It was 3 a.m., and Natasha Scott was lying awake as the rain pounded on the roof of her van, listening to the murmurs of animals outside. The barrier between the world and her bedroom was paper thin.

Times like these made her feel like “the only person in the world,” she tells Fortune. Scott, 33 and based in Atlanta, pinpointed that night as the moment when she realized the glamorous van life advertised on social media was just “glorified homelessness.”

You don't have to search far to see videos showing lifestyle content of families packing all their belongings into a van and hitting the road. Known as #vanlife across social media, the phrase has 13.9 million tags on Instagram and 10.7 billion views on TikTok. The alternative lifestyle became popular in the 2010s among millennials craving a nomadic adventure, and it accelerated during the pandemic as an option for remote workers and those seeking a more affordable alternative to buying or renting amid sky-high inflation.

Romanticized as a magical, simplistic way of life, it was enough to pull Scott in. A former pilot recruiter with a small business on the side, she often daydreamed about trying out the nomadic lifestyle after watching the #vanlife videos that littered her “for you” pages on YouTube and TikTok.

She finally took the plunge after receiving a notice last year that the rent on her one-bedroom apartment was increasing. She used her savings to buy a non-converted van (it wasn’t outfitted with carpeting and plumbing) for $5,000.

But Scott soon found that the reality of van life wasn’t all that sunny, and she began documenting how her idyllic lifestyle turned sour on the TikTok account @nomadgonewrong, renaming her account this month to @nomadgoneright. Gas was high, it was lonely on the road, and the van often needed repairs, she said. It all put her on edge.

“Van life is harder than what it seems like in videos,” Scott says. “It’s harder than I would have ever thought, honestly.”