My CREEPIEST experiences whilst living in a VAN

Trust your instincts. If the situation makes you nervous, leave.

You are wise beyond your years and adventure is part of the “good” life. As an 80 yr old who has seen a lot I say “ you go girl”

Even as a young man, I was always careful where I spent the night alone with at least some protection, early on in a tent and later in a van. At least in a van, you have time to reach for a weapon. But being isolated just add a layer of uncertainty and invitation to somethig possible. Meeting a crazy person is just a matter of chance. It's better to plan your stops knowing you are surrounded by others. There are just too many stories of people being attacked. Stay safe.

As you say "go by your gut feeling" -- so much better being safe than sorry. If any suspicion just move to another spot, regardless.

28:04 This. This needs to be said LOUDLY for those in the back. We are no smarter than any victim who has lost their life, or worse. People are not victims because of stupidity or naïvety. They are exactly like us.

Be well. Stay safe out there. Stay alert and aware of your surroundings always. I’m a 43 year old man who lives in the eastern U.S. who has traveled alone a lot. I have found myself in uneasy situations where I have had bad vibes either from the place I was hiking or camping or from a person or people in the area I was at. Men don’t get harassed as much as women, but I have been afraid of some situations before. I knew if I didn’t leave something terrible might happen. Always follow your instincts.

Other women who ‘van life’ talk about having a ‘pee jar’ & she wee’ and not leaving their vehicles after dark.

I’m always so sorry to hear these sorts of reports . As a big bloke I have taken for granted my freedoms. Must admit I’m always conscious of women feeling uncomfortable , will cross the street or turn off onto another path so women don’t feel threatened . That’s really sad but guess it’s what things have come too. I think most women realise that men are fine, it’s just a few and they are a disgrace to decent blokes. I know most of us would do anything to help anybody , male or female ❤️.

Thank you for sharing your experiences and thoughts. I appreciate your attitude of supporting other women and encouraging us to leave our “ comfort zone” and experience the world. Be happy and safe in your travels!

Please be safe, don’t take unnecessary chances. Evil can appear suddenly and in any kind of place. These are scary stories, they could have turned really bad. God bless you and your dog.

I have been abused more from family members than strangers! I refuse to let crazy people to stop me fro doing what I want to do. I always am aware of my surroundings and take steps to be safe.

I AGREE, WHY DOES THE WOMAN ALWAYS GET BLAMED FOR SOMEONE ELSES CRAZINESS. HAVE A SAFE & HAPPY NEW YEAR MARINA.

Very good point about strangers committing only 6% of violent assaults on women. My experience supports this, people I knew assaulted me but I have rarely been assaulted by a stranger. Strangers can be creepy but rarely as dangerous as acquaintances, friends and family. Sad but true.

Thank you for sharing and your advice is spot-on. Since I started solo camping as an almost middle-aged woman (mostly across the SW of the US) many people ask me if I carry I gun. (Because unfortunately, Americans seem to love their guns.) My answer is always that my very best weapon is what is between my ears. Using one's common sense and exercising a willingness to trust your intuition are very important, as is knowing it's okay to "not be nice." Two years ago I was trying to find a trailhead in southern Colorado about 5 miles up a mountain road. Three miles in, a man appears out of the woods. He did not "look" like a hiker. Dressed all in black, arms scratched and somewhat bloody, with a large bandage on his forehead. He flagged me down and seeing both his hands were full of random trash, I rolled my window down about 2". He told me he had camped down a side road and his car battery was dead and he needed a jump. I told him if he'd tell me where, I would drive down and call the highway patrol to come and assist him. He seemed startled that I was not willing to accompany him down into the woods, alone. "You won't help me?" Yes, I replied, and "I will help you in exactly the way I've described." Which I did. I got all of the details and drove down to where I had cell reception and called in some assistance for him. I suspect he just a regular person, perhaps down on his luck, living out of his vehicle, but who knows? Regardless, it was a good reminder that even had he "looked" the part, say in regular camping clothes, etc, I would still have needed to react the same way. The fight for equality continues in all aspects of life and adventuring is not exempt. Happy and safe continued travels!

