Hannah Lee Duggan is a popular YouTuber.
She has over a million subscribers on her YouTube channel hannahleeduggan.
Introduction
Hannah was born on 14 April 1994 in Minnesota, United States.
She grew up in a secular house in Saint Paul and Minneapolis.
Growing up, Hannah loved playing in the nearby forested hill and used to travel to Costa Rica with her mother.
She has a biological sister, Molly and two adopted siblings, Luna and Mathis. Mathis is the eldest sibling followed by Hannah.
Hannah’s parents divorced in her senior year of high school.
After completing her schooling from Saint Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists art school, she joined University of Minnesota, in 2014, to study English Language and Literature, General.
Hannah took equestrian and scuba diving electives at university.
Travelling, camping & freedom
Hannah was an extroverted introvert and preferred keeping to herself and reading books.
But her mother pushed her out of her comfort zone. She fell in love with travelling after hearing her mother’s travel adventures.
Hannah started travelling and camping in her car after receiving her driver’s license. She also started hiking.
Thanks to the freedom of car camping, she fell in love with it and dreamt of living full-time in the car.
A varied career; modelling & acting
Hannah started working at 15 and did several part-time, odd jobs for many years and was a hard worker.
She worked in the retail of Mandy, did catering and several Craigslist jobs. One of her Craigslist jobs involved working as a mascot in parades, baseball fields and events.
In one summer, Hannah worked for her friend’s father’s company, assembling computer cables and learnt about electricity, wiring and soldering. This knowledge later helped her build her van.
At 18, after graduating from high school, she worked as a stewardess in a cruise ship, in 95-hour work weeks, on the East Coast of the US for three months. As she felt that the job wasn’t a right fit for her, she moved to Oakland.
Hannah donated her bone marrow for science, while in Oakland, as she was broke.
She also worked at a zoo catering and weeded lakes.
While at the university, Hannah used to find volunteer jobs for research studies through bulletin boards and also worked as a Teaching Assistant.
At 19, she donated her eggs and worked with Northeast Assisted Fertility Group.
At the time, Hannah was into modelling and as she was broke, she lived two blocks from Skid Row as it was all she was able to afford.
She also worked as a nanny, worked at a diner and did catering at 3M.
Hannah used to thrift and sell clothes online and embroidered hats as a side gig.
She worked as a model at Agency Models and Talent in Minneapolis. In 2017, she travelled to Hong Kong on a modelling contract.
Hannah also did background acting and acted in Grey’s Anatomy.
She never worked in a 9-to-5 job and always chose flexible and sporadic jobs which gave her the freedom to travel and have her own schedule.
Initially, when Hannah wanted to travel, she didn’t have money. So, when she started earning, she started travelling extensively.
Europe & Hong Kong
After living in Oakland, Hannah moved to Los Angeles and then travelled Europe where she lived in hostels for a while.
This trip not only taught her to live frugally but also gave her the confidence to later live in a cabin in the woods.
While in Europe, Hannah travelled to Paris, Rome, Venice and Zurich and after the trip, she enrolled to study at the University of Minnesota.
While at university, she travelled to Hawaii and road tripped from New York to Los Angeles. She also travelled to Costa Rica, Colombia, Ireland and London.
Hannah attended university intermittently and used to work to pay for the semesters and travel in between.
She lived in Hong Kong and also travelled to Corfu, Sri Lanka, Egypt, Turkey and Ecuador.
Woods & wheels
As Hannah grew up in St. Paul and lived in other cities, she thought she would be a city kid.
She used to go on week-long camping trips, along with her mother, in the middle of the woods every summer.
When Hannah graduated from high school and moved to a different city, her mother, along with her partner, moved to live in the woods, in the camping spot and started working remotely.
This astonished her and inspired her to later move into the woods.
On April 26, 2018, Hannah bought a used Ford Econoline E250 van for $2500, named it Walter, and built it with the help of her father and sister. She started living and camping in it.
It was the first vehicle which she bought on her own. At the time, she used to earn by selling items through Depop.
Hannah chose to travel in the van as it gave her the freedom to travel without planning beforehand and without paying for the hotels.
As she wasn’t able to find camp spots and wasn’t comfortable sleeping out in the woods alone in her van, she slept in the Walmart parking lots that summer.
In September 2020, Hannah purchased 15 acres of land with a couple of rustic cabins and started living and doing cabin projects there.
She also has an apartment in New York.
Hannah was anxious while living in the cities but this feeling went away after she moved to live in her homestead property in the woods.
Starting small
Even though she started her YouTube channel, hannahleeduggan, on 13 December 2009, she started publishing videos only from August 2018.
Initially, Hannah used to shoot videos with her iPhone 8 and edit them with iMovie. But after reaching 25,000 subscribers, she switched to Final Cut Pro. Later, she also upgraded to cameras.
She films with Canon EOS R8, Insta360 X4 and GoPro HERO12.
Hannah became a full-time YouTuber in 2020.
On her channel, she publishes her house projects, life and camping trips.
Hannah’s channel blew up when she moved into the cabins in the woods and currently, she has 1.05M subscribers.
She also has a second YouTube channel, hannah lee.
Hannah has two brands, Darby Park and Lupine Lane Co. The former is a merchandise brand named after her Land Rover Defender, Darby. The latter is a jewellery company inspired by her life at the cottage.
Trauma & turmoil
In her teenage years, at the end of high school, her relationship with her parents started changing and she started getting more angsty and having fights.
Hannah didn’t like it when her parents took her phone away and wouldn’t allow her on Facebook. As they were living in a remote area, she felt it difficult to meet with her friends.
She started craving for independence. So, since 18, for many years, she never owed anybody anything and even on her dates, she used to order coffee for herself beforehand.
Hannah used to write and journal a lot when depressed.
One step at the time
Even though Hannah can build many things now, this wasn’t always the case.
Initially, she didn’t even know how to hammer a nail into a wall and used to take her father’s help.
Then, Hannah picked up a hammer and put a nail into the wall and realized that it wasn’t hard and eventually, she started trying and learning new things.
She realized that even if something goes wrong, she has to learn how to do it correctly and it isn’t a bad thing.
Thanks to this and asking people for help and her adventurous spirit, she learnt many things like carpentry and flying aircraft.
Personal life
Hannah was in a relationship with Mavrik Joos, a YouTuber and later was in a relationship with Matt.
Currently, she is in a relationship with Joey.
Hannah is Aries.
Tidbits
- Spaghetti, wonton and falafel wraps are her favourite dishes. She loves Ethiopian food.
- Hannah is a dog person and Bloody Jack is her all-time favourite novel series.
- She also loves Demon Copperhead, A Little Life and The Queen of the Tearling trilogy.
- Hannah was a tomboy in middle school. She used to wear her brother’s clothes and used to have a Justin Bieber haircut.
- She loves psychological thrillers, horror movies and her favourite one is Speak No Evil.
- Hannah knows Spanish and loves frozen pizza with ranch, fake bacon and red pepper flakes.
So, how are you inspired by the story of Hannah Lee Duggan?
Please comment below.
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