How Vanlife Helped Me Conquer Anxiety

By Kat Towers

Hi, my name is Kat and I'm from Devon in the UK.

I have graduated in from school of travel, having travelled solo to many countries in my 20s and 30s. I would consider myself an experienced traveller. Some of the stand out moments for me would be travelling overland on the Greyhound from New York to Alaska, doing karaoke in Tokyo Japan, flying in a dodgy plane over Mount Everest and spending my birthday at the Taj Mahal in India. Nice memories and I'm hoping to make a lot more as the years go by!

I got my first van 5 years ago which was a Suzuki Carry called Debbie and my boyfriend helped me convert her into a beautiful micro camper. I absolutely loved her although she was very much on the small side! One rainy afternoon, I was looking on Ebay and I fell in love with this big, old campervan. It was a 1993 Renault Trafic high top camper and on the spur of the moment I decided to sell Debbie and to buy this other, bigger camper. I didn't even see it first. I just said “yeah, I'll take it”!

Illustration by Georgina Skinner @howdoyoupeel

After buying my new van I decided to join some online vanlife groups. I'd never really used social media before and I was amazed to suddenly have access to all these people that shared my love of travel and vans. I’ve always loved hearing people’s life stories and I really wanted to talk to these van people! I also thought that maybe if I had an excuse to interview and connect with other van dwellers, it would help me with my own anxieties. Even with all my experience I was surprised to find that I got really scared when travelling alone in my van. I would get freaked out when camping out on my own in the middle of nowhere, my imagination would run wild. I noticed that a lot of other women had posted online about having similar anxious feelings and that this was actually a common problem. I wanted to do something that would prove to those people and to myself that if we face our fears and challenge ourselves we can achieve whatever we want to do and it's not as scary as we thought it would be.

This is how my VFFs Vanlife Podcast was born! I have had some incredible conversations with other women about their #vanlife experience and have learnt a hell of a lot. But the conversation that made the biggest impact on me was when I spoke to Jodie.

At the time of the interview with Jodie, I was not in a happy place. I was living in a grotty shared house, and feeling hopeless about the future, and where I would live. I had actually always just wanted to live in a field in a caravan, but as you know this is almost impossible in the UK unless you have a lot of money and planning permission so had kind of given up.

Jodie was my age, independant, well travelled and with a very similar mindset. I was completely in awe and so inspired at her stories of driving bands around Europe in her 20s and travelling solo in her Ford Transit to Portugal to surf.

Jodie also told me about her house in Bulgaria. She had literally just googled "cheapest place to buy a house" one day, Bulgaria came up as an option, she liked the sound of it, so she got in a car and drove there. She was so casual about what I saw as an epic journey that I thought, “hmm, maybe it’s not so difficult after all?”.

An idea started to formulate in my mind. I couldn’t afford my caravan and field in the UK but.. what about Bulgaria? Maybe I could go there and try to live this dream I had given up on? I looked at house prices and they were staggeringly cheap. I could totally afford to actually own property and land outright there! I had 3 months before Brexit- just enough time to grab a Bulgarian residency and gain some EU rights before the doors slammed shut forever.

I ran this idea past my boyfriend and he told me thought it was stupid. Well, that did it.

"I WAS GOING TO BULGARIA."

So.. how was I going to get there? I thought about my new podcast venture and how I wanted to prove to people they could be brave and I knew. I would drive there in my van. This might not sound much to some of you experienced overland types, but something you need to know about me is, I had always been a VERY nervous driver. I failed my driving test 5 times because I would be so nervous I would do things like drive straight through a red light. I also had never driven more than 250 miles in one go in my life. But something in me knew I had to be brave and give it a try.

So I booked my ferry ticket over to France and with Jodie’s help began planning a route that would take me through France, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Romania and finally to Bulgaria- A journey of approximately 2000 miles which should take me around ten days if all was well.

I didn’t have much time to worry in the two weeks I had before I left so I got my head down and prepared for the trip. However, the moment I got on the ferry to France I felt like I had made a huge mistake. The journey was looming over me like a dark monster and I felt completely overwhelmed. I just kept thinking “What have I done?”

I was really worried about- you guessed it- basically everything! Where I would sleep, driving on the right hand side of the road, whether my 30 year old van would make it or not etc etc.

The roads from Roscoff were manageable but when the time came to join the motorway it was dark, rainy and there was a lot of traffic on the road. I was panicking already when I heard a clang and a scraping of glass and realised that my windscreen wiper had pinged off, never to be seen again! I turned off the motorway and could no longer hold back the tears. I just sobbed my heart out by the side of the road. This wasn't just about the windscreen wiper. It was everything. It was my hopelessness and fear about the journey. I hadn't even driven 100 miles yet and I was already crying by the side of the road defeated- how could I possibly drive all the way to Bulgaria?! That day got worse as I managed to spill diesel over myself and my shoes at the petrol station, ruining some of the only clothes I had brought with me.

Looking at the little blue dot on google maps that night when I settled down to sleep in a random layby, Bulgaria seemed impossibly far away. Before I passed out from emotional exhaustion I posted a message on social media about my day. When I woke in the morning I had hundreds of messages from fellow vanlifers who were sending their love and support, and honestly, if it hadn't been for those people sending support, I would have turned and gone home.