OH BOY! Good video. I took a 50 day, 2.300 mile bike trip, around the American west. We started out in a group of 9 people with a leader who had made the trip twice before. Three very creepy things happened in the 50 days and all three times I was far from alone. For brevity I will leave out a lot of detail: #1 As we were camping in a group of nine in a city park. Off in the distance (over a football field away) I saw an OBVIOUSLY disturbed young man heading straight for our group. I went straight in my tent. He made a bee line straight to my tent and tried to unzip it in front of the whole group who proceeded to stop him. I was crouched inside with a knife in my hand. It all happened in 60 seconds. The group found this hilarious. I did not. He was incidentally, the local high school football star, who turned to drugs after his great career. #2 One of the women and I were very tired. 50+ miles a day and we couldn't get our periods. We asked the leader if we could rest a day. He said no. The group went on without us and we said we'll catch up. One night of rest was enough. we both got our periods, felt rested and set out to catch up. At a town we went into the only restaurant/bar. A guy with a pickup offered to drive us to the next town where we knew the group was camping. We put our bikes in the truck and off we went for a 20 mile ride. He took a "detour" to "look at some land" down a dirt road. I instantly realized his intentions were not good and since there were TWO OF US I assumed he was armed. I could hear his thoughts and I was terrified. This was reflected in my body language. I immediately spread my shoulders and knees and put my hands on my thighs. He immediately turned the truck around and took us to the group. Never saying another word the whole way. #3 The group broke up. The other woman and I carried on alone to finish the trip. We camped in another city park surrounded by 20-25 other campers including one of the men from the trip who was, like us determined to finish. I got a bad feeling about the local young men in the park when I was on my way to the toilets. Exhausted, I fell asleep in the tent with the big cook pot we carried right next to my head. In the middle of the night I heard a very loud noise! BOOM! Exhausted I went back to sleep. In the morning we got out of our tents, the other woman and I. We discovered that those local young men had been throwing golf balls at us and only us. We were surrounded by 45 golf balls. If the pot had not been right by my head one of them would have hit my face. We continued on and finished the trip. One of the best experiences of my life! Several years later I found a book about two women who took the exact same bike trip we did. The Book is called "Strange Piece of Paradise" By Terri Jentz. She and her companion camped in all the places we did. All the public parks. In one of the parks, a local man ran over both their tents with his pick-up and proceeded to hack them up with an ax. They both survived. One woman was permanently blinded but still became a doctor. He was not caught. Terri Jentz went back some years later and solved the case herself and wrote the book. But by this time the statute of limitations had expired and he was never prosecuted for what he did that night.

I watch another YouTuber (female and young) who travels quite often alone in a van and sleeps in isolated places. It makes me very uneasy. Plus she's pretty which could draw attention to herself. But even if she were male, I would feel uneasy. But for whatever reasons, I get an extremely uncomfortable feeling for her. In her videos, she often has her van wide open, she has appeared to even sleep with her back doors wide open. No matter how safe you might feel in a location, you really should take precautions. Because you just never know and sh*t happens....

Hey. Thanks for sharing these, its good to hear these stories from another woman whose had so much experience solo camping. I have had one particularly creepy experience recently, where I was sleeping in the back of my car (a four-wheel drive wagon) in a national park area in Australia. Not a camp ground, but a place on the beach where there were a few other people camping. I arrived before sunset, cooked my dinner, walked on the beach, before retiring to my car to read. A group of men were camped near me. It was fine until one creepy, disrespectful (possibly drunk) man decided he would knock on my car at 1am in the morning to wake me up and ask if I was 'ok'. It really freaked me out, he made me so uncomfortable as I had been fast asleep and it was the middle of the night. I told him I was fine, but he hung around my car on his phone, with his phone light shining through my windows. Then the creepy man finally left and I was drifting back to sleep when he came back, woke me up again, and tried to initiate a conversation with me about where I was from and what I was doing. It was about 2am by this point. I yelled at him, asking him why he kept harassing me while I was trying to sleep. He then walked away from my car but his creepiness had freaked me out, so I left and went to park up at a different beach. Didn't get much sleep that night- but I have camped solo quite a lot over the years, and that was my first unpleasant and creepy experience. There were quite a few other campers around, however, so although it was uncomfortable it didn't feel too unsafe as I wasn't completely alone.

Not safe anywhere there are crazy humans😁. Spend alot of time in nature, and have many stories of being attacked. But it is humans that are dangerous. Bad things happening everyday now, human rights being trampled on. Be well and safe, nice share too.

And men say "we're not all bad" like it helps. Of course we know not all men are bad but for the sake of safety, we have to assume they are. So glad nothing escalated in your stories and that you are here and well to tell them!

Your video did make sense Marina. Well done for sharing your experiences and your thoughts on the subject. Like you said bad things can happen to anyone at anytime. All anybody can do is put things in place to limit the chances of things happening and prepare themselves for the worst but hope for the best. A few tips I always give anyone who wants to travel alone in a van is convert the van out so that you can get access to the driver’s seat from the back of the van without having to get out. Park facing towards the exit of wherever you’ve parked so that you don’t have to reverse your vehicle and never park up so that you could be blocked in. Good to see you happy and well. Keep smiling and stay safe🙂