Posted on Sep 11, 2014

This Woman Used Photoshop To Convince Her Family That She Went On A Six-Week Vacation In East Asia

Now this is a fakecation. Holy cow.

Ryan Broderick

by Ryan Broderick

BuzzFeed News Reporter

Zilla van den Born is a 25-year-old artist from Amsterdam and she pulled off the ultimate fake vacation last year. It started with a Facebook post announcing she was headed to East Asia for two months.

After her Facebook update she spent 42 days hidden away in her house photoshopping pictures of her traveling around.

"The inspiration for this project came from combining my two passions together: photo manipulation and traveling," van den Born told BuzzFeed. "I wanted to prove how easily reality gets distorted."

She said that her biggest concern was whether or not to tell her mom about her secret project. She ultimately decided to not tell a soul about what she was up to.

When van den Born had to leave the house, she did so in a disguise so no one would realize she was still in town.

After more than a month of disguises and deception, van den Born sent her friends and family videos revealing how she faked the whole thing.

"If I had the chance to do it again, I don’t think I would do it again," van den Born said. "I really underestimated the impact of the project on myself and the people around me!"

So van den Born decided the whole thing might have been a bad idea.

But if you decide not to heed her warning and are still looking for some good fakecationing tips, definitely check out both of BuzzFeed's guides to lying to your friends and family about where you are!

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