A WOMAN has swapped her picture-perfect life for the open road, leaving behind her marriage, thriving business, and five-bedroom house to travel Europe in a van – with her cat as her only companion.
Therese Eriksson, 33, once enjoyed a comfortable life in Sweden as a freelance videographer, renting a £1,750-a-month five-bedroom house and running her own successful business.
But despite the outward appearance of success, she felt deeply unfulfilled.
By April 2023, Therese had had enough.
Within two weeks, she left her marriage, sold most of her possessions, and invested £3,500 in a 2007 Peugeot Boxer van, which she converted into a mobile home.
Alongside her four-and-a-half-year-old cat, Tindra, she set off to explore Europe – and she’s never looked back.
Speaking from near Malaga in southern Spain, she said: “The relationship wasn’t working so I decided within two weeks that I’m done with this.
“I said ‘take whatever you want, I don’t know when I’m going to come back. All I’m having is the cat’.
“I’m much happier now – life is much simpler.
“I am so grateful and happy for everything. I have stopped caring what people think.
“I don’t care about materialistic things. I’m much less worried about my appearance – I don’t always wear makeup and if my hair’s a mess I just put it in a bun.
“From the outside my old life was perfect. I had my company, I had a big house, it looked so nice.
“But I was never happy. There was so much pressure and focus on my career. Now my life is completely different – it’s like night and day.
“Then I was constantly seeing and comparing myself to other people in the rat race.
“Now I’m so shut off from that. I don’t look at the news and live in the moment.”
Therese is part of a growing trend of people converting vans to live in, according to firm The Man Van, which specialises in house removals in London.
I was too scared to pursue it before because I didn’t know how I would go about it
Therese Eriksson
Since leaving Sweden, she has driven around 50,000 miles, visiting Spain, France, Germany and Italy in the process.
Her van is insulated and has a bed and batteries to charge her phone and laptop. But it has no running water or a toilet.
This is a far cry from the life she enjoyed in her £1,750-a-month house which overlooked the stunning Mälaren Lake in the Swedish city of Västerås.
She also ran a successful videographer firm called Tuss Media which she had built up from scratch since finishing a degree in geoscience at the University of Uppsala in 2017.
She did this while filming content for her YouTube channel @ThereseEriksson, which chronicles her current travels.
But deep down, she found none of this satisfying and decided that by indulging her love of solo travelling – a bug she picked up when she travelled alone aged 18 to Egypt in 2010 – would be the best remedy.
“The house cost €2,100-a-month (£1,750) just for rent. Now I spend €500-a-month (£415) for everything,” she said.
“And I live so free. I can decide if I want a mountain view or the beach, if I want to be in a town or the countryside.
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“I meet amazing people all the time. The difference is night and day.
“I have always been dreaming about being a TV presenter for a travel show in Sweden.
“I love travelling and being in front of the camera, it has been my biggest dream since I was 14.
“My YouTube channel and film making skills allow me to travel and I have my own show and am living my dream.
“I was too scared to pursue it before because I didn’t know how I would go about it. And also people told me I couldn’t do it.
“That killed my dreams for so long but now I am alive to what is possible and am living the best life imaginable.”
The rise of van life began during the pandemic in 2020. With no one able to leave the country, staycations became popular for many say camping blog venturecampers.
On top of that, the rising cost of renting a house has put many off doing so, especially when wages have failed to keep up with the cost of living crisis.
Although it has gained popularity again, many people opted for van life in the 60s and 70s.
