Extreme Motorhoming

Motorhoming in extreme conditions with Joe Kay, who loves his extreme motorhoming snowboard holidays.

Vanessa: Welcome along to Motorholme TV and now we’re going to have a quick catch up interview with motorhome owner and snowboarder Joe Kay. And Joe we met you before when you were preparing to go to the French Alps. You’re back now; did you have a good time?

Joe: I had an amazing time thanks. Yeah sad to be home. I really enjoyed it.

Vanessa: So you got some good snowboarding in?

Joe: Great snowboarding yeah. Probably the most snow they’ve had since ’81 I think, so it was amazing, really really good.

Vanessa: Brilliant. Now we want to focus on this interview about how the motorhome performed and the living conditions in what were actually quite extreme conditions. You experienced temperatures of -15C I believe. Were you still warm and snug in the van?

Joe: Absolutely toasty; it was fine. The van had a diesel heater, a blow air system, it had a thermostat on it and we just left it on the whole time and every time it got below 8C it would kick in and then obviously we would come in the evenings, turn that up, and we were t-shirts within a couple of minutes so that was fine.

Vanessa: I think a lot people think motorhomes maybe they’re a bit chilly, maybe they’re a bit damp, but you didn’t find that at all did you?

Joe: No not at all. I mean it’s like having a little mini chalet on wheels, it was fine. The best thing about it was that if the conditions weren’t great in that resort, just put the snow chains on, move resort and go somewhere else. It was fantastic.

Vanessa: Because you were actually in an area where there were a lot of avalanche warnings weren’t you so you were able to move into the areas that were still operational?

Joe: Yeah well I mean you know different resorts are good in different weather conditions. If it’s sunny it’s great to be in one place, but that place isn’t so good if you’re in a bit of a blizzard. We had some really bad weather, we went lower down, went into the trees where we could see more and we got some good footage. Maybe the people at home will see some.

Vanessa: Yes we are going to be editing Joe’s video diaries, which will be coming up on Motorholme TV in the next few weeks so we can watch out for those. What about actually how the van behaved because you had snow – you had traction because the snow didn’t you?

Joe: Yeah snow chains. If you’re out there you need snow chains and it’s a bit of an art to get on for the first couple of times, once you get the hang of it it’s easy enough. But you can’t be out there and it’s actually a legal requirement to have them in the Alps. If it’s snowing and you’re going up the mountain, the police will be there stopping you and checking that you’ve got them. As soon as there’s more than half a centimetre of snow on the road you really need them to go anywhere, you just wouldn’t get up the hill s you put them on and you can drive round normally. You don’t want to be going too fast, but they’re absolutely fine.

Vanessa: Now Motorholme advocate the use of the Chausson motorhome, which is the one you took the little 3 berth out with you didn’t you? Were you pleased with how you were able to live in the motorhome over you holiday? Was it practical, was it comfortable?

Joe: Yeah very much so. The Chausson’s got some really great features on it that make it really good for the winter. All the drains are all sort of boxed in so nothing froze up. We had brilliant showers, heating worked fine, and the diesel heating’s great because it means you don’t burn up too much gas. We used one small 8kg gas for the entire two weeks and didn’t even go through it and I was really surprised about that. It was really fantastic. Probably the best designed motorhome I’ve seen for sort of winter that I’ve been in and I’ve been doing it for ten years. Really good.

Vanessa: Wow good testimony. What would be – if you were to give one tip for somebody that was thinking of going motorhoming in the rather extreme and cold conditions, what would it be?

Joe: I would say if you want to move around like we were you really need a generator because we were sort of staying in the free campsites and they don’t have electric hook-up and you need to charge the van up every day or every other day at a minimum, especially if you’re running your heating all the time. As soon as you lose power you lose your heat. You need to take a little generator just to keep the battery topped up.

Vanessa: And you also took some jerrycans of water didn’t you so you had constant access to the freshwater?

Joe: That’s right. You could buy the tokens and use the campsite water every day, but if you’ve got a couple of jerrycans of water you can fill them up from any outside tap and then just fill your tank up for free. You’re putting alpine water straight in your tank and you have to pay money for that back home so it’s really good stuff.

Vanessa: Sure. Just one final question, at the end of the day when you came back from your snowboarding you obviously had damp clothes and gear. Did you find that you were able to dry them off and so off in the van?

Joe: Well what you can do once you’ve had your showers and everything is you can hang all your wet gear up in the shower unit and everything’s absolutely dry by the morning. Either that or in the front of the cab you can also put it there. You can just hang it up in the van it’s so warm in there it all just dries up. It is a consideration, you can’t live outside of the motorhome like you would in the summer so sometimes the dashboard becomes a sort of dumping ground for damp gear and like I said in the shower, but it’s all absolutely fine and we never had wet gear by the morning. It works a treat.

Vanessa: Well brilliant. Thank you very much for sharing that with us and we’ll be looking forward to Joe’s video diaries that are going to come up on Motorholme TV very soon and you’ll be seeing all the action – well not all of the action – but a lot of the action from Joe.

Joe: The stuff that we could put on!

Vanessa: Yes from your holiday, which you kindly filmed for us, which I think will show how great a motorhome is as a snowboarding base. So thank you for watching.

If you fancy getting into some extreme motorhoming ideas, give us a call today and we will get you on your way.

Topics: Motorhoming in The Alps, Motorhome in The Alps, Motorhome Invest, Extreme Motorhoming, Motorhoming at Dungeness, Motorhoming at Portmeirion, Motorhoming at Harlech, Motorhoming Off Season, Motorhome Hire