Van Life Diaries: Europe 1985 – Switzerland and Austria – Episode 355 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast

This is the third part of a monthly, six-episode series celebrating the fact that exactly 40 years ago this year, my family and I spent six months in a striped motorhome travelling around Europe. I was nine years old and yes, this trip had an enormous impact on my life – I’m sure you wouldn’t be listening to this podcast today if Van Life 1985 hadn’t taken place! Throughout the series, I’ll include chats recorded with my Dad this year, extracts from my late Mum’s travel diary from 1985, and of course my own memories and thoughts. 

In this episode, we move on from Italy to Switzerland, where much of our fun involves mountain and snow. Growing up in Western Australia, none of us had any experience with snow, and we were all thrilled to play in the summer snow we found in alpine Switzerland. You need to listen to find out what we wore during these snowy adventures! We then spent time in Austria, and thanks to my Mum’s diary we know we had some good times there too – curiously, neither my Dad nor I remember it well. Travel memories are strange!

A big thanks to Context Travel for sponsoring this series, and an even bigger thanks to my Dad for agreeing to be part of it.

Links:

• Context Travel – use the code THOUGHTFULTRAVEL to get 15% off any online booking
• See Part 1 of Van Life Diaries: Hong Kong, England and France
• And Part 2 of Van Life Diaries: Spain, Italy and Greece
• Join our Facebook group for Thoughtful Travellers
• Join our LinkedIn group for Thoughtful Travellers
• Sign up for the Thoughtful Travellers newsletter at Substack.com 

As promised, some of the photos mentioned in this episode!

Episode Transcript

Amanda Kendle 0:00
Hello and welcome to episode 355 of The Thoughtful Travel Podcast. It is part three of the Van Life Diaries Europe 1985 series, and it sees us spending time in two very beautiful countries, Austria and Switzerland, and it adds a whole lot more snowy experiences to that little snow experience you heard about in the last episode of this series in Greece. So this is part of our super special monthly series during 2025 these episodes are traveling not just around Europe, but also back in time, I’m revisiting the most important trip of my life, the one that set me up to always be curious about the world, and it happened 40 years ago this year. So yes, way back in the 1980s! During the van life diaries Europe 1985 series, I’m reliving a six month budget motorhome trip my family took around Western Europe when I was just nine years old. I’ve interviewed my dad to help me with this, and I’m lucky to also have access to my late mum’s travel diaries from the time, along with our family photo albums, and, of course, my own childhood memories. As well as looking back on memories of this life changing trip, I also want to talk about how travel memories impact us, what’s changed and what hasn’t changed in the world of travel over these four decades, and why taking your kids traveling is always a good idea. Before we start two quick things, I want to pay my respects to the Whadjuk people of the Noongar nation, where I’m recording this podcast today. And I also want to say a huge thanks to the sponsor of this series, Context Travel. They’ve been operating walking tours in cities around the world since 2003 they’ve been a certified B Corp since 2011 and they find incredibly interesting and qualified subject matter experts to take you on a very special tour more from Context Travel during the episode.

So this time, we’re focusing on Switzerland and Austria, and it’s quite a contrast to our time in Greece, which was a real focus of last episode. We love Greece as a family, mostly, I think because it felt a bit more like home. It had that Mediterranean feel, the climate, the people, the beaches, the weather. It was, you know, you could, we could connect it with Australia. And I think it was about that time in our trip, a couple of months in, where it was good to be able to take things slowly, relax a bit, and feel a little bit more at home. Austria and Switzerland, of course, they couldn’t really be much more different to our like, Hot, Flat stage here in Western Australia and especially we spent all of our time there, really up in the mountains, not much time in the cities. But we actually really loved it for these differences. We crossed from Italy into Switzerland in late May of 1985 and it was so exciting to have our proper, real first experiences with snow, obviously Summer Snow, but we got high up enough to really enjoy it, seeing lots of it, none falling. But that was, you know, for me, much later in life, to experience that. So after that first tiny taste of snow, which we had in Greece in last the last episode we got there, my mum’s diary describes our early Swiss experiences across Switzerland border and up through Simplon Pass into mountains and lots of Snow, beautiful scenery. Stopped at parking area, some sun, baking in chairs, skiing up mountain, and Zoe surprised when I threw the first snowball at her. Met Italians who lived near logano with a French wife and son and daughter in law. They were out for father’s 68th birthday. Offered us cake and wine, which we enjoyed hard to communicate, but managed. When my dad and I discussed this, as we looked at our photos, we were very struck by what the four of us wore every time we were in the snow. But it’s very strange, because obviously in these pictures, you can see it’s all we’re in the snow, but we’re wearing shorts and T shirts,

Barry Kendle 4:41
probably all we had. It’s quite a good observation to make. This family was celebrating a birthday or something. They’re

Amanda Kendle 4:49
Italian. They’re dressed up more warmly than us.

