Couple Living in a Tent on a Self-Built Raft - Floating Off the Grid

i love water so it is very nice to be surrounded by it and to be able to jump in whenever i want and to go for a swim it does feel like a never-ending summer holiday i like that we are able to move around without having to take the tent down and build it up again yeah it just really feels like a home since my childhood i always liked to build stuff but i never thought that i would want to build something myself where i would live on but there's so much knowledge on the internet that you can find so whatever you can think of you can also make it [Music] before moving with the tent to the raft i have been living in a tent for already two years first half a year in a forest then one year on an island and then last summer on the raft so including this summer it's been three years for me of tent life we built the raft last summer was also the time when you came to sweden my parents today helped us also i think it was within a couple of days three days that we built the structure with the the barrels and the wood frame and then during the next weeks we started to build the things on top and then set the tent on it so it was quite fast and simple this year we will be living on the raft all of summer and then probably also a bit longer in september it all depends on the weather for now we are on the dazant canal that's a lake system that's connected through locks so we will travel the whole way that's possible there are 18 locks and you can go a total length of 360 or 380 kilometers altogether we are quite slow with our our raft like four kilometers per hour and also we just like to stay at places where it's nice for longer so we're not sure if we can make it to all places that we wanted to visit but uh at least that's the that's the goal and if we don't see all the places then we can come back next summer we are now just trying how it feels the raft life on the go when you move around and also all the things that we still want to build on the raft so probably this is just the pilot episode for next year or further years of exploring the whole area a self-built raft out of impregnated wood so it's weather resistant as floating devices we have 28 200 liter barrels and it's 3 meter 90 by 7 meters long the raft is 3 meter 90 so that it would fit through the locks in the darthand canal which the maximum width is 4 meters however the tent we have is 5 meters in diameter that's why we have some flip up mechanism on the side that we can flip up the tent and then fit through the lock the tent we have is the sibley 500 protec by canvas camp it's the version with two doors one in the front one in the back which is quite practical on the raft since the engine is in the back and we can then actually see through the tent where we are going we also have a steering mechanism here in the front which are those two metal wires when you pull on them it turns the engine in the back we also are about to build a steering wheel which will be made out of these things here in the front the goal is to have a real steering wheel here which is a bit easier than just to pull on the wires we have a six horsepower two-stroke petrol engine and it is old but it's reliable and it was quite cheap because we got it second hand it is a little bit weak for a raft this size the weight of the raft is one and a half tons so it's probably not the best option we would have liked to have an electrical one but they are quite expensive and then we would also need more solar panels here in the back we have our two solar panels they're both 150 watts they are connected to three batteries here we also have more storage space under the solar panels on this side we have a petrol we have all together 80 liters that we can carry with us we also have all the oil we need for the engine and some other 10 stuff here we also have our anchor that we got secondhand it's in the water at the moment we have some more boat stuff here that we need and also here in the back we have some storage compartments under the deck here we have the batteries for the solar system and in the middle we have the petrol tank for the engine here on the other side we have the second solar panel this space we used to store some of the firewood that we have we also have our trash here we also have a bouldering crash pad here that we don't use so much for bouldering but it's it's a nice couch to sit somewhere when we're on shore and back here we also have our toilet mostly we use the bathroom in the forest we just take the shovel and dig a hole but when we are on our way we have this as a backup solution it's a dry composting toilet we don't have any cover for it yet so maybe before we come into more civilized and populated areas we should build some privacy shielding around it whenever we park on the shore somewhere we have two ropes that go to a tree on the land and one anchor in the back so that we are kind of like a spider in between that the waves don't push us against the rocks we also have a canoe with us in case of emergency we could use it as a live boat maybe but now we just use it as transportation for construction wood since we are still in the process of building stuff and we also collect waste we we have found like this big barrel uh already so we tried to clean up the shores we have built this leather because i really much enjoy to jump into the water and it's the most fun when we are somewhere in the middle of the lake and i did not manage to get up the raft so we'll just put it here [Music] and we can go back on deck we have a door with plexiglass windows and this is very practical because whenever we would close the tent because it is cold or because there are a lot of mosquitoes we can now still look out and there's also daylight coming in for the rainy days we have a tarp that we set up here but it is not very stable so we always have to take it down when we drive in the entrance we have mainly storage space and then this is our bed in the morning we just put the sleeping bags away and it's also a couch wherever i am i hang up some personal photos and some memories from past travels and then this painting is done by yuyu's mom so i really like this part it makes me feel at home and it's great for storage as well so underneath we do have all our clothes also in boxes as always and we have some music instruments and then further in the back we have some things that we don't use every day this is the orland camp stuff it's very nice that there is glass on three sides so that we can actually see the fire over here