Our story
We’re Sara and Jurrien, a travel writer and photographer from the Netherlands. After years of travelling the globe to create travel magazine features, we’re now setting out on our biggest adventure yet: fulltime vanlife in an electric campervan to discover beautiful off-the-beaten-track destinations in Europe.
Then, 2020 happened and we went from hopping the globe one day to working from home, sheltering in place the next. You can read the whole story here , but the short version is that the pandemic made us seriously reconsider our fast-paced lives.
We decided that when it would be possible to travel again, we wanted to do it differently: more conscious and with less of an impact on the environment. And this time, we wanted to focus on the many ways in which, to quote Lonely Planet: ‘Travel, when practiced responsibly, can be a force for good.’
Pooling all our savings, we bought a Fiat E-Ducato to convert to a fully electric campervan, to move in fulltime, travel across Europa and seek out amazing green travel experiences. And that’s why we created Green Travel Journal: to share all the ups and downs of our electric vanlife journey and to — hopefully — inspire people to try out green travel. On our website, we’ll share the stories of the local people and sustainable adventures we’ll seek out along the way and we’ll publish in-depth green destination itineraries.
We’re just getting started but we’re aiming to add new content every week!
Meet Sara
Born and raised in the Dutch city Groningen, I lived a fairly sheltered life until I got bitten by the travel bug. I wanted to be a writer since I was a kid and landed my first writing gig as a blogger during an internship in New York in 2012. I went on to work as a travel writer and editor for companies like Lonely Planet and Polarsteps. After writing a book called Take a Break (published in Dutch and German) about how to take the ultimate sabbatical or gap year, I’m stoked to finally go on a big trip again myself. With a passion for sustainable travel, I can’t wait to share our electric vanlife stories from the road.
Meet Jurrien
Raised in a Dutch village close to Groningen, I’ve been building and designing stuff pretty much all my life. After studying to be a builder, I went to art academy where I developed an interest in photography, which turned out to be very handy when I started travelling together with Sara. Some of my favourite travel experiences were sailing across the Mediterranean and an expedition cruise to Cape Horn — I love to be on the water. After graduation I had to make a choice between design and photography and while I’m very happy I chose the latter, being able to travel the globe together to create travel features for a range of publications, I’m stoked to now create our dream home on wheels and to take you along for the ride!