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Tiny living and #vanlife have taken the United States—if not the world—by storm. With more people living off-the-grid and adventuring into obscure locales, one social media platform has benefitted more than any other: Instagram.
With its focus on beautiful moments and picturesque locales, Instagram taps into people’s wanderlust and penchant for the visual. It’s an aspirational traveler’s dream, and everyone from travel writers to corporate brands have taken notice.
Instagram accounts like Vanlife Diaries have big-time followings in the hundreds of thousands, full of images that show a VW on an abandoned road, a couple doing yoga, or a dog surveying the view from the back of a van. Individuals like Foster Huntington have quit their day jobs to travel across the United States in a camper, taking gorgeous photographs—and accumulating one million followers—along the way.
But sometimes, all that beauty seems a bit too good to be true. To poke fun at the “illogical campsites” that proliferate the #VanLife hashtag and camping world, the Instagram account You Did Not Sleep There reposts the most bizarre photos of them all. What you’ll find are likely staged photos of people in sleeping bags on steep cliffs, camper vans sitting in lakes, and tents in other improbable locations.
We’ve rounded up the 17 most hilarious—and photoshopped?—photos from the account to show just how extreme this Instagram game has become.
We really don’t think you slept in the middle of the road, no matter how deserted it was.
This is taking the “not-afraid-of-heights photo” to the extreme.
Sleeping on a tiny ice island, the next big trend?
When #VanLife looks suspiciously like an Abercrombie & Fitch advertisement.
Doesn’t everyone backpack with Tiki poles?
I mean, come on now. This is just getting ridiculous.
Just wait until high tide.
That time you took a whole bed frame on a camping trip.
Wut? This is totally realistic. I always watch the sunset this way.
Somehow there is no snow on this tent and no footprints anywhere.
People will do just about anything for more Instagram followers.
My SUP is totally big enough for a tent, I don’t know what you’re talking about.
When everything is just a little too pretty.
“Now rise up onto your elbows so it looks like you’re staring at the view.”
This just seems unlikely, and very wet.
Perfect for Instagram, not the best for camping.
Nothing in this photo looks real.
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