{"id":14296,"date":"2026-08-21T16:41:44","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T14:41:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/workingremotely.nl\/from-burnout-to-living-and-working-in-my-camper-for-9-months-a-year\/"},"modified":"2026-08-21T16:41:44","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T14:41:44","slug":"from-burnout-to-living-and-working-in-my-camper-for-9-months-a-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/workingremotely.nl\/en\/from-burnout-to-living-and-working-in-my-camper-for-9-months-a-year\/","title":{"rendered":"From Burnout to Living and Working in My Camper for 9 Months a Year"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you had told me 15 years ago that I\u2019d end up living in a camper van for 9 months a year while still doing my job as a marketing manager, I probably wouldn\u2019t have believed you. I\u2019m Henno. For a long time, traveling and working were two completely different worlds for me: whenever I wanted to travel, I would literally quit my job.<\/p>\n

Things have changed quite a bit since then. My camper, Vamos, serves as both my home and office for 9 months of the year; I work 4 days a week for my clients and, in the meantime, regularly move my \u201cfront door\u201d from place to place. That might sound like a very deliberate, well-thought-out plan, but it definitely wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Quitting My Job to Travel<\/strong><\/h2>\n

My career began during my vocational training at the MultiMedia Academy in Amersfoort. For my internship, I ended up at e-Village, an online marketing agency, and I ended up staying there. Throughout my entire bachelor\u2019s program in Interactive Media at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, I worked part-time at e-Village. In the end, I worked there for about eleven years and progressed from intern to junior, mid-level, and senior marketer, and later to marketing manager.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, I was also really eager to see the world, but remote work wasn\u2019t really a thing back then. This was well before the pandemic, and working from Mexico or India for a few months wasn\u2019t something you could just suggest to HR. So my solution was pretty simple: I quit my job, went backpacking for a few months, and as soon as I started running out of money, I reached out again with , \u201cHi, I\u2019m back. Do you happen to need anyone?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The great thing was that I could just come back several times; I think I even got a promotion once after I\u2019d resigned. Not exactly a conventional career path, but it worked for me.<\/p>\n

\"Henno, \"Hennno's<\/p>\n

Until travel disappeared from my life<\/strong><\/h2>\n

At some point, that changed. I bought a house, started my own business, and threw myself completely into it. I found the first few years as a freelancer especially exciting: I wanted to land projects, build up financial reserves, and grow my business. So I worked. A lot.<\/p>\n

Travel, something that always gave me a tremendous amount of energy, had by then virtually disappeared from my life. For about seven years, I hardly took any long trips at all, until about three and a half years ago, when my body told me it had had enough and I was on the verge of burnout.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, I got there in time, but it still took me about eight to ten months to recover. My client at the time\u2014an occupational health and safety service, of all things\u2014was incredibly helpful in that process, even though, as a client of a freelancer, they weren\u2019t obligated to do so at all.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve tried several times to get my career back on track. Twice, it didn\u2019t work out, and I ended up taking another break. The third time, though, I succeeded. At the same time, with the help of a psychologist and others, I began to take a critical look at my life.<\/p>\n