Martijn Doolaard – Detailed Biography

Martijn Doolaard is a popular off-grid YouTuber.

He has over 830K subscribers on his eponymous YouTube channel.

Introduction

Martijn Doolaard was born on 16 December 1983 in the Netherlands and grew up in Southern Netherlands in his family’s nursery in a big garden.

His father was a former landscaper and Dutch Protestant Church minister. His mother was a caretaker and technical and financial manager of the house.

Martijn has three siblings.

His eldest brother, Cees-Jan, is a carpenter, second brother, Anne, is a landscaper and the youngest brother, Siebren, is a videographer and animator.

A designer

Martijn studied graphic design from De Eindhovense School from 2003 to 2006.

He was also playing in the bands and writing music and wanted to become a rock star with a band but it didn’t materialize.

Immediately after graduating, at 21, Martijn started working as a designer at Design Bridge in Amsterdam. It was his first time living in a big city and he struggled with English at the time.

Later he worked as a designer at organisations like Volle-Kracht Grafisch Ontwerp, Brandnew (Weesp), Design Bridge (Singapore) and QNY Creative (New York).

Then he freelanced for Design Bridge, VBAT and dBOD before founding DAMP Design.

Connecting with nature

Martijn missed being in nature as he always lived in the cities working as a designer.

He grew tired watching the computer screens all day at his job. He wanted to take a break from it and his monotonous work and immerse himself in a physical activity.

After working at a full-time job, Martijn switched to freelancing, thanks to which he had more free time and after saving money, at 32, he decided to cycle from Amsterdam to Singapore.

He chose to ride a bicycle because it was fast enough to take him to his destination as he was confident that he could easily ride 100 kilometres per day. Also, the costs would be low if he could camp a lot.

Also, the bicycle could carry all his luggage and connect him with nature.

Martijn loved the bike’s ability to ride on almost all types of roads and the ease of parking.

His love for big projects, which gave him purpose, made him cycle and later work on cabins in the mountains.

Over 17,000 kms

Martijn began his solo cycling journey, on his Surly Long Haul Trucker bike, in Amsterdam, on 16 April 2015 and started travelling eastwards.

As he enjoyed cycling, he decided to cycle to Singapore as it was the furthest he could travel over land from Europe.

It took Martijn a year to reach Singapore and he traversed through 18 countries, travelling over 17,000 kilometres. It was his first long bike trip.

During the trip, he led a minimalist life and camped in remote places and was fully independent as he had a tent and sleeping bag.

Martijn’s journey through the Netherlands and Germany was relatively easy but it got a little rougher in Eastern Europe as dogs chased him in Bulgaria and Turkey.

Before embarking on this trip, he was a little chubby as he was working in a full-time sedentary job in the city but the bike trip made him skinny and strong.

One Year on a Bike

Initially, Martijn was more into videography and wanted to make a movie about his journey.

But as he had many photos of the journey and wrote a daily diary, he compiled them and wrote the book, One Year on a Bike: From Amsterdam to Singapore, after he returned to Amsterdam after his journey.

Martijn published this book on 25 March 2017.

The second time

The bike journey left Martijn broke but made him more confident.

He returned to his graphic designing job and the monotonous city life but he grew tired of it a year later and decided to do another long cycling journey.

Vancouver to Patagonia

Martijn wanted to cycle from Vancouver, Canada all the way up to Patagonia in South America.

So, he moved to Vancouver and purchased a new bike, a Surly ECR 29+ and other gear required for the trip.

Martijn started bikepacking in Vancouver in June 2017 and took breaks in between whenever he had freelance work to do and eventually reached Patagonia. He would stop at hotels and Airbnbs for freelance work.

While crossing the border of Chile and Argentina, Martijn got stuck in pouring rain and the river was high. But he travelled through the river and almost drowned and lost his bike.

He finished the trip in Ushuaia, Argentina, on a cloudy day and then took a flight to his home.

