ABOUT ME A LIFE STILL BEING WRITTEN
I’M JOHN
“NIX Drones began with a camera in the sky. Somewhere along the way, it became a record of my life.”SCROLL INTO THE STORY
JOHN NICKOLLS / NIX
ONE LIFE. MANY ROADS.
I have never been especially interested in standing still.
I’m John. I drive trucks. I fly drones. I cross countries in a campervan. I ride forest trails. I photograph things because I don’t want to forget them. I obsess over technology, music, maps, power systems, roads and the strange little details that make one day different from another. But none of that is really the whole story.
NIX Drones began with a camera in the sky. Somewhere along the way, it became a record of my life. A life of roads, people, machines, music, memories, wrong turns, good ideas, bad ideas, late nights, early starts and the constant feeling that there is still something else out there worth seeing. I have never been especially interested in standing still.
CHAPTER 01
THE ROAD
A lot of my life has happened through a windscreen. These days I drive HGVs for a living. Big vehicles. Long shifts. Dark mornings. Empty motorways. Industrial estates at impossible hours. Coffee from service stations. Sunrises over places most people are still asleep through. There is something about being on the road that gets into you. You start noticing things.
The way Britain looks at 4am. The silence of a motorway before dawn. The first light hitting wet tarmac. A familiar route changing with the seasons. Most people finish a week of driving and want to stay home. I usually start thinking about where I can drive next.
“A lot of my life has happened through a windscreen.”
CHAPTER 02
THE PEOPLE WHO MATTER
For all the miles, machinery and technology, the most important part of my life has never been any of that. It is the people. I love my children, Saffron and Hubert. I love my family. They are not a footnote to this story. They are part of the reason the story matters in the first place. Jobs change. Cars change. Technology becomes old.
Plans fall apart and new ones appear. Family remains the thread running through it all. And then there’s Fiona. I love being with Fiona. I love being with her family. We have known each other for years, and somewhere along the way our lives have gathered up weekends, journeys, campsites, caravans, meals, conversations, laughter, plans, detours and memories. Some adventures are booked months ahead.
Others seem to begin with four words: “Shall we just go?” Those are often better. There are moments in life when you realise the destination was never really the important bit. It was who was sitting beside you. Who was laughing. Who was there when things went wrong. Who remembers the same ridiculous story years later.
That matters more to me than any mileage figure or photograph ever could. And there is still a lot of story left. This adventure has a long way to go.
Saffron & Hubert.
Fiona & her family.
The people who matter.
Saffron & Hubert
“It was who was sitting beside you.”
Wake up somewhere else.
CHAPTER 03
VANILLA
Then there is Vanilla. My VW T6.1 campervan. Calling her a campervan probably doesn’t quite explain it anymore. She is transport. Accommodation. Workshop. Power station. Cinema. Kitchen. Escape pod. Experiment. And occasionally a very expensive answer to a question nobody else was asking. Vanilla began as a Transporter. Since then she has slowly become more NIX than Volkswagen. Solar. Lithium. Victron electronics. Jackery power stations.
Diesel heating. Projectors. Speakers. Awning camps. Wild stops. New wheels. More power. More ideas. And upgrades to things I had already upgraded. I seem biologically incapable of leaving anything alone. But Vanilla is not really about equipment. She represents freedom. The ability to decide, sometimes with almost no notice, that I want to wake up somewhere else. A coastline. A forest. A mountain.
A pub stop. A campsite. A road disappearing into somewhere unfamiliar.
“The ability to decide that I want to wake up somewhere else.”
CHAPTER 04
EUROPEAN DRIFT
In 2026, Vanilla carried me across Europe on the European Drift. Twelve countries. Thousands of miles. Weeks on the road. Borders, mountains, motorways, lakes, villages, heat, rain, campsites, aires and places I had previously only seen on maps. There is something powerful about watching your own country disappear in the mirrors and realising you can simply keep going.
The European Drift changed the way I thought about travel. About what I needed. About what I didn’t need. About how far a small van can take you when you stop worrying about the return journey for a while. I came home with memories, photographs and, inevitably, another list of modifications. Vanilla has been evolving ever since. So have I.
“You can simply keep going.”
CHAPTER 05
THE VIEW FROM ABOVE
Drones are where NIX began. Before all the power systems, campervan experiments, playlists and travel stories, there was simply the fascination of putting a camera into the sky. There’s Nemesis, my Mavic 2 Pro. Zoom, the Mini 4 Pro. Sneaker, the tiny Neo 2. And Twitch, the old Spark that belongs to an earlier chapter of the story.