we have the kitchen area the table is also self-built and we have borrowed the chairs so now we have a cozy place to sit to play cards and also to cook enough to use a lot of spices that's why i have a full box with me and also some home-grown chili which was a gift from a friend so that we can also eat a little bit spicy our diet is very simple we mainly eat pasta with vegetables in tomato sauce or with pesto and then a lot of rice quinoa bulgur or couscous and beans some chickpeas a lot of vegetables whenever we have them we cannot always go food shopping so that's why there's only one apple left but we will be in town again soon so we can stock up we do not have a fridge but as we are vegan it's not very necessary the only thing is that we have to make sure to eat the leftovers quite quickly so that they don't go bad normally we use a fuel stove to cook but when it's cold we heat up the wood stuff and then we can also cook on there whenever we are at a lock or in a village we have the possibility to fill up some drinking water at the moment we don't really have much anymore so now we go over and just drink the lake water to be safe we will put in a water purification tab the water in the swedish lakes is very clean we use it to cook and to wash ourselves and some lakes even have drinking water qualities i swim in the lakes every day but it is nice to have some hot water and soap from time to time so we do heat up water that we put in a pot and then we put it on our stove i am a little bit ashamed for having learned just recently that you should not use biodegradable soap in an open water source and we've also learned that you should be at least 60 meters away from the water so that's what we do now so we take the pot and go and land i haven't really been bored because it is quite a lot to do whenever we go somewhere this takes a lot of time of course and all the daily tasks that you do like washing dishes washing clothes it just all takes longer when you when you're outside or making a fire to have it warm also the videos that we make for our youtube channel they take up quite a lot of time whenever we we anchor somewhere uh we mostly anchor on on the shore so we have access to land and whenever we come through some small settlement where there's a grocery store we go grocery shopping of course and also filling up the gas for the for the engine so we take every opportunity but so far we have been mostly in quite remote areas and in the next weeks we will go further south where we then pass by more settlements and it also will be a bit louder there will be roads that you can hear and then in the end of the summer we will come back again to a more remote place like we are here now i do find it difficult to be in a different place each night i mean sometimes we do stay for two or three nights but it is a lot to take in so i think it will be nice after this when we move somewhere else to have some time to reflect on everything it is quite a cheap lifestyle but there are still some things we need to pay for we need to pay for gas that's our main expense probably after food of course seven years ago i went on a eight month backpacking trip and ever since then i never wanted to stop traveling i've always made sure to live a very minimalistic life pretty much all i own is in this tent and that makes it a lot easier to move around i also had to go back to switzerland every now and then to earn some money my stuff is mostly in the tent all the winter equipment that we have that's that's not here of course for now and i still have my computer stored at my friend's place we also have a car that's parked somewhere until we need it again which is full of things and the car is also full of things for the past two three years i also have been living off of my savings mainly i have done some work on the site before moving into the tent i worked in film and television business mostly i still do some freelance projects but also here in sweden i started to work as a carpenter which also helped building the raft to get to know this a little bit as well [Music] as nice as it is to live out here in nature it is of course also challenging to live on a raft first and foremost for me the biggest issue is the small space that we have as i've been living in a tent by myself already for some time before nora came last year i was already used to live in a small space but it got of course a bit smaller once once you moved in so this is for me one of the challenging parts of living on the raft to not have so much space another challenging thing is also that we always have to take a look at the weather forecast because when the winter changes during the night um maybe we are in a windless bay uh in the evening where it's calm and quiet but then the wind changes and in the morning by six o'clock you have waves coming in and it's shaking maybe it's hitting against the rocks the thing i love the most is the silence so far we've been in remote places and it is very quiet and i like to just listen to the sounds of nature and to watch the animals and to see the sunset and yeah it's very relaxing even though it's not always silent because our engine is quite loud but if we continue this life next year on the raft as well that's number one priority to have an electric outboard engine absolutely the most enjoyable thing for me probably is just to be able to drive around with everything you have and everything you need and just see different places spend every night in a different way yeah it feels just nice just to be able to move slowly and steadily from one place to another with something that you've built yourself [Music] subscribe to explore alternatives and check out our playlists for more stories like this you can also follow yo-yo on youtube at my northern story and you can follow nora on instagram at outdoordiary thanks for watching

Channel: Exploring Alternatives

Views: 1,028,457

Rating: 4.9189587 out of 5

Keywords: living in a tent, living on a raft, tent life, raft life, floating tent, floating, life on the water, raft, tent, off grid, simple, minimalist, lifestyle, living, budget, boat, DIY, My Northern Story, Exploring Alternatives, Jojo, Norah, solar, power, barrels, wood, electricity, stove, woodstove, heat, drinking, water, anchor, travel, canal, lock, Sweden, Dalsland, tour, experience, documentary, interior, experiment, 4 season, camping, interview, story, float home, houseboat, panels, engine, steering, self built, canoe

Id: jljkK9HMa44

Length: 16min 8sec (968 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 15 2021