Living the van life was alleged to be a high, nevertheless it felt more like taking the low road.
A girl quit her secure 9-to-5 job to live her dream — nevertheless it turned out to be a nightmare.
Allison Sharpe quit her job and gave up her home in California in 2019 to live life on the road.
She lived in her automobile before buying a Chevrolet Express van, which she thought could be a dream, but got here with an entire recent set of problems she never considered.
The travel influencer — who shares her adventures on her account @TravelSnacks on YouTube — admitted what the van life is like as a solo female out on the road.
Sharpe is all the time on the lookout for recent food, scenic places and different adventures across the states, nevertheless it’s not as exciting as she thought it might be.
In a video she titled “5 LIES of Van Life No person Talks About | Solo Female Living in a Van,” she shared some negative facets about her recent lifestyle — certainly one of which hit her “like a ton of bricks.”
The nomad initially believed that living in a van meant she’d find a way to travel anywhere she wanted regardless of the weather, but her first summer on the road left her feeling fatigued and “very heat-strokey.”
“I felt like I used to be gonna pass out, it was just an excessive amount of. I used to be sweating consistently,” she admitted.
After on the lookout for anything that may keep her cool and researching suggestions online, she eventually realized cooling off while in a van was not going to occur.
“It’s not as freeing as one might think,” she shared.
There’s also less freedom within the sense that they must consistently be moving their cars — even in the event that they occur to benefit from the spot they selected.
Drivers are urged to maneuver their cars nightly, and finding recent parking isn’t all the time the simplest task.
Sharpe admitted that having to consistently be on the move “is tough in your body and in addition hard mentally.”
One other misconception that Sharpe didn’t realize was, despite people living on the road sharing their very own videos of meeting up with other roadies, these meetups don’t occur on a regular basis, and it may get lonely.
“Everybody’s not built to be alone 100% of the time, none of us have been built that way,” she said. “It’s not healthy to isolate yourself on a regular basis.”
While she has met some great people along her journey, what she saw online wasn’t the total experience.
“Once you see these videos of individuals gathered on the desert at a bonfire…that does occur – but that’s not on a regular basis.”
She’s attempted meeting people through apps, but most of them are mostly into smoking and partying, something Sharpe doesn’t wish to do.
“That’s not the vibe for me, it’s not a perpetual party here out on the road,” she shared.
And while living in a van is perhaps cheaper than owning or renting a house, there are still loads of expenses that have to be considered comparable to gas, food and other essentials, in addition to potential health issues and accidents.
“Things usually are not all the time gonna go as planned, so that you’re going to want to set some money aside,” Sharpe advised. “It’s best to definitely have a plan in place in order that when something breaks you are ready for it.”
Sharpe has been living the van life for 3 years now, and he or she truly believed it was something she would do for her whole life, but she’s now realizing this isn’t the dream she thought it might be.
“I’m drained…It’s not the small space – it’s all the opposite things that go together with it,” she admitted. “You continue to have family issues, health issues, relationship issues, all the problems. Every issue that you might have in a house or an apartment, it’s all the identical issues you might have in a vehicle.”
She added that at a degree, she’s going to want some stability.
“I’m gonna need to search out a spot to rest,” Sharpe shared. “I’ve got a superb few years left on this van life after which I’m gonna need to do some various things.”