Truck It!

The Drive Around the World That Saved My Life

Bobby Bolton

WHEN a Wigan-born man’s love life fell apart, his hard-earned construction company went bust, and he discovered he had hardly enough money to buy a 70p coffee at a petrol station, he knew he had hit rock bottom.

But as he drowned his sorrows with friends in a pub on a weekend visit to his home town, Bobby Bolton had a light bulb moment; he saw a Land Rover with a ‘Family Expedition’ on its bumper, owned by an outdoorsy couple with ‘adventure in their eyes,’ and made an instant decision to pack up all his troubles in a truck, head off to Australia… and hopefully fall in love with life again.

His pals thought it was the beer talking but Bobby was serious, declaring that ‘we only have one life and I want to go and live mine.’ It was just the start of an epic but crazy adventure for Bobby and his trusted dog Red as they set off from the north-west of England, travelled all the way across the world and, along the way, became a @one.life.truck.it social media sensation.

Bobby’s rollercoaster story began years earlier when he was an ambitious boy growing up in Wigan and then moving to London to start his career. By twenty-five, he had stepped off the nine-to-five work ladder to pursue a dream he had nurtured since a teenager… run his own business as a self-employed builder. With a passion for building, a degree from Loughborough University, and a few years’ experience with a property developer, Bobby was still very young but felt ready to take on the world and the challenges that might lie ahead.

Little did he know that before he was thirty, his heart would be broken, and that he would be homeless and near bankrupt. In quick succession, his eleven-year relationship with his fiancée broke down, a bad economic turn and a run of unlucky business deals drove his hard-earned construction company into the ground, his long-held passion for rugby dissipated, and Bobby discovered what it was to lose all purpose in life.

But galvanized by the sight of the Land Rover couple who had a vehicle full of outdoor gear and ‘eyes that seemed so alive,’ Bobby set his own sights on turning his life around. The next day, he sold all his possessions and what was left of his business, and spent every penny converting a truck that he would drive and live in with his labrador, Red.  

His final ‘step to freedom’ was starting his first social media adventure… an Instagram page on which he announced his daring plan to drive to Australia, and then drew a map of the world and his route on some old cardboard. The two videos went viral and over time, garnered Bobby hundreds of thousands of followers. And only a couple of weeks in to his travels, fate struck when Bobby met a beautiful and ‘very smiley’ French woman named Marie while hiking in the South of France and fell head over heels in love. After just two dates she (and her dog, Rubia) joined him in his truck to see what might happen next. But this was only the start of the adventure…

Paying corrupt Russian policemen bribes, digging out mountain passes in Albania with an old spade, getting punched at the Kazakhstan border, surviving a mountain track collapse in Italy, being interrogated by the Taliban at a dangerous checkpoint, and sliding down a snow-covered ridge, ice axe in hand, to rescue his new girlfriend as she fell two-hundred metres, narrowly avoiding a cliff face, are just some of Bobby’s  adventures… and definitely a memorable way to reconnect with the world around you and to fall in love with life again.

Action-packed, and an inspiration to those looking to turn their own lives around, Bobby’s amazing worldwide adventure delivers heart, plenty of drama, and an irresistible sprinkling of good old northern charm and humour. Don’t miss the ride!
(Macmillan, hardback, £20)