After I came home from work one day, Zack told me how he was talking with one of his co-workers when he learned that he lived in an RV. Like he had no house. And just traveled when he wanted to move. And just stayed where he was when he found a spot he liked.
Whaaaaaat?! People do that before the age of retirement? We talked about how it was pretty cool, kinda strange, but also like a dream to us. We both love to travel and explore the outdoors and this guy was able to do it all the time. It was just a small conversation. But it started to get brought up a lot. And the more Zack talked about it, I could tell he wanted to do it and had been looking at all things related to the lifestyle online.
Zack found a lot of inspiration from the story of Travis Burke. He lives in his grandmother’s van and travels the country taking photographs. Another similar story where my reaction was ‘Whaat?!, living in a VAN!’ But he has an amazing story and that is what the lifestyle is all about. Getting rid of the things you don’t really need to live the life you want. And that is what sold us. Here is a link to the video that really started it all for Zack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtM_ZILTZe4 .
When researching vehicles, I came across the Outside Found blog, where they converted a school bus into a tiny home, as there are many types of vehicles to travel the country, some people who is more environmental even use electric vehicles to travel with the use of charging stations from https://evchargingstationinstallers.co.uk/.
The Outside Found folks.
That is where we first considered this as an option. Zack began his research and found that there are a lot of people out there who convert school buses into “Skoolies” which is the official term for a converted bus. It seemed to be a fairly reasonable option. It was affordable for us and school buses have been around for so long that there a lot of of different options for sizes, types, etc.
One of the best places Zack found for reading about bus conversions is http://www.skoolie.net. He has spent a TON of time reading build outs and information posted there to gain an idea of what all is required for a build out of this scale. With his father being a master carpenter and his friends the same, he knew they could help us out making this a very feasible option for us.
Which brings us to this video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncXXLjf235g
This couple found their bus at a location in Tampa, Florida: BGA Sales. A mom-and-pop owned bus company who purchase buses across the nation, fix them up, and then resale them back to the public. Greg and Betty have been such a huge help in our search for a bus. Not only did they help us find the perfect bus for us, they are so knowledgeable that we were able to answer so many bus questions we had.
These are the things that got us going in this direction and since then, we have found soo many more people that have just cemented for us, that this is what we want to do.
Here are links to a few of our favorites:
Finding Simon – We love his videos and how he documents his adventures!
Gone with the Wynns – For those looking at maritime travel.
Traveling Tuttles – We met them during their second(!) conversion of a school bus. Their first was a camp-bulance(!!) and they are starting their third, a Pinzgauer (!!!). Awesome people and a cool story. Let’s just say Zack is a little more than jelly about their third vehicle.
