• Columbia graduate student Gerardo Rios Garcia lives in a van for financial security and adventure.
• He drove his van from Mexico to NYC and sleeps in it while balancing school and multiple jobs.
• Although he says it's challenging and can be scary, he saves $2,000 a month and doesn't have loans.

I'm a 26-year-old graduate student at Columbia University and an intern at the United Nations who lives in a vintage Volkswagen van in Manhattan. I made this choice driven by a goal for future financial security and a thirst for adventure.

My journey into van life began when I was a kid, listening to my grandpa's stories about road trips around Mexico and the US. During my junior year of college that same van my grandpa had driven was passed down to me.

Though it was no longer in the best condition — plagued with rust, brake issues, electrical malfunctions, and motor problems — I decided to renovate it.

I got into Columbia University for graduate school, and my van was the most affordable and fun way to go

After completing my undergrad degree in business, I knew I wanted to continue my studies. I had no idea where to go, other than it had to be in North America, so I could take my van with me. I also wanted to avoid taking out loans or asking my family for financial support.

I applied and was accepted to Columbia University's MS in sustainability management program. After working full time in consulting in Mexico for two years, saving as much as possible, and selling or donating everything that wouldn't fit into my van, I set out to drive to my graduate program.

After crossing the border in Arizona, I had 2,500 miles and 10 states to cover. I experienced engine issues in Albuquerque, Kansas City, and Indianapolis, and I had to tow the van with a U-Haul at one point. Still, I made it to NYC on a Sunday morning and had orientation on Monday. My Volkswagen van became my home in September.

I wanted a lifestyle that allowed me to focus on my studies and work to secure a good professional standing while living life to the fullest and gaining as many new experiences as possible. The van was a solution that was both economically viable and incredibly liberating.

Living in a van in Manhattan is hard, scary, and stressful

At just over 46 square feet, my van poses significant challenges. I must constantly find free street parking, deal with extreme temperatures, and stay aware of my surroundings. I use the WiFi at coffee shops, libraries, restaurants, or the gym. I also typically shower at the gym.

I have a mini fridge, an electric stove powered by a solar panel, and basic cooking utensils, so I cook sometimes. I also frequent diners, Columbia's dining halls, and coffee shops for meals.

I have friends over from time to time, but because the space is small, it's not something I do very often. My mom visited me a few months ago when the weather was nice for a week, and she stayed with me in the van.

I'm more involved in my community

A small living space has encouraged me to become more engaged in my community and vastly increased my productivity. Balancing three part-time jobs — a teaching assistant position, a research assistant role, and my internship at the UN — while joining student clubs, volunteering, and maintaining a 4.0 GPA has been feasible because I don't feel the need to always be at home.

I study in the van when the weather permits, watch movies, and take naps. During the coldest months of winter and hottest parts of summer, I mainly just sleep in it.

My unconventional lifestyle has become a talking point. Colleagues and professors find my story intriguing. In the professional world, I've encountered a range of reactions, from admiration and curiosity to skepticism and judgment. These interactions have taught me valuable lessons in communication, resilience, and growth.

I've learned how to prioritize what's truly important

I now know that I want a minimalist lifestyle focused on my goals and passions, free from the distractions of excessive materialism.

Financial independence is another significant benefit of my van life. I save around $2,000 each month and avoid student loans. This freedom gives me the cushion to explore the culinary richness of NYC, play sports, attend events, and do other activities that I wouldn't be able to do otherwise.

Van life has been an incredible journey of self-discovery and growth

Van life has shown me there are endless possibilities when you choose to live authentically and embrace the unknown, but the uncertainty is the biggest challenge of this lifestyle. Not having a comfortable place to retreat and dealing with added stress can be challenging.

Materially, there's limited space, and being essentially homeless can be taxing on relationships. There's also the constant concern of potential break-ins and mechanical issues. However, I truly believe living in a van has positively impacted my professional and academic life.

I want my story to be a reminder that there are many ways to live and thrive. I like to think that my van, parked amid the urban chaos, stands as a symbol of resilience, creativity, and the enduring human spirit.

I finish my courses in December and plan to stay in the van until then. I don't intend to live in my van for an extended period after finishing school, but I haven't decided on my next steps. I'm open to exploring different opportunities and locations.

• Disney asked about 2,000 workers to move from California and be based at a new campus in Florida.
• But the $1 billion Lake Nona campus was canceled after about 200 workers had already relocated.
• Two of the workers sued Disney and said they felt they had to return to California for job security.

Two Disney workers have sued the company after it asked them to relocate from California and be based at a new Florida campus — which it later canceled.

