One day, while scrolling through her Instagram feed, Sydney Ferbrache saw a picture of a girl in a van. Maybe it was fate, or just the algorithm, but it completely changed her life.
A 24-year-old woman decided to live her best life after breaking up with her boyfriend, so she ditched the 9-5, bought a van and now travels the US with her beloved dog.
Sydney Ferbrache, from Indianapolis, Indiana, was inspired to start her new life after seeing a picture of another girl travelling in a van.
Rather than living with envy, the young woman decided to do something about it, and asked her boyfriend at the time to join her on an adventure.
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The couple were working ’70 to 80 hours a week’, with Sydney telling us they were both ‘totally miserable’, so they purchased an $18,000 Mercedes-Benz Sprinter and spent thousands of dollars to make it fit for travelling.
I saw this picture and it took me down this black tunnel hole of van life. I was scrolling for hours a day on my laptop and in between homework and everything else, just looking at vans.
We bought one, had it shipped to Indianapolis, and that was the start of how I discovered van life.
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Sydney and her boyfriend hit the road in September 2017, but the 24-year-old soon realised her partner wasn’t ‘the one’. The keen traveller wanted to ‘reach for the stars’, so she decided to go it alone.
The Indiana native decided to start afresh, and let her ex keep the van. Sydney then worked three jobs, as well as a ‘ton of side gigs,’ for two months in order to save up for transport of her very own.
By May 2018, Sydney had saved enough to purchase a $24,000 Ford Transit van. She renovated it, adding a full kitchen, a king-size bed and a toilet, and got ready to hit the road.
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Just before she set off, however, she decided she needed one more thing to make her setup complete – a golden retriever puppy, named Ella.
The 24-year-old began her adventure earlier this year and has since travelled to 20 different states, including Montana, Utah, Arizona, California and Oregon, as well as Quebec in Canada.
She funds her travels through advertising and affiliate marketing on her website, and by helping people design their own blogs. Sydney shares her adventures through a podcast and on her Instagram page, Divine On The Road.
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