From Restaurant Owner to Road Tripper

I'm Colin. 58 years old. And I made a decision most people thought was crazy. Ten years ago, I opened my restaurant "Colins". A year of renovations before we even served our first plate. Everything on the line — my savings, my time, my energy. My mother's Indonesian recipes. An open kitchen. Everything over open fire. No shortcuts, no packets, real food the way it's meant to be made.

What nobody tells you about running a restaurant is what it actually costs you. The years of 14-hour days. The stress that doesn't stop when you go home. Then COVID hit. Doors closed overnight. A full restaurant, empty. Staff to take care of, bills that didn't pause, a business I'd built with my bare hands suddenly fighting to survive. Those were the hardest years of my life.

But through all of it — the long nights, the setbacks, the moments I questioned everything — there was one thought I kept coming back to. One dream I had been saying "someday" to for years.

Pack everything up. Buy a camper. And travel the world together with my wife, with our Basset Hound Bobbie. See the world while we're still healthy enough to enjoy it. Before it's too late. After ten years, someday became now. I closed the chapter. We sold what we could, downsized everything, and bought the camper. We're going. There's no going back — and honestly, I wouldn't want to.

But here's what I didn't think about before we left. During one of our first test drives, I looked back and saw Bobbie wandering around the camper — unsecured, no proper harness, nothing built for life on the road. I buckle up automatically. Why wasn't Bobbie protected the same way? I started looking for proper dog travel gear. A harness that could handle mountain trails and city streets. A seatbelt for long drives. Products built for dogs that actually live this kind of life. And I quickly found out: good gear that's actually tested in real conditions is surprisingly hard to find. Most of what's out there is designed for a photo shoot, not for real life. So I spent a full year testing everything myself. On Bobbie. In real conditions. If she didn't approve it, we didn't sell it. That's how Bobbie On Wheels was born — not in a boardroom, not with a marketing budget, but in real life, with a real dog, before a real journey.

And here's the honest part — the part most brands would never tell you: We need this to work. Without the income from Bobbie On Wheels, we can't keep going. The dream we gave everything up for depends on people like you choosing us over some faceless corporation. Every single order keeps our dream alive. That's not a marketing line. That's just the truth. In return, you get something no big brand can offer you: a product that has been used, tested, and approved by a real dog in real conditions. Not lab-tested. Life-tested. And if something isn't right — wrong size, wrong fit — you contact us, and you get me. Not a chatbot. Not a ticket system. Me. That's the deal.

Thank you for choosing Bobbie On Wheels. Every purchase keeps our dream alive — and keeps your dog safe on theirs.