Life is not like a “trend” when this girl realizes that moving house to live in the car is not as pleasant as expected, but instead is frustrating and uncomfortable.
Natasha Scott (from Atlanta, Georgia, USA), an ordinary HR always dreams of traveling far away because she is fed up with the tedious life of office people.
One day, 9 months ago, Natasha saw a video about “hiking life” on TikTok and started learning about this trend. It is known that these people will live in cars and travel on a long journey, may not know where the destination is, but the important thing is that they can go wherever they want.
Immediately attracted to this nomadic lifestyle, Nat wanted to be free as well. She also thinks that she will save quite a bit of money on housing and electricity and water bills with such a lifestyle.
Natasha decided to quit her job at the end of last year to pursue her passion for hiking. She sold her house, packed up her belongings and loaded it up in her van, turning it into her “mobile home”.
However, “life is not like a trend”, when after only a short time, Natasha immediately fell into a crisis both physically and mentally when she did not know how she would have to live in the future.
Life is not like a dream.
Natasha’s original intention was to rent a motel or hotel during her journey. To have money to spend, Nat will work part-time online, the rest of the time will roam around and enjoy the trip.
However, after a while, Natasha admitted that she couldn’t stand it anymore, she no longer had enough money to rent a hotel and had to live 100% in her beloved van. She also could no longer work to earn money due to the long journeys that exhausted her energy and was actually more tiring than she imagined.
Reviewing old clips on TikTok, the time when Natasha confidently announced that she would start a desirable “free life” and updated every day on her personal TikTok. This statement made a lot of people curious and follow her, attracting thousands of views
“Really life in the car is so bad and uncomfortable, the people who made the previous videos on this topic are all scams,” said Natasha exasperated.
The first is the heat. In the summer, the high temperature outside makes the van with the doors closed like a portable oven.
Then there was the noise, Natasha said: “Just the sound of the rain falling wakes me up, I can clearly hear what the people walking outside are saying, it’s just that I can’t live.”
“Even though I parked my car in the parking lot, it only took until 6am to make it look like a market.”
As for the issue of new jobs, it’s worth mentioning because it’s Natasha’s source of life, many TikToks share during their travels, they’ve downloaded all kinds of apps and websites to help them find part-time jobs, both online and offline. Natasha did the same, but she was really helpless when faced with hundreds and thousands of other candidates vying for these jobs.
Much more expensive than before
Life on the van didn’t save Natasha the money she thought it would.
Indeed, Natasha shared, the cost of operating a car for a whole month is equivalent to renting a small apartment. She has to return more than 200 USD, or more than 5 million / week to rent a car, not to mention the cost of installing air conditioning and other equipment.
Not to mention, because of too much furniture from the old house, Natasha has to rent a separate warehouse to store them and lose 140 USD / month, just to store things she does not use.
In the end, Natasha had to put an end to the van life she had always wanted because she couldn’t take it anymore. In order to have money to live, she had to sell most of her valuable assets.
“It’s heartbreaking to have to sell my things to buy food, I don’t know how much longer I can hold out.”
Currently, Natasha has been helped by a friend and moved into a motel, she is also looking for a job to return to her previous life.
“Living in a van is really not the solution to deal with rising prices, think twice before you start doing it,” Natasha shared on her personal page helplessly.
Many followers have sent money to help Natasha, hoping she can get through the difficult time. But most people criticized and ridiculed her for being stupid and too naive to trust people she didn’t know on social networks.
“If you still want to live in a van, I recommend you only experience it for 1-2 weeks, then go back to normal life,” advises Natasha.
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