Last May, Disney scrapped plans to build the nearly $1 billion campus in Lake Nona, Orlando. The company was on a cost-cutting spree after Bob Iger returned as CEO. Simultaneously, Disney and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis had locked horns over a Florida law that limited what public schools could teach about gender identity and sexual orientation.

About 2,000 jobs, mainly in the company's parks, experiences, and products division, were set to move from one of its offices in Glendale, Southern California, to the new campus, which had been in the works since 2019.

At least 200 employees had already relocated to Florida before the project was canceled, Disney chairman Josh D'Amaro told employees in an internal email last May.

Two of these workers have now sued Disney for damages.

Maria De La Cruz, a vice president of product design, and George Fong, a creative director of product design, filed a proposed class-action lawsuit against the entertainment and theme park giant on Tuesday in the Los Angeles Superior Court.

Disney told them in August 2021 that their roles would move to the Lake Nona campus and "made it clear" that they would lose their jobs if they refused to relocate, the lawsuit said. It added that the workers were given three months to make their decision.

De La Cruz and Fong told Disney in November 2021 that they would relocate to the new campus, and both sold their homes in California and bought new homes in Orlando, the lawsuit alleged. It said that in Fong's case, he had to sell the family home he'd grown up in.

In June 2022, Disney told workers that the deadline to relocate to Florida had been pushed back to 2026 because the project's completion had been delayed, the lawsuit said. After relocating to Florida, De La Cruz and Fong worked from Disney's Kissimmee campus, the lawsuit added.

But then, in May 2023, Disney told employees that the Lake Nona project was canceled. The lawsuit said they had until the end of 2023 to decide whether to remain in Florida, and that if they wanted to return to Disney's California offices, they would have to relocate by the end of 2024.

The lawsuit said De La Cruz and Fong decided to return to California because they thought it was important for their job security, though De La Cruz has yet to relocate.

By this point, though, the real-estate markets had changed. House prices near Lake Nona slumped after Disney canceled the project.

Meanwhile, increases in mortgage rates and house prices in Los Angeles made it "impossible" for Disney workers to buy homes in the Los Angeles area that were comparable to the homes they'd sold there just a year or two beforehand, the lawsuit said.

Fong has moved to a "significantly" smaller house, the lawsuit added.

The lawsuit accuses Disney of "solicitation of employee by misrepresentation, intentional misrepresentation, concealment, and negligent misrepresentation." It claims that Disney made untrue statements about the Lake Nona campus to workers to induce workers to relocate.

Disney did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Correction: June 24, 2024 — An earlier version of this story misstated Ron DeSantis's title. He is the governor of Florida, not a senator.

• I'm an American mom of two kids, ages 5 and 9 months old. 
• I'm married to an Italian man and gave birth to my children here. 
• Summer camp in Italy has less structure, and my daughter eats freshly cooked meals. 

I'm an American living in Italy. I've lived here for almost 10 years and have two children, a 5-year-old daughter and a 9-month-old soon. Last year sent my daughter to summer camp for the first time and I was pleasantly surprised.

Summer camp in Italy is nothing like what we think of in the US. But there's good and bad to that, on certain ends.

Camp is cheaper in Italy

My daughter goes to camp where we live in our small town. So while I can't relate to the cost of camp in bigger cities like Rome or Milan, the camp she goes to costs 160 euros a month. Yes, a month. And that is for a full day of camp, which includes fresh lunch that is made and served on the campus.

While it's been years since I was a child and went to camp, all I know is that when I was younger and my parents sent me to a prestigious theater summer camp and it was around $2,000 a month and we're talking 20 years ago.

My child plays freely and there's less structure

At summer camps in Italy, the children are sort of like free range chickens. There are not always organized activities and the children are encouraged to play freely with their friends. Also, kids of all ages play together and they are not separated into age groups.

I like that a lot. I believe that in the summer, children should have the freedom to just have fun as opposed to a more strict routine and schedule like when they are in school. But on the other hand, children, especially at a certain age, can benefit from more structure.

My daughter learned about agriculture

Italy is a country that very much relies on the land. Italians are very proud people and want that tradition to keep going, especially when it comes to taking care of their own land and reaping the benefits.

The camp my daughter attends is based in the countryside surrounded by olive trees, cherry trees and a beautiful vegetable garden. There are also baby goats, a donkey and chickens. On the first day of camp this year, they picked fresh cherries from the cherry tree. Cleaned them. And then made fresh cherry jam. The children were sent home with bags of fresh cherries and a small jar of jam. Last year, the kids collected eggs from the chickens and made frittatas for lunch.

