On the eve of his 30th birthday, Bobby Bolton was living in a damp caravan on a run-down farm in Hertfordshire. His 11-year relationship had just ended, the construction business he’d spent five years building was failing, and he had barely any money left. “I’d moved out of the flat I shared with my ex, borrowed money from her to buy this caravan, and felt so low about where my life was heading that I cut myself off from everyone,” he says. “I stopped socializing and walked with such a slump that I started getting back pain. My mum thought I might kill myself.”
She begged him to come home to Wigan, but Bolton refused. “It would have felt like total failure.” Instead, he agreed to visit for a weekend. Driving the 200 miles north, he ended up in a pub with old friends. After a few drinks, he spotted something that changed everything.
“A beat-up old Land Rover Defender packed with gear pulled up outside, and this couple got out—the man with a shaggy beard, the woman with wild hair, both looking like they were on some grand adventure,” he recalls. “The Land Rover had a bumper sticker that said ‘Family Expedition,’ and it hit me: I needed to hit the road like them. I had to figure out three things—where I wanted to live, who I wanted to live with, and what I wanted to do.”
Three years later, Bolton has traveled through 53 countries across three continents, covering over 42,000 miles in a modified MAN truck. Along the way, he’s gained more than 380,000 Instagram followers—and found love again. Now back in Wigan with his fiancée, Marie Deleval, he’s planning their wedding and their next adventure: a journey through Mongolia and Siberia in a converted eight-wheel military truck. “I found my answers,” Bolton says. “I want to live in the truck, with Marie, and spend my life exploring the world as an overlander. My mantra became: Don’t let who you are today stop you from becoming who you could be tomorrow.”
That motto, the kind you’d see over a dramatic Instagram sunset, sums up Bolton’s outlook: no matter how bad things get, you can always change. It was that impulse that set him on his journey—and that same reckless spirit that carried him through. “We tackle everything with a big smile and a stubborn British attitude,” he says. “Whether it’s cops, border guards, or even terrorists stopping you, you just flash a thumbs-up and talk your way out of it.”
Speaking from his mum’s living room, Bolton looks cleaner than his usual dirt-covered Instagram self. His tan is deep, his beard neatly trimmed, and his eyes look more weary than adventurous. Beside him on the sofa is Deleval, the 30-year-old French woman he met just two weeks into his travels—and who agreed to travel the world with him by their third date. Her bleached hair is tied in a messy bun, her tan matching his, her expression slightly dazed. They’ve been off the road for just 72 hours, and even over video, you can tell they’re itching to leave again. “It’s nice doing laundry and eating home-cooked food—we smell better now,” Bolton laughs. “But we’ll get restless soon. We’ve got the taste for it, and we’re already planning the next trip.”
Bolton calls himself an “overlander,” not a traveler or backpacker—the difference being the self-sufficient, rugged way he explores.The raw, unfiltered nature of the experience sets it apart. “Unlike backpackers tied to hostels or tourists sticking to popular spots, we take dirt tracks and back roads, moving through real communities,” he explains. “We glimpse into people’s lives and sometimes reach places where foreigners are a complete novelty. These encounters create genuine connections.”
These interactions form the heart of Bolton’s new book, Truck It! Written in a lively, conversational style brimming with classic British pluck, it traces his journey—from personal and professional setbacks to selling everything for a truck, meeting Deleval in France, and then driving together with their dogs through Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Russia, and South Asia before ending in Thailand.
The trip wasn’t without its challenges. They faced shakedowns by Russian police, clashed with an Azerbaijani man at a border crossing, and even found themselves at gunpoint with the Taliban in Afghanistan. Each obstacle is met with Bolton’s relentless optimism and a naivety that readers will either find endearing or frustrating. At one point, he researches Russian-occupied Georgian territories on his phone, baffled by locals’ suspicion of tourist truckers. In Afghanistan, he fires a pistol with a group of young men—later realizing they were Islamists—before being interrogated by the Taliban.
“People kept warning us about the risks of traveling through Afghanistan,” he writes. “We’d always shrug it off with, ‘We’ll be fine.'” And somehow, they were. At times, Truck It! reads like Top Gear—but without the self-reflection.
Was it really that chaotic? “Nothing tops those guys in Afghanistan approaching us with a pistol, firing a shot into the distance, then adding me on Facebook—that’s when I realized they were part of a terrorist group,” he says, shaking his head. “Then the Taliban showed up, and we genuinely thought we might lose our heads.”
Deleval adds that Afghanistan posed unique difficulties for her. “I couldn’t do anything there as a woman—you just don’t engage with people,” she says. “I was completely ignored. Our experiences were entirely different.”
Money was another complication, glossed over in Bolton’s breezy travelogue. He left the UK with “just £600,” he writes, and only started filming their journey on Instagram as an afterthought—which ended up funding the rest of the trip. When his first two videos about trucking around the world went viral, sponsors covered their Eurotunnel fare and provided free gear in exchange for branded content.
“I’d never really used social media before, and honestly, it’s been one of the hardest parts of the trip—it invades our privacy,” Bolton admits. “Marie and I met naturally, but suddenly she had to be on camera, part of documenting everything. I don’t plan content, so filming happens from morning till night. It’s tough keeping anything just for us. Still, without it, we couldn’t keep going. A necessary evil.”
Bolton’s romance with Deleval is one of the journey’s most unexpected and heartwarming chapters. Just weeks into his travels, while sitting with his dog, Red, on a hill outside Saint-Tropez, he spotted Deleval running with her dog, Rubia, and was instantly drawn to her. He mustered the courage to say hello, and later, she found his Instagram and messaged him to meet up. After two more dates—during which she revealed she had a boyfriend to break up with—they became inseparable.She agreed to join him on his journey.
“People often say traveling as a couple can strain relationships because it’s so intense, but for us, it just worked,” Bolton says. “Our 4×4 meter truck cab became our home, and it felt easy because we love the same adventures. It strengthened our relationship—the hardest part now is being back, staying with family, because our real home is the truck.”
Aside from the couple he saw outside the pub, Bolton credits his parents as his biggest inspiration for this nomadic life. His father, a truck driver, taught him early on how to fix engines, while his grandfather, a merchant navy sailor, filled his childhood with travel stories.
“Both my parents are baby boomers who worked hard their whole lives,” he says. “They just want us to enjoy ours and see the world. The toughest part was saying goodbye at the start, but they’re really proud of what we’ve done.”
Meanwhile, Deleval says it was her mother who encouraged her to go with Bolton, even though they’d only just met. “I’d already backpacked through South America for a year and a half, so my parents knew I loved traveling,” she explains. “When I told my mum, she just said, ‘You have to go.’ That settled it.”
While Bolton’s parents have visited them on the road—his dad even drove the truck for a stretch—being away has had its challenges. “The last time I saw my nan, dementia had taken hold, and she didn’t recognize me, which was hard,” he admits. “But my other grandparents got an iPad to follow us on Instagram, and it’s given them a new spark. In a way, it’s brought the family closer.”
That iPad will get plenty of use, as Bolton and Deleval are planning another trip—this time to the U.S. via Saudi Arabia and Siberia, with a stop in October to get married on the Saint-Tropez hill where they first met.
“I originally thought I’d drive to Australia, and that’s still the end goal, but now we’re taking our time,” Bolton says with a smile. “We’ve even talked about starting a family on the road. I just want to inspire people to chase life, whether that means traveling or something else. You don’t have to go from stacking shelves to climbing Everest—you can always reinvent yourself.”
Truck It!: The Drive Around the World That Saved My Life by Bobby Bolton is published by Macmillan (£20). To support The Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
