Selecting and Buying the Best Home on Four Wheels
Bus Conversion

Selecting and Buying the Best Home on Four Wheels

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vanlife
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Buying a Home on Wheels

The idea for joining the skoolie life all began when Joel and I were out in Connecticut for a family wedding. I had just left my job at a hostel in Colorado, and Joel works remotely. This meant we could take our time getting back home to Colorado and I got to take all my stuff that I’d left in CT to CO. We thought about just buying an SUV, then thought about a van. Vans are great since they’re much more stealthy to allow for city parking. However, we had such a hard time trying to find a decent van below 20K. We checked Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, Used Car Websites,  and even auto salvage yards. An ad for a shuttle bus popped up and it got me thinking how much cooler and more space we could get for a really reasonable price. After that, we were totally sold on bus life! We searched around and ending up buying the bus from DATTCO, a bus transportation company in Connecticut. Here’s a couple resources we used to try to find our bus:

 

VanLife Pros

  • Stealth Camping – Park pretty much anywhere. Be aware of van height if parking in garages. 
  • Small & Compact
  • Better fuel economy
  • Common engine type – most mechanics will be able to work on it.
  • Strong VanLife Community
  • Less work taking out old school seats

VanLife Cons

  • Small – not a lot of headroom, or room in general. This forces you to get pretty creative in the build
  • Expensive upfront cost
  • Typically fewer windows 

BusLife Pros

  • Spacious – you can fit A LOT in buses
  • High ceilings – walk around comfortably at around 6.5 ft
  • AWESOME skoolie community
  • Unique, open to creative designs

BusLife Cons

  • Removing the seats
  • MPG can be pretty bad
  • Parking in cities can be difficult/expensive
  • Some RV parks won’t accept buses

 

Other Ideas: Ambulances, Box Trucks, Travel Trailers, Truck Campers, and more!

 

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