Martijn published his second book, Two Years on a Bike: From Vancouver to Patagonia, based on his journey from Vancouver to Patagonia, on 9 November 2021.

The book is available in English, German and French. Writing this book was his way of celebration as he revisited all his trip memories.

Inspiration

Martijn met an old couple, Kent and his wife, living independently in the deep Redwood Forest for more than 35 years on his journey from Vancouver to Patagonia while travelling through the British Columbia Highway 101.

This, along with his love for nature and camping outdoors, inspired him to live off-the-grid.

Settling in the Alps

Martijn camped in the scenic nature many times. As he always lived in the cities, which he didn’t enjoy much in his 30s and after his round the world cycling trips, he wanted to settle somewhere.

Upon researching, while being locked down in Barcelona during the Covid, he stumbled upon the property in the Italian Alps.

Later, Martijn visited the Italian Alps on his bike and was mesmerised by its beauty.

So, he quit travelling, bought about six acres of land in the Alps and started living there full-time.

More than a century old

In 2021, Martijn purchased two historic stone cattle farmers’ homesteads, which are more than a century old, in 2.3 hectares of land for €21,000 on top of a hill in the north side of the Alps in Piemont and is currently working on them.

He loves the silence and being alone in the lap of nature in the Alps as it gives him the space to think and observe the details of nature changing.

Even though he is remote, Martijn is just half-an-hour from the nearest town.

The place contains many stone cabins, built heavily and strongly, which were abandoned by the farmers who migrated to the cities during the Industrial Revolution for greener pastures.

He chose to live there as he was working online, remotely as a graphic designer.

Initially, Martijn was working there on his graphic design business but later started focusing on his YouTube channel.

He also owns a meadow near the hill and owns an apartment in Amsterdam which he bought at 27.

Prior to settling in the Alps, he travelled and lived in a 1974 Land Rover Series III car.

Pack of wolves

In the beginning, Martijn was camping alone inside the cabin when it wasn’t restored.

As he couldn’t sleep, he went for a walk at 2am in the moonlight and accidentally got quite close to a pack of wolves on the other side in the mountains.

He heard them howling for the first time and it was a thrilling experience for him.

Self-taught

Martijn wasn’t a builder but he learnt skills like carpentry and plumbing by watching YouTube and applying the teachings in real life.

He also learns through the comments under his videos which are often made by professionals and he receives suggestions through email.

Also, Martijn calls up his carpenter brother for clarifications. He also learns by reading, Googling, watching YouTube, watching others and using ChatGPT.

He uses the SketchUp program for drawing the houses and learnt using this program through YouTube.

He depends on solar panels and a gasoline generator for electricity.

YouTube

Even though Martijn started his eponymous YouTube channel in January 2011, he started working consistently on it only from 2021.

He published his first video, “One night on Pulpit Rock (Preikestolen)”, on 20 April 2015.

His fifth video in the Alps, “#5 How much did I pay for my Italian property, and other places I considered”, became viral and got 400,000 views on the first day.

And in just a year, Martijn had amassed half-a-million subscribers on YouTube.

Currently, he has over 830K subscribers.

The popularity of his YouTube channel serves him as an accountability partner to work on his property.

Martijn shoots his videos with a Sony α7 III camera and a DJI Air 2S drone.

He stopped working on his EspirituLibre blog in 2018 but you can find his beautiful travel pictures there.

Passive sources

Martijn earns mainly through passive sources through his YouTube channel, donations, Patreon and selling his books, art, photos and videos.

These pay his bills, which aren’t very high as he doesn’t have electricity bills and condominium fees. Also, the water bill is low and as he lives remotely, there aren’t many chances for him to spend money.

Personal life

Martijn’s girlfriend is Ela. She is an artist.

His future plan is to write a book about the whole project, when it gets completed and later either take up furniture making or ironwork.

Martijn is a polyglot as he knows Italian, Spanish, French and English.

So, how are you inspired by the success story of Martijn Doolaard?

Share with me in the comment section below.