When we returned to the Netherlands after our most recent road trip to the south of Europe in our electric campervan, we realised we’ve road tripped through 14 countries in our Fiat E-Ducato already! In the past year on the road, we’ve gotten to know EVanlife inside and out. Here are the top 5 invaluable lessons we learned.

1. EVanlife in Europe is amazing

We purchased our Fiat E-Ducato to convert to a fully-electric campervan without ever having driven an EV before. So, when we embarked on our first electric road trip through Europe, the prospect of driving through multiple countries with an electric van and searching for charging stations was quite daunting. But we need not have worried!

EV charging apps like Chargemap have made it very easy to find chargers in every country and charging infrastructure is expanding rapidly across the continent. There truly is an app for everything nowadays — for example, we use an app called Park4Night to search for amazing free places to stay the night all over Europe. From driving up the rugged coast of West Sweden to hopping from one village to the next in sunny Tuscany — having these handy apps has made road tripping through 14 countries a breeze.

Driving an electric campervan is also incredibly comfortable. It’s way quieter than a diesel camper, there’s no shifting gears, and our Fiat E-Ducato has comfy seats and a great sound system. We’re also able to take it anywhere, not having to worry about low emission zones in cities, which are becoming more and more common in Europe, banning certain types of diesel vans.

2. Trust in your range

Even though Fiat E-Ducato offers some of the best ranges compared to other big cargo e-vans, it’s still considerably less than most new electric cars are averaging nowadays. On a normal day, we get about 250km (155mi) of range when driving on the highway in eco-mode. On provincial roads, it’s slightly more, while on very cold days or when driving up steep inclines, it’s significantly less. This initially caused us to experience range anxiety, but we’ve since learned to trust in our van’s capabilities.

After all the road trips we’ve done, we now know how to estimate our real range in different weather and terrain conditions, and we’re able to plot our next charging stops accordingly. The display of our Fiat E-Ducato shows how far we can drive before the battery’s depleted and gives a pretty accurate estimate as well. By planning carefully and remembering to always be charging (taking advantage of charging opportunities along the way), we’re now completely comfortable driving long distances wherever we go.

3. Charging will become second nature

When we picked up our brand new Fiat E-Ducato at the Fiat Professional dealership in the north of the Netherlands in September of 2021, we had absolutely no clue how charging worked. Learning about the differences between slow AC charging and fast DC charging, plus charging etiquette, definitely took a bit of time. But it’s not as hard as it may seem and once we knew how to find public chargers and what to look out for, it even became fun!

Every single one of the 14 countries we’ve visited has had many slow public chargers that were easily found either via Google Maps, a general charging app like Shell Recharge, or a local one, like Enel X Way in Spain and Italy. Once we’d ordered some charging cards, downloaded several apps and figured out how to activate chargers and pay for a charge, it was smooth sailing.

We’re also pretty spoiled in Europe as we have fantastic fast (rapid) charging networks from providers such as Fastned and Ionity. In countries like the Netherlands, Norway, Germany and even France, the fast charging network is truly impressive nowadays.

4. Going slow is always better

For us, one of the main reasons that we wanted to try out vanlife was that we wanted to travel slower. In a fast-paced world with infinite options when it comes to travel, it can be quite challenging to consciously choose to see less and spend more time in one place. Yet, in our travels, we’ve found that the most profound moments and meetings have happened exactly when we allowed ourselves to slow down.

Choosing an electric van has helped us embrace the journey, instead of focussing on the destination. Because of our limited range, we cover less distance in a day, choosing not to drive more than 100km (60 miles) whenever we can.

When we do have full driving days, we’re taking more and longer stops than we would in a diesel or petrol van. When we plug in the van at a charging station, we’re not only recharging our batteries, but also ourselves. We step out for a walk, cook lunch, or sometimes sit down to get some work done. Charging isn’t a hassle to us — it’s often a welcome break.

5. Things will go wrong and that’s okay

We didn’t have the easiest of starts with our electric campervan. You can read the full story here, but the short version is that we suffered from some pretty terrible teething issues with our Fiat E-Ducato, one of the very first ones to run off the production line in Italy. And that was before our road trip had even begun!

Besides trouble with the van itself, we’ve also experienced our share of malfunctioning charging stations and other unexpected hiccups along the road. But we know that’s a part of vanlife, whether you drive an electric van or not. We’ve heard it from many other campervan owners we’ve met along the road: things will break down and some days will just suck. When you finally solve a problem, however, you’ll feel on top of the world.

We’ve tried to become more flexible and see most of these challenges as an integral part of the adventure. Bad days have allowed us to grow and learn, and to trust that, in some way, it will all work out in the end. Yes, there are ups and downs, but that’s exactly what makes this life on the road such a grand adventure. And we wouldn’t have it any other way!

What’s next

We’ve visited 14 countries in Europe but we’re nowhere close to being done with EVanlife. There’s still so much to see and experience! We’ve spent this past summer working on some upgrades for the van and driving across the Netherlands to visit friends and family.

And we’ve now departed on our next big trip! We’re planning to spend the winter of 2023-24 in the south of Spain and Portugal, which means we’ll be driving to our 15th country in the van soon.

If you have recommendations for us, we’d love to hear them! You can leave them as a comment in our video where we also share which 14 countries we’ve visited already. Thanks so much for following along with our adventures!