My Eurotrip - Gopro vid, pics + spotted Clarkson!

[Booner!]

So a couple of weeks ago I embarked with 3 other guys on a Eurotrip. It was up there as one of the best experiences of my life. I made a highlights reel from the GoPro footage quickly over the weekend to show everything from Monaco to Stelvio pass.

I promise you there are some cool sights in here, it's not all just us messing about

Wack this in 1080p and enjoy!

Last year's mini Euro tour we met Jamiroquai and I didn't realise it was him for about 10 minutes of chatting! I have a video somewhere of us having a little fun driving through France heading for the crossing. Well this year's trip we spotted Jeremy Clarkson who was drifting into my lane coming the opposite way...

Quick vid of Clarkson:

The trip
Circa 2500 miles, I was the driver for all of this. Cruise control, a big tank and the seats made this easy work. The car was an Audi A4 Avant 2.0 tdi S-line. We fitted a roofbox and we had just enough space for 2 weeks worth of kit.

Mixture of flashy apartments/hotels and camping. On day 1 we did Oxford to Marseilles on the French coast. Started at 2am and arrived at 10.30pm, so it was pretty good going. However I was seriously ill for the next 3-4 days due to dodgy food.

Map of route which we intended on doing, but it changed slightly but managed all the places.

Few pictures from my friend...

I really need to take a more interesting car back to Europe again now, so planning on taking the 'vette to the
Any questions ask away!

 

[Booner!]

Looks like lake como on one of those coast images, But you looked to be about 50-100 miles away at the closet point.
Where was that taken?

EDIT: Looked at map again fail.


Love como.

It's on the front of the Ferry across Como.

 

[Booner!]

cool. looks like you went very near stelvio, did you do it?

next time take in switzerland and the various passes. tis awesome.

Yes but we drove through clouds and it was pee-ing it down! Amazing place, but I enjoyed the roads either side a little more due to the weather

 

[Booner!]

Amazing! Great video too! You look like a fun bunch of lads to be around.

My mates are useless and would rather spend 2 weeks sat in a all inclusive hotel doing nothing.

For 90% of it we were fun. I was bad when ill or when they were back seat drivers. We got a bit of cabin fever between the lads in the back as it was a long time to be together 24 hours a day in tents etc. All sorted itself out with a strong litre of German beer though.

The hardest thing about the video was that I chopped down 2 weeks of footage and still had 35 minutes of highlights. Soooo many amazing bits of footages and memories

 

[Booner!]

What a great trip and very good video. I like the editing/sound, what did you use to put it together?

Adobe premiere elements. Learnt it all when I got a gopro last year, no idea what I was doing for a while and got the hang of it now. Glad you like it!

Out of interest, as someone who is looking at a similar route, what did you spend on fuel and tolls?

We used about 7-8 tanks of fuel and about £130 on tolls. MPG was hammered due to roofbox + autobahn, hills, weight etc. Did about 35-42mpg on most tanks of fuel. £50 on breakdown, 2 x crossings at £80 each on ferry (singles for flexibility).

Camping was great and cheap, plus booking guesthouses and apartments worked well. The odd hotel was a bit pricey at last minute. Having milestone places to reach worked really well and booking a night or so in advance.

 

[Booner!]

Looked more like an advert for the GoPro

Brill video tho, looked like you had an epic time

That's good to hear, means my editing and cam skills are getting better with the aid of a few new mounts too

 

[Booner!]

Great video! Inspires me to buy a GoPro, what equipment did you use?

GoPro Black edition
64gb Samsung micro sd card ultra edition - really important to get super high write rate on the data as they can sometime mess up recording
An extendible pole
9 batteries and battery backpack for longer stints
Car chargers were a must for the batteries and camping
120cm Slider/glider rail
Head mount
Waterproof case
Laptop with external HDD to transfer stuff.

I have a whole bunch of other stuff for it, but they were the main bits. Pole was the best and the slider still needs some work and I need to figure out the best way of using it.

It's become an expensive hobby..

 

[Booner!]

Makes me want a go pro now. 4 of us are driving down to Val d'isere in southern France in December for a weeks boarding, would love some kind of video montage like that of the holiday.

Like this?

And messing with the cam and colours a bit more

Just got the new Black edition then, so had little kit for it and no battery or pole... used a role of clingfilm tube and clamped to it haha. I'm off to VT in Feb with it so will get a better video done.

So how many days did you cover this 2500 miles over?

I recently did scotland 1200 miles over 4 days and personally I think it probably could have done with more days to see a bit more.

I'd also love to know how long it took you and how much of a headache you got planning a trip like this.

We were away for approx 2 weeks. I did Oxford to Marseille in the first day and we broke the worst part of the journey that way. It was a killer distance, but gave us more days to play with.

Ideally I would have liked 2-3 weeks to play with, but we had ample time to see everything with a few rest days.

Planning the trip wasn't that hard. We picked a rough route and agreed on the fuel/mileage spend of about 2500 miles. We then each picked places we wanted to see along the route (2 car nuts and 2 sport nuts) for a mixture. Added them all along the route and then worked out on a calender where we wanted to be on each day. Things changed slightly for the better with a bit more time, but having a decent milestone to reach of Milan for the Friday night meant that we built everything around that.

Having it loose enough that you can "wing it" with camping on the days you have little planned means that you rest up and can be flexible with the trip. The main thing was to book in the mornings for that night or the next night to avoid getting stuck (which did happen....). We spent a night in a service station (just before I got ill actually!), I slept on the floor of a car park. Yes that is me in the green sleeping bag getting another 10 mins kip before our drive to a proper camp site.

It was the french holidays so everywhere was rammed (campsites too).

Great video Booner, just like a GoPro advert

Must have been hell getting ill on a road trip but other than that it looked like you had an amazing time!

Would be cool doing that in the vette, the LHD would come in useful.

Yep the diesel was frustratingly slow in the windy nice roads, but welcomed on the big stretched of straight dual carriageway they had. Putting together a trip to Northern Europe with Nurburg in there in the Vette for next year

 

[Booner!]

Without wanting to hijack this thread, I did Glasgow - Fort William - Inverness - Edinburgh. Stopped at a lot of distilleries (quite a few I didn't get a to drink at for obvious reasons ) went up a fair few mountains and obviously had two great nights trying out the pubs and bars in Glasgow and Edinburgh. Stuck to B roads where possible which are mostly just amazing single tracks with next to no traffic. I'd recommend it to anyone. I'm very tempted to go up again this year, but go right up to Ullapool and around the west side, perhaps see the islands.

It's amazing how natural it feels just to be on a single track road and have mountains on either side for miles and miles. From the looks of the video it's certainly true of a lot of Europe too with some fabulous scenery, you also get the added benefit of having better weather (although saying that, I didn't get rain in Scotland)



Ask, you might be surprised, if not you could always go on your own. Jeremy Clarkson always goes on these sort of trips by himself.

In one of his replies I think he says 8 tanks and £160 on tolls. 8 tanks in an a4 well that's about a 75 litre tank so that's about £800 at 1.40 a litre of diesel, I have no idea how much this price changes in europe.

Yeah fuel and tolls came to about £650-800 mark.

I'd happily go on my own, but I think company is a must for spreading costs and sharing the experience.

And this summed up my feelings on the driving, nail on the head. Scotland sounds like a good idea all of a sudden

It's amazing how natural it feels just to be on a single track road and have mountains on either side for miles and miles.