I was so scared after that to go on the motorway after my experience that I ended up taking the D roads through France. This took me down to an average speed of less than 30 mph and my sat nav had some very interesting ideas about where I should be going. I remember driving all day and feeling so proud, only to look at the map and realise I had only driven 160 miles that day!

I eventually decided it was time to get back on the motorway if I had any chance at all of making it to Bulgaria before getting cabin fever in my van! Being alone in that metal box meant I had no escape from the thoughts and fears that plagued me. I was forced to face my anxieties and fears. What if this happened? What if that happened? “What if, what if, what if?” I had several panic attacks while driving and all I could do was try to breathe, and be really kind to myself. “You can do this Kat, just keep going. And breathe.”

I realised that if I was going to make it I had to stop thinking like that, especially as I was being faced with actual problems in the present moment. Like the weird guy who opened the door of my van one morning, tried to grab my boobs, then with a smile and a flourish produced a condom out of his pocket with a look that said “How about it?” Or the mouse that had gotten into my van and was pooing all over the place and running across my sleeping bag at night. Or the truck drivers driving right up to my bumper at full speed and flashing their lights at me. The amount of time I spent crying and shouting “I can’t go any faster!!” has given me PTSD- Post Truck Stress Disorder.

Every time something happened I wanted to turn back and go home. I programmed my satnav to take me back to Calais at least 5 times. I would sit in the driving seat ready to go but something always stopped me, I found I physically could not bring myself to turn back.

Keeping up with the traffic was a big challenge for me. Even at top speed my old van would only go to 60mph which other drivers, especially on the Autobahn in Germany, found really frustrating. But I just learned to phase out the impatient drivers, I just had to concentrate on what I was doing and not let it bother me. I also found the busy traffic around the Austria/Hungary border a real challenge. There were constant lane changes and very fast moving, unsympathetic traffic. But, like all the challenges I faced on my journey, I just used the mantra of “You can do it” and somehow I got through.

I saw everything that I had gone through at this point as training for what was the most terrifying experience of my life so far- driving in Romania. Something Jodie seemed to have forgotten to warn me about was that Romania has some of the worst driving conditions in Europe and the highest fatality rate. Most Romanians behave as if driving is a fight to the death and the winner is whoever can do the craziest things before they eventually crash. They don't seem to believe in speed limits and get offended if you stick to them. This will end up with them riding your bumper and flashing their lights until they can dangerously overtake at a blind corner.

And the roads! Some of the switchbacks were as if someone had thrown spaghetti onto a map and used that as a guide for where to put the roads. I say ‘roads’, but they were more like ‘half roads’- no streetlights, no markings and a sheer drop on either side in some cases. I constantly swerved for stray dogs, or herds of goats and once I nearly killed a man who was nonchalantly stood in the middle of a road with a leafblower. The only way I mentally got through it was by waking up at 4am to try to beat the traffic, listening to “Eye of the Tiger” on repeat and just telling myself, “You can do this, you can do this, you’ve got this” over and over again. I took regular stops to pull over and sob and wondered how many novice western Europeans before me had done the same thing but would probably never admit it!

"I WAS NOW A BAD ASS"

By the time I had driven the majority of the Romanian leg of my journey, I had changed. I was tough, ready for anything and no longer affected by truck drivers riding my butt or the scary driving conditions. In short, I WAS NOW A BAD ASS. I was finally in control of my thoughts and living in the present. I was confident, driving faster and making good time. The miles were now flying by and before I knew it I was just a few miles away from my final destination, the Bulgarian Border!

Illustration by Georgina Skinner @howdoyoupeel

When I saw the words Republic of Bulgaria, I was crying again but this time with happiness. I couldn’t believe that after all the fear, worry, and times I had wanted to turn back and give up I'd actually completed the journey. The sense of achievement I felt was unmatched by any previous feeling. I was so proud of myself. I had faced some of my biggest fears, and come through the other side! It was a total high and I felt like I was walking on air for days after. This may have been pure exhaustion, but I like to think it was elation!

I spent a lovely winter in Bulgaria learning about the country, enjoying the quiet life in a small village called Hotnitsa near Veliko Tarnovo and looking at houses. In February I made my return journey to the UK NOT through Romania but south through Greece, Italy and France. I drove back a confident, capable and experienced driver and I'm happy to report I didn't cry once.

After my adventure I now have no fear sleeping anywhere in my van, and long distances now excite me rather than scare me. I've decided to lean into some of my other long held fears, and because of this I overcame my fear of deep water and I now swim in the sea every day. I have learnt that there is a reward waiting at the other side of fear and this is a feeling that I now chase. I now understand why people climb mountains or take on impossible challenges. It’s for that buzz of achievement! I also have a totally different attitude to my thoughts. I hear myself saying “oh, that’s just an anxious thought, it’s not real” more and more these days and it feels so good.

I am still currently based in the UK but now I have Bulgarian residency I will return to Bulgaria when I can and continue my search for the perfect place to stick my caravan.

Thankyou very much for reading and if you would like to hear me crying my way across europe as well as my interview with Jodie and other amazing UK vanlifers (including Georgie!) you can check out VFFs Vanlife Podcast.