I love that at such a young age they are teaching children about the benefits of having and keeping land and everything that you can get from it.

She eats freshly cooked food

Food served at camps in Italy — and schools for that matter — is made fresh and on site. At my daughters camp, no processed food is served. Every day the children are served a first course (pasta, usually) and a second course. Lunch last year included pasta with beans, pasta with peas, pasta with cheese, prosciutto with fresh mozzarella, chicken cutlets with cucumber salad and baked fish with carrots. You won't see any lunchables served at camp here.

Camp in Italy is great. My daughter and all of her friends love it. Yes, it's completely different from an American camp which usually has more structure and routine, much like going to school. But that's what makes it so wonderful.

The European Commission has accused Apple of stifling competition with its App Store.

The European regulators said Apple's App Store was in breach of new tech rules as it prevents app developers from steering customers to alternatives.

The regulators said they had also opened a new probe into Apple's contractual requirements for third-party app developers and app stores.

Representatives for Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, made outside normal US working hours.

This is a developing story; please check back for updates.

• Some single Chinese women in their 30s are escaping the country to pursue higher education.
• These women say they believe getting another degree in the West has given them freedom.
• "37 years old is not an end for me, but a new beginning of my second life," one woman wrote on Xiaohongshu.

Some single Chinese women — fatigued from the social stigma of being unmarried and childless — are opting to run away altogether.

These women — mostly millennials in their mid to late 30s — are taking to the Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu to talk about their great escape to the West.

These women, per their accounts, are enrolled in higher education in countries like France, the UK, and the US. Their personal accounts of pursuing advanced degrees have mostly been compiled under a Xiaohongshu hashtag that translates to "studying abroad at an older age." The hashtag is also going viral — more than 57.5 million people, as of press time, have viewed posts made using it.

In these diary-style posts, the women talk about how higher education in the West has been their ticket to freedom. But they also talk about the hard things — like having to learn a foreign language, getting used to being a student again in one's 30s, and the social pressures and expectations they still face back home.

The South China Morning Post spoke to some women who've posted using the viral hashtag — like "ReadySetRun," a Xiaohongshu user whose real name is Claudia Ke.

Ke told the SCMP that she left China at the age of 34 to pursue an MBA at the Burgundy School of Business in France. Despite having her own consulting company in Shanghai and all her friends being in the city, she gave that up to apply for postgraduate programs in Europe after the pandemic.

"Older Chinese women try to flee the country through higher education overseas even if they don't have a clear idea of what the future holds in a foreign country," Ke, now 35, told the SCMP.

'My second life'

Another woman who posts under the ID "Susu in Cambridge" has been cataloging her journey on Xiaohongshu too. According to Susu, she left China at 37 to pursue a PhD at the University of Cambridge.

"37 years old is not an end for me, but a new beginning of my second life. It reminds me to treasure the present and embrace the future," Susu wrote in a November Xiaohongshu post.

She added that she had received many questions from Chinese people asking her why she didn't wish to start a family and stay home for good.

"In contrast, in England, no one asks me about my age. No one cares about that number," she wrote.

She compared the freedom she has in the UK to the expectations she faces to abide by social norms in China — to graduate by 22, marry by 28, and have a child at 30, or bring embarrassment to yourself and your family.

"I think that this is what life should look like," she added. "Age is probably the least important marker one should abide by in life — and everyone should live the life they want to live."

"NEMO in Europe," another Xiaohongshu user who quit her job in China, said she moved to France at the age of 36 to study. She wrote in September that she realized she was the oldest student in her class when they were learning how to introduce themselves in French.

But she wrote that being older meant she'd had some work experience and knew more about what she was really interested in — so she could chart her own course with confidence.

"We always have the right to choose to start over," she added.

Leftover women

There are several push factors that may be motivating more Chinese millennial women to seek greener pastures abroad.

For one, an unmarried Chinese female over the age of 25 runs the risk of being branded a "leftover woman" — a deeply unflattering term for those left on the shelf.

Chinese women have also had to contend with widening gender gaps in unemployment, hours worked, and monthly salary reported throughout 2020 compared to pre-pandemic levels, per a report by Peking University's China Centre for Economic Research.

The report stated that working mothers with children under seven years of age were 43.8% more likely to be unemployed than women without children under that age. They also faced a 181% higher chance of being unemployed than working fathers with children under seven.

The physical and economic burden of childbearing and childrearing has also made some women in China not want to have children.

"I wouldn't choose to spend a part of my income on children because it's expensive. The biggest thing on my mind right now is how I am going to fund my retirement," Emily Huang, 29, told BI's Kevin Tan in February.