The thing I love about drones is not simply flying. It is the moment the familiar becomes unfamiliar. A road becomes a line drawn through a landscape. A forest becomes pattern. A harbour becomes geometry. Fields become colour. A building you have passed a hundred times suddenly looks completely different. Height changes perspective. And perspective changes everything.
“Height changes perspective. And perspective changes everything.”
CHAPTER 06
PHOTOGRAPHY
I take photographs because memory is unreliable. A photograph can pull an entire day back into focus. The weather. The people. The journey. The feeling. The ridiculous little detail you thought you would never forget and absolutely would have. Sometimes I use a proper camera. Sometimes a drone. Sometimes an action camera. Sometimes whatever happens to be in my pocket.
The equipment matters less than actually pressing the button. Because one day an ordinary photograph becomes something else entirely. It becomes proof that a moment happened.
“It becomes proof that a moment happened.”
CHAPTER 07
TORQUE
Then there’s Torque, my Scott electric mountain bike. Another machine. Another excuse to explore. Another excellent way of turning a quiet afternoon into several hours of woodland, mud, steep climbs, photography stops and questionable route choices. Torque changed the scale of places for me. Walking distance became riding distance. Forest tracks became journeys. Cannock Chase stopped being somewhere nearby and became somewhere to disappear into.
There is something deeply satisfying about leaving the road behind entirely. Even if the trail ahead occasionally appears to have been designed by someone with a personal grudge against knees.
“Another excellent way of turning a quiet afternoon into an adventure.”
CHAPTER 08
TECHNOLOGY
I love technology. But I love it most when it becomes useful. I want to understand it. Measure it. Push it. See what it can actually do. How much power did the solar panels make today? How many amps moved through the battery? How long will the heater run? Can Vanilla survive off-grid for days? Can a portable power station run the van?
Can I turn a campervan into a cinema? Can I make this system smarter? Can I improve that? And the question that has probably caused more projects than any other: What happens if I try this? That question has cost me money. It has caused problems. It has also produced some of the most enjoyable things I have ever built. Curiosity can be expensive.
It is rarely boring.
“What happens if I try this?”
CHAPTER 09
MUSIC
Music runs through almost everything. Journeys have songs. People have songs. Places have songs. Certain tracks can return me instantly to a motorway at night, a festival field, a campervan, an old car, a particular summer or a person I haven’t thought about for years. My music collection wanders everywhere. Depeche Mode. Underworld. Leftfield. Simple Minds. Joy Division. Gary Numan. Orbital. Dire Straits. Thin Lizzy.
Iron Maiden. Punk. Reggae. Electronic music. And anything else that grabs me. I have never really understood why music should stay neatly inside genres. If it makes you feel something, it belongs. That is why NIX LISTENS exists. Not simply as playlists. As soundtracks. Because music has an extraordinary ability to turn three minutes into a time machine.
“A good song can turn three minutes into a time machine.”
CHAPTER 10
BEFORE NIX
Before campervans, drones and all of this, I joined the Royal Navy. I trained at HMS Raleigh and HMS Sultan as a Marine Engineering Mechanic and served aboard ships including HMS Londonderry and HMS Wilton. Engineering stayed with me. Maybe that explains why I still need to know what is happening behind the panel. Why I want to see the numbers. Why I read manuals.
Why I stare at wiring diagrams. Why something working perfectly well occasionally feels like an invitation to take it apart. After the Navy came business, self-employment, work, driving and a collection of chapters that do not fit into a neat little career summary. That suits me. Life rarely travels in a straight line. The interesting bits are usually somewhere off the planned route.
“The interesting bits are usually somewhere off the planned route.”
CHAPTER 11
WHAT NIX REALLY IS
NIX Drones is a slightly misleading name now. Drones are still part of it. But this place has become something much bigger. It is my archive. My map. My workshop. My travel journal. My photo album. My playlist collection. My experiment log. My memory bank. A place for the roads I have driven and the places I still want to reach. A place for Vanilla.
For Torque. For drones. For technology. For music. For photographs. For family. For Fiona. For the people who turn journeys into memories. It contains things that went brilliantly. Things that went wrong. Things I would absolutely do again. And several things that began with: “I’ve had an idea.” That sentence remains dangerous.
“I’ve had an idea.”
THE STORY CONTINUES
THE NEXT ROAD
The engine is still running.
The road is still open.
And this adventure has a very long way to go.