Decided to top up the tanks before Georgia because we’re hearing diesel is more expensive there at the moment. Found this place… and WOW! Is there a fuel station with a better view anywhere? Let us know!

GM Nostr 🌅 Welcome to a glorious morning by the Diyadin river canyon. Long drive today, probably about 4hrs heading to Kars and the cheese museum there. Apparently it’s a Swiss/German style chesse with a shop 🙌

Well this was a surprise discovery today! We were parked at Ishak Pasha Palace with some friends in vans when one of them spotted hot springs on the map about an hour away. A quick re-plan we were off in convoy to the springs… where we got a private thermal pool for 150TL per person for 1.5hrs. A glorious, and unexpected, way to spend a story afternoon! 📍Diyadin, Turkey #overlandlife #lifeontheroad #decentralisedlife

GM Nostr 🌅 Yesterday we continued our way north west towards Georgia, but at one point we were *this close* to Iran… now I like to think my geography is pretty good. I’ve visited over 100 countries and all seven continents… but I just never seem to join Iran and Turkey on a border line?! Is it just me? 🤷‍♂️ #globaltravel #lifeonwheels

GN Nostr 🌅 Currently parked in a city (which is a bit noisy with traffic and people moving around) so longing to be back in the wilds like this spectacular spot, all alone in the Sahara desert at the base of huge sand dune with nothing but stars overhead and the singing of the shifting dunes for company. #overlandlife #desert #worldexplorer

GM Nostr 🌅 Here’s a question I’ve been pondering a while… are the Turkish people the most welcoming to travellers? Here’s my reasoning… I (Dave) have visited over 100 countries (currently on 102 if you’re curious). 22 of them have been in our truck. We’ve been here in Turkey for 2.5months so far and every single interaction has been positive. Almost without fail the first question is “do you need me to help you with anything?” Not in a “how can I get you out of here quickly” way but a genuine desire to help or share. People try to flag us down from the roadside and offer us Chai, random people in the street come and give Isla balloons or sweets and they all have a smile. We stopped at a water point to top up our tanks and after about 10mins a guy from the nearby house wandered over with fresh, warm pastries to give to Jess and Isla. Five minutes later we were in his house somehow gate crashing a family party, everyone budged up to make space, table settings were laid and we were having breakfast. Then as we left we were handed a bag of tomatoes and lemons from their garden. Even this guy in the picture. We met him for all of about 5minutes, but he didn’t leave without ensuring we took a gift that he’d just dug out of his car…after we’d told him we didn’t need any help with anything. We’re not wealthy, (the Sats aren’t stacking as high as we’d like!), but we turn up in our big blue truck and to the outside it seems like we have lots of money. In many ways compared to many of the local people we meet, we do. And yet they’re the ones thrusting gifts upon us. Sharing a little of what they have. No judgement, no desire for anything in return - in fact, they’re almost offended if you don’t take their hospitality, or try to offer them something in return. It’s just genuine human-to-human kindness. 🫶 One world. One people. One love. #travelthoughts #overlandexperience #turkiye

Flashback! We have had some pretty awesome parking spots, but this one in the dunes around Erg Chigaga in Morocco is up there as one of the most memorable 😍 If you could roll your house anywhere, where would you choose? Beach, Mountains, Deserts or Forest? #offroadlife #debcentralisedliving #overlandfamily #alternativelifestyle

Pre-dawn from the top of Mt Nemrut, Turkey. “Wherever you go becomes a part of you somehow” Anita Desai It’s certainly true that Mount Nemrut became part of us. Most tourists go in and up the west side but personally we’d recommend going in the east side… why? Because the roads getting there are some of the most stunning we’ve driven anywhere, and because you can then drive the dirt track until you’re almost all the way to the statues at the top - It’s steep, a bit rutted and quite narrow in places! The most popular times to go to the top are sunrise and sunset and it’s easy to see why - it’s spectacular, with the 8-9m high statue bodies and 2-3m high statue heads bathed in beautiful light. But photographers…you’re better off looking out from the mountain because there will be so many people up there with you, getting a shot without their shadows falling all over the statues is an exercise in significant restraint and patience! But take a long lens with you and look for gorgeous light and patterns in the surrounding mountains. History lesson: built for King Antiochus of Commagene, it’s a 2134m high mountain and one of the highest peaks in the east of the Taurus Mountains. It is assumed to be a royal tomb dating from the first century BC. #overlandstories #exploremore #adventurefamily

GM Nostr 🌅 Have you ever watched hot air balloons in a Timelapse?! They look like bobbleheads dancing over the landscape 🤣 📍Cappadocia, Turkey #morningviews #lifeofftheroad

Meet the family… we’ll start with the furry, noisy one! This is Otis, our 5yr old Hungarian Vizsla. Some of you will have seen the story of his close shave with the rainbow bridge a few weeks ago, but he’s back to his old self again now, exploring, sniffing, being noisy… and sometimes making a lot of noise! #travelfamily

GM Nostr 🌅 Tuz Golu, that salt lake in Turkey is an incredible place to visit. 80km long and 50km (at widest points) it’s a maximum of 1.5m deep and produces 70% of all the salt consumed in Turkey. There is a track that runs right across the lake through a salt harvesting yard. It makes for a fun road and awesome scenery. #overlandexploration #alternativeliving #decentralisedlife #expeditiontruck