Despite China ditching its controversial one-child policy and introducing a three-child policy in 2021 to boost its plummeting birth rate, its population shrank in 2022 for the first time since the early 1960s.

The population count declined again in 2023 when the number of deaths exceeded the number of births by 2.08 million people.

Another push factor not specific to women is China's grueling corporate culture. The pervasive 9-9-6 corporate grind means many workers have had to get used to working from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week.

And that is for those who have secured jobs. Around 14.9% of youth in China are unemployed, according to China's National Bureau of Statistics, owing to a poor job market that's still struggling to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic crash.

• A massive fire at a factory in Berlin last month was set by Russian saboteurs, per WSJ.
• They were targeting the flow of arms to Ukraine, the outlet reports.
• But the factory, owned by Diehl Metal, makes parts for cars and electrical systems, not weapons.

In early May, scores of German firefighters massed at a metal technology plant in southwest Berlin as it burned. Some 200 firemen were deployed to battle the blaze that Friday morning amid concerns that the flames could interact with chemicals in the factory.

It was a major event for the neighborhood in Lichterfelde, with residents told to shut their windows and stay home as the rooftop belched a steady column of black smoke. At least four floors of the facility were eventually burned through.

A month later, The Wall Street Journal reports that the fire at the Diehl Metal factory was an arson attempt carried out under Russia's auspices.

Citing unnamed security officials, the outlet reported on Sunday that a NATO intelligence agency had intercepted communications showing Russia's involvement and passed it to German authorities.

German outlet Bild also reported on the intercepted messages.

The Journal reported that Russia's intention was to hit arms supplies to Ukraine. Diehl Metal's parent company also manufactures the IRIS-T anti-air systems given to Kyiv.

But Diehl Group's arms manufacturer, Diehl Defence, only has a representative's office in Berlin, and its factories and major facilities are spread across southern Germany.

Meanwhile, the Diehl Metal factory that burned down instead makes parts "primarily for the automotive and electrical industries," according to its website.

The Journal reported, citing the unnamed security officials, that Germany hasn't blamed Russia for the fire because the intercepted messages aren't admissible in German courts.

Still, the fire at the Diehl Metal factory has added fuel to concerns of Russian sabotage attempts on civilian infrastructure and military installations among Ukraine's European allies.

Suspected targets in recent months include a warehouse in the UK that was set on fire and US military bases in Germany.

The Financial Times reported Latvian President Edgars Rinkēvičs saying the spate of incidents and attempts was "testing our response" and that NATO was still determining how best to act.

US State Secretary Antony Blinken said on May 31 that the alliance has been tracking sabotage attempts closely.

"I can tell you that in the meeting of foreign ministers today virtually every ally was seized with this intensification of Russia's hybrid attacks," he said at a press conference in Prague. "We know what they're up to, and we will respond both individually and collectively as necessary."

Diehl and the Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment sent by Business Insider outside regular business hours.

• Mustafa Tovi, 45, draws a base salary of $168,000 as a Walmart store manager.
• But bonuses and stock grants mean Tovi can make up to $524,000 a year, Walmart said.
• Earlier this year, Walmart announced a new managerial pay plan that helps boost staff retention.

Mustafa Tovi, 45, has spent more than half his life working at Walmart and has no regrets building his career with the big-box retailer.

Tovi told Fortune in a story published on Sunday that he draws a six-figure salary from Walmart. The Walmart manager said his base salary was recently raised to $168,000, a 17% increase from his original base salary of $143,000 last year.

And that's not all. A Walmart spokesperson told Fortune Tovi could make up to $524,000 after factoring in his performance bonus and stock grants.

"I thank God every day, I thank Walmart every day because of Walmart, the reason why I have what I have today," Tovi said of his employer.

The Kurdish immigrant joined the retailer in 1999 as a part-time employee and was paid $8 an hour before slowly climbing up the ranks, Fortune reported.

Tovi, who says he doesn't have a college degree, was recently promoted to emerging market manager after serving as a store manager for 16 years.

The longtime Walmart employee is but one of the many beneficiaries of the company's new managerial pay plan, which is geared toward boosting employee morale and reducing staff turnover.

Earlier this year, Walmart said it was raising the average base salary of store managers to $128,000 from $117,000. If managers hit their targets, they are also entitled to a bonus equivalent to 200% of their base salary and stock grants worth up to $20,000.

"I almost fainted when I found out," a Walmart Supercenter manager Greg Harden told Bloomberg last month.

Representatives for Walmart didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from BI sent outside regular business hours.