Barry Kendle 4:53
I don’t see any girls freezing

Amanda Kendle 4:55
or no. And we had warmer clothes, I know because we I remember we bought. Like warm jackets in London at the beginning, you’re in shorts too. Yeah? You would think that as Australians, we’d be extra cold, yeah? Like, we’d be the opposite.

Barry Kendle 5:10
There’s no opportunity to find out what, what happened? Yeah,

Amanda Kendle 5:13
oh, no. We need to ask our prior selves, but we don’t know. I wish we could go back in time and ask our prior selves why we were running around in nearly no clothes, but it’s funny. I’ll put a photo in the show notes. It’s a photo of my mum and I with this Italian family who were celebrating the birthday and so kindly gave us cake and wine. Apparently, I didn’t remember that, but I’m sure it’s true. It’s in my mum’s diary, but in the photo, you can see that all of the family are in long trousers, mostly long sleeves, some in snow suits. And there’s my mum and I in shorts and T shirts, and I’m even in bare feet. They probably thought we were quite crazy, I think. Anyway, we continued across Switzerland, stopping in all kinds of delightful Alpine spots. Here’s another example from my mum on to SAS Fauci for lunch, delightful village. Leave your cars and walk through really pretty place, ski lifts, etc, old and new villas and hotels, Alps in background, Switzerland, just as I imagined. It’s really so lovely to read that my mum’s expectations of Switzerland were fulfilled right from this first visit, this episode is actually a little harder to make than the others, because from this time on, my mum had a lifelong love of Switzerland. She talked about it all the time. Was able to go back a couple of times, but she always dreamt of going back again, so it is nice to read her diary that has so much praise for this country that she loved. And here’s some more. On to Zermatt by train. Climbed up high, but the Matterhorn in cloud, the cable car not running for two weeks, on through brig and onto Morel, where we took the cable car to rider up fabulous. Hard to believe so many people live in small villages all through Alps, walked on to MOUs, fantastic snow mountains and small villages and churches, beautiful. Meanwhile, my dad and I, as we continued to look through the Swiss section of our photo albums. Continue to ponder our fashion choices. So we’re back in the snow, but we didn’t put on any warmer clothes.

Barry Kendle 7:28
That’s amazing. What an observation to make. After 40 I

Amanda Kendle 7:33
know I never realized over here we’ve got our jackets on, yeah, but it looks like the same day in place, right? So we had jackets at the ready, yes, but obviously we took them off,

Barry Kendle 7:44
apparently. So everything was always at the ready to motor home. Yeah, exactly,

Amanda Kendle 7:49
yeah, that’s right. You’ve got everything with you. A few days later, we were still up in the snow, and my mum’s diary describes a couple of other places we enjoyed. Oberalp pass open, and we are high up in mountains. Lunch on side of road, Amanda and Zoe chilled their juice in the snow, and we have a bucket with our beer in deep snow everywhere. And we all ran and played in it fun on sides, up over the top of our van the that made me giggle. Seem such an Aussie thing to have a bucket of snow with the beer in. And then we moved on to one of our most memorable days in Switzerland, or perhaps of the whole trip, St Moritz, not large as I thought, but passed through and stayed at zanez on way through Julia pass. We all played in snow again, made slide with plastic bag, and all had slides down the snow. Really fun. Amanda and Zoe didn’t want to go on, but finally did. Yes, we had an orange shopping bag, and we put my dad’s folded up thick coat in it, and that was basically our version of a sled that we use to slide down the slopes of this snow in Switzerland. Really legendary moment in our family history. And we have great pictures of all of us just looking like we’re so happy and having so much fun. I’ll put those in the show notes. And I also chatted about this experience with my dad. That’s me coming down feet first. Definitely shorts and T shirts. Always just shorts and shirts. I mean, we’d be landing in the snow, which is cold, even if the weather’s

Barry Kendle 9:38
but you’ve had experience with snow. It’s not that cold. Apparently, perhaps you’ve been walking around in seat. But this was, this is

Amanda Kendle 9:44
a sunny summer day. My latter experience with snow is that it’s very cold. And I want to say it was just because we were kids, but then you two were doing it as well. So it’s not just that either, but

Speaker 1 9:55
that was a lot of fun. Yeah, it was, I. Announcer,

Amanda Kendle 10:04
thanks again to Context Travel for sponsoring this series. If you’re traveling in Switzerland and Austria like I am in this episode, context offers walking tours in Zurich and Vienna, two cities that I’m lucky to have visited multiple times since the travel bug bit on this childhood trip, travelers in these gorgeous places would benefit definitely from joining a knowledgeable guide to explain the history and culture an area we did get to and you’ll hear about soon in this episode, was Salzburg, thanks to my family’s love of the sound of music. Movie context has a tour for that too, which will help you sort out the movie fiction from historical fact. You can book these tours and many [email protected] don’t forget to use the code thoughtful travel for a 15% discount. So sadly, it did become time to move on from Switzerland. I have a feeling, especially looking back at the happy, happy photos that none of us really wanted to move on from Switzerland, and it is no wonder to me that my mum continued to love it. But she also described how we moved into Austria and what we did there,