GM Nostr 🌅 One of the joys of overlanding is meeting other travelling folk from other parts of the world - the Mercedes closest to the camera is a German couple while the Unimog furthest from the camera is from China. They’ve travelled 40,000km and are on their way back to China now, while we’ve done 21,000km on this trip so far and the Germans are a little earlier in their trip and are around 10,000km so far. Despite the three different origins, we all share a love of travel and adventure that transcends language barriers - proof that humans, no matter their colour, creed or place of birth, are all one and can find common ground. #expeditiontruck #overlanding #lifeoffroad #onehumanity

Before the drone went the way of the Ottoman Empire, this is the very last picture it took. Since we’re heading to Georgia next, I’m hoping I can get it repaired there 🤞…and maybe even pay with Sats! If it can’t be repaired then it’ll be a new drone 🙄 #lifeontheroad #globalsats #overlandlife #travelwithsats

GM Nostr 🌅 From a glorious Cappadocia. Vanlife / Overland life goals ✅ Such a glorious place to hang out… but be warned, you will not be alone! It is chaos, totally unlike the implication from the Instagrammers that frame it to look like they’re the only ones there 🤣 In negative news from this morning… we crashed our drone 😭 it may or may not be repairable while we’re on the road. But either way, an expense we didn’t want 🤦‍♂️ #overlandlife #expeditiontruck #cappadocia #hotairballoon

GM Nostr “People don’t take trips. Trips take people.” John Steinbeck. This continuous trip, that currently stands at nearly 450 days, has taken us through 13 countries and over 20,000km. And while we decide where we go, the road, and off-road, has an interesting habit of derailing our plans and sending us somewhere else. And that’s glorious, because it’s a real-time voyage of discovery where plans change and places like this are found. 📍Kesmez, Turkey While parked in this spot we had quite the interesting experience. Around 7pm a police car drove up the track. Given we were about 8km from the nearest road and it was a dead end track, that was quite the surprise. They drove over to us, said hello, and then proceeded to spend half an hour telling us all the awesome places in Turkey we should visit, complete with Google map drop pins! Some we knew about, some we didn’t… so that’s more destinations on the list as this trip continues to take us places we didn’t even know existed. 🙌

GM Nostr Time for a little catch up… WE NEARLY LOST OTIS 😢 In Bodrum to see a good friend, Dave was walking Otis on a public, but remote & deserted beach when out of nowhere came two flat-coated retrievers. They were pets being walked by their owner, but he was over 300m away & had no control. They ran straight at Otis, didn’t stop to sniff or say “hello” and went straight for attack - 1 front, 1 rear. Otis fought the front one off, but the one behind left him with a puncture wound on his left thigh. Cue a visit to the vet, antibiotic injections and two staple stitches… & a cone of shame. Over the next 24hrs, he started to go downhill - vomiting 3 times & being very lethargic. In the back of our mind we had the thought that he may have swallowed a stone a few days previously, but as we hadn’t clearly seen him do it, we weren’t sure and the vomiting was consistent with side effects from his antibiotics. However, we went back to the vet to check. At our request they did an X-ray & saw the stone. But prescribed… Castor Oil & waiting 72hrs to let him pass it. Remember this, it’s important later on. However, he continued to deteriorate over the next few hours and we decided we needed a second opinion. A call to a friend that used to work in a vets and we were sure we needed a different vet. Via a random series of connections we’d made in Bodrum, we found a much better vet and rushed Otis over there on a Sunday evening. They took one look at him and confirmed our thoughts that Castor Oil was not going to work and the only course of action was surgery. Another x-ray, and within an hour of arriving, Otis was laid out on the table being prepped for surgery. They said another 24-36hrs and it would have been a very different, tragic story. 11 days of care, injections and love from the vets and Otis is now well on the mend ❤️‍🩹 🙌 Huge thanks to the two awesome vets that did the surgery for saving Otis. Moral of the story? You know your pet, if you’re not happy, get a 2nd opinion. Also, vets this good are rare and worth their weight in gold ❤️❤️

GM Nostr! Well we have had quite the little while, so let’s start with a new family pic and then we can catch you up from there. Here’s us, with our home on wheels, parked on a beach in Southern Turkey. The only one missing is Otis, our Hungarian Vizsla, (he’s in the cab) but more on him shortly. #decentralisedloving #offgridlife #pverlandfamily

GM Nostr 🌅 In answer to the question of “where are we going next?” Here’s the answer! #alifewelltravelled #offgridliving #decentralisedlife #expeditiontruck #overlandfamily

There’s some big news coming for the next 12months (or more) who can guess where we’re off to? #alternativelifestyle #planschange #lifeontheroad

This is us. In our happy place. Exploring unseen parts of the world in our expedition truck home on wheels. Chasing adventure, learning on the road and spending quality family time together as a unit. The home is small, but the garden is enormous. Want to know more about this lifestyle, the pros and cons of life on the road or the challenges it presents? Feel free to ask! #roadschooling #overlandlife #alternativelifestyle #expeditionfamily