Once upon a firetruck…
Who thought it was done. With work. With flashing lights. With adventure.
Thats where we came in.
We are Douwe & Karlijn, our four kids – Sophie, Tobias, Pepijn and Olivier – and two adventure-loving cats, Izzy and Fox. Since the spring of 2025, we’ve been traveling the world in our self-built overlander truck. From Eastern Europe through Turkey and the Arabian Peninsula, heading toward Africa — as a family, as a team, and sometimes simply as a rolling circus.
Once upon a truck is our real-life fairy tale. With dust, mud and detours instead of glitter, and lessons you only learn when you’re on the road. We share our story to show you that you don’t need a perfect plan – just the courage to start moving.
Want to help us to keep our adventure going?
Our travel stories
Curious about our travel stories? The plans that took a different turn, places where we stayed longer than intended, and adventures you could never plan ahead?
Read about our current adventures while traveling around the world. From beautiful encounters to muddy roads and practical mishaps — everything that makes overland life so great (and sometimes a little stressful). Unfiltered, and sometimes a bit messy.
Beyond the pictures
Beyond the pictures is a private online living room where we share letters from the road
and open the door to meaningful conversations.
A place to exchange perspectives, experiences, and ideas — with curiosity and respect.
From firetruck to overlandtruck
Our big dreams called for a big, bold truck. With just enough money for the initial purchase — and no concrete plan of where
we were actually heading — we bought a 1975 German fire truck.
What followed? 1.5 years of tearing out, welding, insulating, sawing, screwing, swearing, dreaming, doubting — and pushing
through. From an empty cab to a fully built home on wheels.
Every plank, every wire, every screw passed through our own hands.
Curious how you turn a fire truck into an overland truck?
Here’s where we share exactly how we tackled the build — from the very first sketch to our rolling home.
