned of people who are trying to do stuff that they should do at home.
Parking of restaurants, but just if you ate there, otherwise it’s not fair. If you ate there, there’s no problem in asking to a person who work there if you can stay there for the night.
PRO: probably no traffic once the restaurant closed
NEGATIVE: you probably need to spend a few bucks to get a free spot.
Large supermarkets: normally they have huuuge parkings outside, sometimes if you are lucky there’s even water.
PRO: probably zero movement during the night
NEGATIVE: if someone working there asks you to move, he’s in total right to do so.