Now that Nina Dobrev is no longer confined to the rigorous schedule of a TV star, the actress tells PEOPLE that she’s enjoying her newfound free time.
As Dobrev, 26, documents her cross-country road trip/scavenger hunt on Instagram, she says that she’s using the interlude following her run as Elena on The Vampire Diaries to “do the opposite of what I’d been doing for the last six years. I had a very scheduled, regimented life, and I’ve just been taking the whole month to not plan anything and see where life takes me and chill for a second before getting back into it and getting super-focused again.”Adds Dobrev, “I want to live like a twentysomething!”
The actress goes on to say that leaving the show is a bit like graduating after 12 years of being in high school. “I was on Degrassi: The Next Generation, which was high school, and I was in actual high school for four years, and then I did four years of high school on The Vampire Diaries … I’m ready to graduate and emerge into the real world and be an adult for the first time.