then on and into Austria, similar to Switzerland, towards landec and camped high on a hill at Ladis hotel here, called Bad lads. Bad lads just out of the very small village, very quiet in hills, so many very small villages have hotels and rooms as they have ski lifts for the skiing season. In brackets, taught kids poker. I also loved, and I still love and have enjoyed over the years these tiny villages throughout those mountainous areas, like in Switzerland and Austria. But my absolute favorite part of this diary entry is those bracketed last three words taught kids poker one of my very strongest memories from our van life days 40 years ago, is all that really special time spent as a family doing things like this, like playing cards around the dining table in our van of an evening. And I know we’d been playing rummy for some time, but obviously took a few months before our parents decided to change that up and teach us poker, because it was not until Austria, apparently, I remember we would use matchsticks as chips for betting, and I still enjoy doing this, never for actual money. I’m not a gambler at all, but I still do enjoy poker. And yeah, card games, or other games, they’re still like they still feature really strongly in my vision of a of a cozy night in and lovely family and friends time, and I’m sure back on this trip where we had, you know, no TV and not much else to do, and just this small space, especially in, you know, colder, darker places, then, yeah, there we were just in our van playing games together, and especially card games like that that didn’t need much equipment. So yeah, I love that brings back good memories. Now, unlike Switzerland, both my dad and I don’t have many strong memories from our time in Austria. Looking at our photos prompted some of those though, like us enjoying the constant use of the German word Bard, which looks like bad for bath, yes, and certainly at the time, we just assumed it was like bad

Barry Kendle 13:22
it’s interesting, with that hotel called Bad ladies, I do

Amanda Kendle 13:26
remember vaguely that we’d met those that nice family, and that was the nice thing about caravan parks.

Barry Kendle 13:32
Yes, it’s one of the huge desirable things. They’re cheap and you can meet people true. I notice over here, of course, Amanda, we have this situation where they in a paddock which they have used for growing hay to dry it out, they stack it up vertically with on a pole, with sticks sticking out each side of the pole, and the hay that they have cut draped over it to dry out. Makes good use of all the land. Quite interesting.

Amanda Kendle 14:00
Yeah, that’s quite sensible, isn’t it? I actually saw something very similar in Japan last year or the year before. I just realized got these pictures of similar kind of arrangement, but you wouldn’t say that here. No, no, funnily enough. Or Well, actually, perhaps it makes sense, since both my parents grew up in the country and my mum grew up on a farm, my mum’s diary also explained this Hey arrangement, but she does, then go on to explain more about our time in Austria, to Innsbruck, nice town, tried to organize some money parked in Main Street. Took a little longer than we thought. So parking ticket gent popped out of his shop and suggested sign language we tear it up. That was our intention. Shopped nicer bred Switzerland and Austria. Roads in Austria a lot more in the valleys on to zel am say, camped in a camping area at zelamsee overlooking Lake. Met sia and. It Queensland, on to Salzburg, sound of music made here and near Monza Lake area. Even at that age as kids, we had already seen the sound of music movie multiple times. It would quite frequently screen on a Friday night on TV back then, and my mum liked it too. I was always so scared of the part when they were escaping through the mountains. But we were also a household at the time of musical soundtrack lovers. I loved the songs. Played them over and over on cassette. So yeah, seeing where some of the sound of music was filmed was quite special. And my mum also made mention there of some more friends we made in a caravan park that was sia and Ed and their toddler little boy David, who apparently loved to cuddle my sister. And there’s some photos I’ll leave in the show notes of us all having a lovely picnic outdoors in the caravan park together. It was such a lovely part of that van life was all those really cool people we’d meet and tips we’d get from them and stories we’d swap. It was really nice. And to finish off, this is really the end of what my dad and I could remember about Austria. It’s funny how some places leave a longer lasting memory than others. Don’t remember anything about Austria. I don’t think we stopped. We didn’t go to Vienna, no, didn’t go as as far east as that. Don’t think I really knew Austria until I was an adult, although I did have already I had my best primary school friend, Katie Strobl. Her dad was Austrian, so actually he taught me more things about Australia. He taught me how to throw a boomerang at the primary school oval. But I did know an Austrian at least, so I had that link. So there you go. Later in life, I have come to appreciate Austria much, much more when I lived in Bratislava, of course, I was a 45 minute train trip from Vienna, and frequently went there just for the day on the weekends. And have also been back to, you know, in many situations. So all good now, and I love both of those countries, Austria and Switzerland. So that is it for episode 355, part three of the van Life series. A big thank you to Context Travel, the series sponsor, for their support in creating these special podcast episodes. Of course, you can find out more about all their tours at context travel.com or find them under Context Travel on your social media platform of choice, and if you want to try context tour yourself, you can get a 15% discount by using the code thoughtful travel when you book online. Massive Thank you too. To my dear dad for agreeing to sit down and chat with me about our long ago trip. We’ve had so much fun chatting, though, and still got three more episodes to put together and share.