I didn't find van life on a road trip.
I found it in a hospital bed.
That's where this really started. Not with freedom. Not with sunsets. With illness.
When your body stops working properly
Living with Achalasia isn't something you just "manage and get on with".
It affects everything. Eating isn't normal. Drinking isn't simple. Your body doesn't work the way it should.
There's pain, regurgitation, choking, exhaustion — and on top of that, the mental weight of constantly having to think about something most people don't even notice.
And when it's bad, it's really bad. Hospital stays. Procedures. That feeling of your life shrinking around you.
You start to realise how much your world is being controlled by something you didn't choose.
The moment something shifted
I remember being in hospital, scrolling. Not really looking for anything. Just passing time.
And then I saw it. Van life.
People living on the road. Small spaces, but full lives. Movement. Simplicity. Freedom.
And something clicked. Not in a romantic way — but in a "maybe this could work for me" kind of way.
Because if my body was going to limit me, maybe I needed to change everything around it.
Building something I had no idea how to build
So I bought a van. With absolutely no experience. No background in building. No real clue what I was doing. Just this idea that I could create something that worked for me.
And I built it. Slowly. Messily. Learning everything as I went.
Every mistake felt massive. Every small win felt huge.
It wasn't just a van. It was the first time I felt like I was actually doing something for myself.
And then it got crushed
Literally.
My first van got crushed by a building.
Even writing that still sounds ridiculous. One minute I had this thing I'd poured everything into — time, energy, hope — and the next… it was gone. Flattened.
That kind of moment does something to you. It's not just about the van. It's about what it represented. Starting again. Losing it. Questioning everything.
Starting again anyway
I could've stopped there. Honestly, it would've made sense.
But something in me didn't want to go back to the life I had before.
So I built again. Another van. Another attempt. Another chance.
Not because I was confident. But because I knew standing still wasn't an option anymore.
Carrying everything with you
Van life didn't magically fix anything.
You don't drive away from illness. You don't escape trauma. You don't suddenly become someone new.
You carry it all with you. The pain. The anxiety. The dissociation. The exhaustion.
There were days I couldn't function properly. Days where even small tasks felt overwhelming. Days where my body just wouldn't cooperate.
But there were also moments… where I felt something different.
What changed (even slightly)
Not everything. But enough.
Movement gave me something to focus on. The next road. The next stop. The next place to sleep.
And those small things started to build something bigger. Not confidence. Not fully. But trust.
Trust that I could figure things out. Trust that I could get through hard days. Trust that I didn't need everything to be perfect to keep going.
This isn't a perfect story
It's still messy. I still have bad days. My health still affects everything. There are still moments where it all feels too much.
But I'm not where I was. And that matters.
Why I'm sharing this
Because this isn't just about van life.
It's about living with something you didn't choose. Losing things you worked hard for. Starting again when it would be easier not to. And still moving forward. Even if it's slow. Even if it's not pretty. Even if you don't fully know where you're going.
If you're in that place
Where everything feels heavy. Where you don't know what the next step is. Where life feels smaller than it should.
You don't need a full plan. You just need something that shifts you forward. Even slightly.
I didn't build this life perfectly. I built it piece by piece.
