She documented her life from the back of a van and called herself a “barefoot BFF” to the 43,000 people who followed her across three continents.
French travel influencer Emma Marie Laurent, 24, drowned in northern Nicaragua in the early hours of Oct. 9, 2026, when the pickup truck she was riding in was swept away by a swollen river. Two other women died with her. The driver was the only one to get out.
“They crossed a river at the time when they [shouldn’t have]. Rivers are deceptive,” Nicaragua’s co-president, Rosario Murillo, said.
A Calm River, a Heavy Storm
Laurent was exploring Nicaragua’s northern region with two other travelers when the group was caught in heavy rain, the Nicaraguan newspaper La Prensa reported. The driver of their Toyota Hilux tried to cross the Nahualapa River — a waterway that is usually calm but turns dangerous in heavy storms.
The truck got into difficulty mid-crossing. Powerful currents took it at El Manzano.
Laurent died, along with Noë Lina Luscher, a 20-year-old Swiss national, and Karen Nahomi López Montano, 19, a Nicaraguan hotel worker. Martin Gerardo Garcia Giron, who was driving, managed to escape, authorities told La Prensa. Investigators are still working to establish how the vehicle overturned, and it was not clear whether the driver would face charges.
Living Between Two Suitcases
Laurent built her following on a life with no fixed address. She described herself as living between two suitcases, and her posts tracked travel and van-life adventures across Europe, Africa and the Caribbean.
On Sept. 26, she posted a reel of herself waking up in the back of a van. “The goal in life: to find someone who prefers this to a five-star hotel,” she wrote in the caption.
A Post From Portugal, a Week Earlier
About a week before she died, Laurent shared a reflection on her life written while she was in Portugal. She wrote it in French, and it was about the people she admired most: those who know how to look at the world around them.
Her death has drawn fresh attention to the risks of traveling through regions hit by heavy rainfall, where river conditions can change within hours. Murillo’s warning went to the same point — that a river can look safe right up to the moment it isn’t.
Three women got into the Toyota Hilux that night in El Manzano. One man walked out of the water.