A high-flying city worker has quit her $120k-a-year job to live in a seven-metre-long van and travel the world with her pet chihuahua.
Dominique Niemandt, 29, was a director at a London accounting firm before taking the plunge this year.
She forked out over $30,000 to buy a converted VW Crafter and is now traveling around Europe with her one-year-old pet dog Kevin.
Dominique said: “I feel so much freer and so much more like me.
“Before I felt like I was in a hamster wheel for so long. I just thought there must be more to life.
“I used to work 60 or 70 hour weeks. On holiday I would be the loser working in the corner. I sort of felt like I didn’t have a choice.”
Dominique spent eight years at a Big Four firm before taking a director role at an accounting company in London.
She was living in the capital and earning more than $120,000 a year before resigning.
Now, she’s living off savings and considering taking up a consulting role for a few months of the year to fund her way of life.
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Dominique said: “This lifestyle is so much cheaper. I’ve got enough money for nine months.
“I might work two or three months of a year and then fund the rest of the year.
“I spend about £250 ($310) a month on insurance and petrol for the van, and then it’s food and activities, so in total I spend no more than £600 ($740) to £1,000 ($1200) a month.”
Dominique is currently in France and hopes to travel to Spain and Portugal in the coming months.
She said her lifestyle change was inspired by a desire to break out of the day-to-day routine.
Dominique said: “I saw a news article in October about vans being converted into homes and a month later I’d bought one.
“I had a three-month notice period at work and then I left in January.
“A lot of people my age feel pressure to live a normal life but it doesn’t make them happy.
“I want to see people doing what makes them happy.
“It’s not easy but it just feels like you’re living – even though that sounds cheesy.
“Sometimes I still feel like a failure for giving my job up, which is kind of weird.
“Telling my family was the hardest part – I think they would have preferred I was working and focusing on my career instead.”
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Dominique said living on her own can be lonely but she has met new people along the way and connected with nature.
She said: “There are little things that get you through it like speaking to someone in a bakery.
“If I like somewhere then I’ll stay and explore. If not I will try to find the next place to stay.
“I do a lot of walks and active stuff.
“Everything is slower in a van. It can take an hour to do the dishes and washing.”