So we started dreaming of traveling for a longer period than just the summer holidays. But how on earth could we manage this? Where do we start? Where are we going to get the money from?
Time for some serious planning…
Our story
We are Joren and Emma.
Since july 2009 we call each other the love of our lives and after a long time being together working every day from 8 until 5 as teachers on a primary school we started to plan our future.
We figured we were always working to pay for the house we
lived in, pay for the food, and save money to do the things we really loved to do: exploring the outdoors together!
Emma Donkersloot
Emma is born and raised in the little Dutch town called Woudrichem. She loves being outside in nature going for a hike or a surf. Emma is a teacher and she loves it! To see kids learn and watch them grow is so inspiring!
Not only does she teach children, Emma is also a Yoga teacher and before we went on this trip she had her own yogastudio. Joren is really lucky to be together with Emma because she loves food and loves to cook. One of the most important features in the vanbuild was the kitchen and there is room enough to cook delicious meals in the van!
Joren Dekker
Joren is always in for a joke. He loves to be in the
The vanbuild is 90% done by Joren and he loved every single minute of the build. In our van we carry a shitload of tools to repair or upgrade almost anything you could possibly think of. Don’t be to long in his presence though.. Because he laughs the loudest about his own jokes 😉
It all started when we converted our Citroën Berlingo in the beginning of 2017.
We loved camping, and to be outside as much as possible. Before we had a Renault Scenic and we built a really simple bedframe in the back of it just for one holiday and a few weekends. After that car drove his last kms we decided we needed something slightly bigger.
That ‘bigger’ van was the Citroën Berlingo 2003.
Joren bought, converted and tested the van while Emma was volunteering in Ghana for 4 months. When she came back the Berlingo was a minicamper with everything you need inside!The minicamper was used for trips around the Netherlands, and also for holidays around Europe.
While traveling in our Berlingo minicamper we met people on the road. For us this was just a holiday at the moment, but after talking with some retired full-time travelers we heard something over and over again…
They wished they would travel when they were our age.
This got us thinking.. We are our age! So why not travel fulltime before we are too old to do awesome stuff!
Then we got into the #VANLIFE thing on social media. Turns out we were not the only one with this same idea. So enough inspiration and no need to find out the wheel again.
Time for a solid plan and a bigger van.
So we bought a Peugeot Boxer to convert into a home on wheels.
We bought the Peugeot Boxer van as a selfmade campervan. The main advantage was for us that the van was already registered as a campervan. This saved us a lot of money in tax the first months of owning the van.The interior was however horrible made. But we knew we’d take it out anyway.
