If you search on social media for the hashtag vanlife you will find happy smiling people living out of campervans, classic VW campers and converted Ford Transits. You’ll even find some couples who have converted a full sized bus into a home. Yet, what none of these photos will show is the sheer unmitigating horror of living in a van.

First, in order to sleep at night you need to black out all windows. This can be as simple as a curtain but, if you’re anywhere warm, you’ll need thermal reflective pads to counteract the sun roasting you like a turkey in a metal oven. What they don’t tell you is that vans don’t come with air conditioning when the engine is switched off but the sun still rises in the morning and will turn every window into a magnifying glass with you as the poor hapless ant set on fire for it’s amusement.

But to stick up thermal pads you need to have the reflective screens as close to the window as possible, ideally stuck on them. This involve plastic suction caps that stick on the inner windows – but only if you lick them first to provide some liquid to act as a glue. Licking it stops air getting in and reducing the grip.

So, vanlife means you need to spend every night licking the suction caps to attach the reflective shields to every window and, if you don’t lick them they fall off, which means you wake up covered in sweat because the sun has got through your defensive shield, and your window is open to the world for everyone in the camping site to look in. You’re in your PJs, sweaty and bedheaded. Vanlife!

And then you have to pack away your bed and restore the seats so you can have breakfast and drive away. Which you think would be simple but WHY WILL THE BED/BACK SEAT NOT ROLL BACK LIKE IT SHOULD?!?!? And you have to elbow drop it like The Rock winning Wrestlemania to close it.

And at the end of that day you have to do exactly the same thing but in reverse to get from a seat to a bed and you realise you’ve spent two hours sumo wrestling a sofa bed. Every single day. Twice. Vanlife!

I hated vanlife. I drove round France for two and half weeks to follow the Tour de France. And every morning and every night I hated that van. So much so that by the end I was booking into hotels rather than spend any more time gargling a two litre bottle of water just to get ready to French kiss one hundred suction caps.

Vanlife? Avoid! More like banlife! If you want to live like a Blur song then I recommend Country House. He lives in a house, a VERY BIG house…!

If you want to know Scotland’s most popular lay-by (excluding any featured in late night Channel 5 documentaries) then the lay-by next to Ben Cruachan in Argull must be among the leading contenders for the top stop.

Ben Cruachan is the highest mountain in Argyll. From the top, on a clear day you can see all the way from Northern Ireland in the west to Ben Nevis in the Highlands. Yet, for such a popular mountain, it only has a lay-by for around five cars at the start of the walk. If you want to climb then you normally have to park at Cruachan power station and visitor centre, around half a mile down the road.

When we got there in early September, we were lucky, we’d arrived early and got the last place. But if you really want to bag a space then you need to do what the car in front of us did. Put your backseat dow, convert your boot into a mattress and sleep the night in the back of your car.

If you want to know Scotland’s second busiest car park then you don’t need to go far to find it. Aproximately a mile down the road towards Tyndrum there is another lay-by with great access to Loch Awe. It has plenty of space but just be prepared for cars to pull in and out of it all day. In 30 minutes we saw four cars pull in, stop and then people getting out to admire the view of the loch, before getting back in and driving off.

So, if you love to swim with an audience then this spot is for you!

Ease of access

Very rocky so bring shoes or flip flops to get to the water’s edge.

Water Quality

Very clear.

Other people

No one swimming but you may have spectators from the lay-by!

It’s said that after Roger Bannister broke the 4 minute mile it only took a few weeks for someone to beat it again. And, by a year later, three runners ran under four minutes in a single race. Once someone does something seemingly impossible for the first time, it redefines what we think is possible. And the impossible becomes normal.

Unless you watch this video.

I cannot believe there is anyone thinking, “you know what, I want to do this too! He might be the first, but I will be the second!”.

I don’t even know why anyone would even think to ski down K2. It’s like asking someone if they’d like to Hula Hoop in a shark tank or solve crossword puzzles while being fired out of a cannon. Why would you even think to do something where clearly you are going to almost certainly die?

Anyway, this guy did it. Good on him. But you won’t catch me skiing down K2 anytime soon – even if it does become ‘normal’.