Around here vanlife is mostly a timeline. We wanted a field.
A few times a year Vanlife Vrienden parks ten to twenty-five vans together on a field in the Netherlands. No programme, no stage. Just a campfire, and people you still message afterwards.
Why we do this
Vanlife looks beautiful online and is often quite lonely in real life. You spend months converting a van on your own, you drive off on your own, and the people who know exactly what you are talking about are scattered across the country. We knew that feeling, and there turned out to be no place where you simply run into them.
So in June 2026 Rick and Tim booked a field at a farm campsite in Okkenbroek, arranged through Wouter’s family. It rained almost the entire weekend and it was still great. That is when it clicked: vanlife in the Netherlands really is possible. We should do this more often.
There was no programme, and that turned out to be exactly the point. Give people a weekend, a fire and enough time, and they do the rest themselves.
Since then we have simply kept going. Every edition somewhere else, with partly different people, and increasingly organised by someone else from the group. That last part is the goal: this should not be ours. This belongs to everyone.
What there has been so far
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June 2026
The very first Vanlife Vrienden Meetup
Okkenbroek, Overijssel
Farm campsite in the woods of Salland, room for fourteen to seventeen vans.
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July 2026
Alpaca Edition
Heeze, Noord-Brabant
A weekend on a plot with alpacas. The name wrote itself.
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August 2026
Scouting Edition
Lobith, Gelderland
Scouting ground on the water, with canoes and a campfire spot.
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September 2026
Meetup & Flipperkast Dinner
Andijk, Noord-Holland
Campsite on the IJsselmeer, with a three-course dinner cooked by someone from the group.
Something for your brand?
Do you make things someone with a van can use? Solar panels, fridges, coffee, mattresses, tools, clothing that survives a wet weekend? Then our group is right in the middle of it.
Your product ends up in real hands
Ten to twenty-five vans, a whole weekend. Whatever you hand over gets used the way it was meant to be: in the rain, on a field, with or without power. Within two days you will hear what works and what does not.
Images that were not staged
People are shooting photos and video anyway, both us and the group itself. That gives you material that does not look like it followed a brief, because it did not.
A group still in the middle of building
Our people are converting their van or have just finished. They are shopping for solar panels, fridges, mattresses, cooking gear. What they see working at a meetup, they buy.
You back a weekend, not an ad
We keep the tickets affordable, you make that possible. In return we mention you where it fits: in the announcement, on site, and here.
What we do not do
The weekend belongs to the group. We do not line the field with flags, we do not ask anyone to post anything, and we do not sell speaking time at the campfire. If people are enthusiastic about your gear, you will notice, and if they are not, a banner would not have saved it either.
That is not prudishness, it is the reason people come. The moment a meetup feels like advertising, it becomes the exact thing everyone was trying to get away from.
Want to join in?
Send an email with what you make and what you would like. We are happy to work out a form that suits both of us, from making an edition possible to handing over gear to try. A short message is enough to start.
Not the person who decides this? Feel free to forward this page, it explains itself.