A woman has revealed her reality of living #VanLife, revealing the gritty behind-the-scenes moments that define her daily life on TikTok.
Hanna Louise Poole, 26, has been documenting her adventures on the social media platform since 2020 as she travels around Europe. In March 2022, the Cornwall, England native was studying life full-time and road-tripping out of a van.
But unlike many followers of the #VanLife social media trend, the content creator isn’t shy about showing off the decidedly unphotogenic aspects of life on the road, entirely from her van.
A new TikTok captures Hanna fooling around in a parking lot, where she can be seen eating candy and skateboarding while donning a baggy T-shirt.
Hanna Louise Poole, 26, started #VanLife in March 2022
The native of Cornwall, England, recently posted a TikTok in which he admitted “this is the way I live” while eating from a bag of sweets and skateboarding in a parking lot
Before joining the #VanLife lifestyle, Hanna documented her various travels around Europe on TikTok starting in 2020
Hanna also demonstrated how she shaves her legs: outside, in a plastic water bowl
“Life on a dirtbag in a parking lot: sunsets, candy and skate edition… wet hair and wide after swimming in the sea, the real reality of van life,” she captioned the five-second clip. She then added hashtags including: ‘#offgridliving,’ ‘#dirtbag’ and ‘#feralgirlaesthetic.’
Elsewhere on her TikTok, Hanna shared a 12-second video of herself shaving her legs outside in a plastic container, to sound from a nature documentary.
While many other TikTok users used the sound to mock their “drunk friends,” Hanna offered what she felt was a more literal take on the surrounding, jungle-inducing sound.
“When everyone shows their drunk friends this sound, but it actually just suits you like wild, and shaving your legs in a bucket, because that’s vanlife.” she wrote in text overlay.
“Feral van life girls, where are you?” she added in the caption.
There have been plenty of other times that Hanna has highlighted the grittier side of #VanLife over the years, posting videos and images of her travels to social media.
A post from December 2020 depicted ‘Van life realities’, namely showing the cabin in the back of the van, strewn with Hanna’s belongings, while a voiceover narrated: ‘Everything fell out of boxes while driving!’
In the caption, Hanna wrote, “nothing is as perfect as you see online, this mess is reality 90 percent of the time, not aesthetic.”
In a post on ‘From life realities’, Hanna highlighted how her belongings had all ‘fell out of boxes while driving’
At one point the maker had difficulty ‘figuring out’ the electrical installation in her van
Hanna has stated on social media that she is willing to embrace a “tomboy aesthetic.”
Hanna described her dramatic, windswept hair as part of her ‘wild girl aesthetic’
Another TikTok from Hanna, while exploring social media versus reality, showcased her bruised legs after a climb
Also part of Hanna’s reality that goes beyond what TikTok typically shows: “clinging to rocks for dear life,” as she put it
Another TikTok showed it a confused-looking Hanna desperately trying to “figure out the electronics in the van.”
And several posts proudly showcased Hanna’s “tomboy aesthetic,” with several scenes where Hanna didn’t look so polished — including one of her hair being dramatically whipped around during a walk.
A previous TikTok of Hanna’s travels a few months before she started #VanLife also explored ‘What you see in insta/TikTok versus reality.’
The video showed Hanna’s bruised legs after the climb; her plunge into ‘icy cold water’; a time when she reached the top of a mountain but was greeted with ‘no view’ due to the cloudy weather; hair wrapped in a windbreaker ‘walking in heavy rain’; and finally Hannah hung by her fingertips on the edge of a rock.
As Hanna wrote in the text overlay of the newer, aforementioned TikTok, which shows her skateboarding in a parking lot, “This is the way I live.”