A woman divorced her husband, ditched her successful business and left all her possessions behind to travel around Europe in a van with her beloved cat. Therese Eriksson earned a good living as a freelance videographer, allowing her and her then husband to rent a five-bedroom house and enjoy a good standard of living. Despite looking outwardly idealistic, the 33-year-old woman revealed that she was miserable and deeply unhappy with her life.
So in April 2023, she decided to ditch it all and travel around Europe with her four-and-a-half year old cat Tindra in a 2007 Peugeot Boxer that she bought and converted for £3,500. Speaking last night 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.”.
