About us
Once upon a firetruck
Who thought it was done. With work. With flashing lights. With adventure.
Thats where we came in.
We are Douwe(39) & Karlijn(36), our four kids – Sophie(14), Tobias(11), Pepijn(9) and Olivier(5) – 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 – former fire truck build in 1975. This is not our first old truck. In 2022 we traveled through Europe in a vintage green van build in 1970. What was supposed to be a ‘once in a livetime journey’ turned out to be so amazing that we wanted more. So thats were we started to build a bigger dream to start an even bigger journey! From Eastern Europe through Turkey and the Arabian Peninsula, heading toward Africa — as a family and sometimes (oftentimes) as a rolling circus.
We share our story to show you that you don’t need a perfect plan – just the courage to start moving. Whatever your dream may be; Dream big and start moving! About our travels
Some random facts about us
- The truck weighs 9 tons About the truck
- The cats have lived in the truck since they were kittens, they do not know anything else
- We have written a book about our first trip through Europa in a small, vintage van that kept breaking down. English version on the way! About the book
- One big reason to completely change our lives? Karlijn’s post-Covid recovery. After 5 years, she finally starts to feel good again.
- We love boardgames! A whole cabinet is filled with them. Who needs clothes anyway.
- We take turns driving. The other one navigates and judges.
- We don’t have a 5-year plan. We barely have a 5-day one. But it always works out.
- Thanks to the boys we have a steady collection of odly shaped sticks available at any given time.
- School happens everywhere and every day. Best classroom update ever.
- We like campfire conversations along the road so much that we built a place for them online. It’s called Beyond the Pictures. Read more
