Travis & Kara
  • Home
  • About
  • Bus Build
    • Skoolie vs. Sprinter Van
    • The Best School Bus To Buy
    • Demolition
    • Exterior Painting
    • Floor
    • Walls
    • Ceiling
    • Kitchen
    • Plumbing
    • Electricity
  • Travel
    • Los Padres National Forest, CA
    • Allenspark, CO
    • Caribou-Targhee National Forest, ID
    • Wilson State Park, KS
    • Blue Valley Experimental Forest, NC
  • Experiences
    • Happy Holidays 2020
    • Our Disastrous Maiden Voyage
    • Service Woes

Bus Build: A Message From Us

These posts are a collection of our experiences converting our short school bus into a tiny home on wheels. Our intention is to do our best to explain how we did this, what challenges we faced, and how we approached and overcame each challenge. We want to share our problems, mistakes, and solutions for all who are interested in this process or may be considering a similar venture. Most importantly, we want our readers to understand that this is a labor of love. It is not easy and we do not want to falsely advertise it that way. This took us over a year to complete and many steps were not as easy or straight forward as we may have hoped. Regardless, we are very passionate about this project and lifestyle. We have valued and appreciated every experience along the way and we would not trade it for anything.

  • Lifestyle

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  • Food

    • Lifestyle

    Electricity

    Electricity is a long process from start to finish. This is an element of the skoolie build that needs to happen incrementally over time. We…

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    • Lifestyle

    How To Build a Skoolie Kitchen

    When it came to the skoolie kitchen, we were hoping to get things moving faster. Due to a local cabinet sale and the fact that…

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    • Lifestyle

    How To Decide Between a Skoolie vs. Sprinter Van

    In this modern wave of vanlifers, it seems like a good idea to explain why we decided to buy a short school bus over a…

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    • Lifestyle

    The Best School Bus To Buy

    When we entered the market to buy a school bus, we did a lot of research to figure out exactly what we were looking for.…

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    • Lifestyle

    Demolition

    We bought our 2010 Chevy Duramax Diesel short school bus in June 2019 from a school bus dealership in New York State. As soon as…

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    • Lifestyle

    Exterior Painting

    Painting the bus to anything other than school bus yellow was a high priority for us. In some states, your private school bus can’t even…

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    • Lifestyle

    Floor

    We were very excited to work on the floor because we knew it was one of the major steps in the transformation from a passenger…

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    • Lifestyle

    Walls

    The original walls of the bus are an interesting space because they are recessed by the floor and then jut out about a foot off…

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    • Lifestyle

    Ceiling

    Completing the ceiling was the next big step in getting the bus to look a lot more like a home. This process meant making definitive…

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    • Lifestyle

    Plumbing

    We were really excited to get the plumbing done and test out the system. Unfortunately, we finished the plumbing during a Vermont winter and we…

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About Us

We’re a couple from Vermont who converted a short blue school bus into our new home. We are now on the road traveling across the United States. We love traveling, spending time outside, and having new experiences everyday.

Recent Posts

  • Wild Camping Near Santa Barbara, California
  • Electricity
  • The Best Wild Camping Near Yellowstone
  • Wilson State Park, KS
  • Allenspark, CO

Find It

At the last minute, we hopped on a plane to ring i At the last minute, we hopped on a plane to ring in another year (and another decade 🤯) for Kara’s 30th birthday in Puerto Rico. 🎉

Our travels to get there were not fun. Our first flight arrived on time but we were not able to deplane for 30 minutes because they repeatedly misaligned the plane with the passenger bridge. So the plane kept pulling forward, then pushing back, then pulling forward again. 🛩

This caused us to miss our connecting flight by exactly one minute and even though the plane was still there and connected to the bridge, they would not allow us to board. 😓

So we were rerouted. We took 3 flights instead of 2. We were on standby for an earlier final flight. We waited by the gate and as they started to board, we asked the agent about standby. She brushed us off and said she was about to start calling the names. We sat right in front of her waiting for our names to be called. At one point, she starts calling names that come after us on the standby list so once again, we walked up and asked about standby. She told us that she called our names and that we didn’t come up so our seats were given away. Needless to say, we were very confused and frustrated. 🫠

Then our last flight was also delayed. All in all, we ended up traveling 20 hours for a journey that should have taken 10. 

We arrived just before midnight and still had to get a rental car and find our Airbnb in the dark. 🌚

Despite the rough start, the trip turned out to be well worth it. 🏝
🤍 🤍
Enjoying Vermont lately 🍂 Enjoying Vermont lately 🍂
Happy birthday to the best travel buddy and my bes Happy birthday to the best travel buddy and my best friend. 🎉🥳

Thank you for always being open to new experiences and for prioritizing adventure in every season of our lives. 

I maintain that you are the funniest person I’ve ever met and I’ll always be grateful for the comfort and support you bring to my life. 

Here’s to 28! 🥂

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#virgobaby #happybirthdaylove #travelphotography #traveloften #usaroadtrip #explorenature #getoutsidemore #anotheryearolder #attitudeofgratitude
The fog was just right. 🌁 … #goldengatebridg The fog was just right. 🌁

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#goldengatebridge #californiacoast #sanfranciscolife #goldengatebridgeview #explorecalifornia #suspensionbridge #bridgesoftheworld #travelcalifornia #roadtripusa #seetheworldwithme
5 years with you. 🤍

It blows my mind that we’ve already shared one major dream, built it, and lived it.

Through 22 national parks and 36 states with innumerable highs and lows, we were resilient. 

Not only that, but we gained life memories, skills, and wisdom along the way.

So here’s to continuing to dream together and executing those dreams, in whatever form they may take. 🥂

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#anniversarycelebration #5yearstogether #travelcouplelife #shenandoahnationalpark #virginiaisforlovers #nationalparksusa #coupletrip #traveltogether #virginiaisbeautiful
We’ve all been there! And the amount of times w We’ve all been there!

And the amount of times we’ve seen people help other people on the road is impressive.

The end of this story was that the van stopped smoking, but the local parts shop was closed. We both stayed the night, and we offered him a ride to the shop the next morning but he declined and limped it down the street. 

It’s always better to know that you’re not totally alone. 🚌🚐

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#nomadlifestyle #lifeontheroad #nomadstories #bekindtooneanother
ready to do this again 🐾 … #lakechamplain #v ready to do this again 🐾

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#lakechamplain #vermontlife #ilovermont #lakeliving #waterdogs #summerfeels #lakeviews #dronevideography #landscapecapture #vermontbyvermonters #onthelake #dogshavingfun
We were worried about getting enough sunlight in t We were worried about getting enough sunlight in the forest but it worked out ☀️⚡️

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#solarpanels #forestlife #renewableenergy #offgridlife #exploreusa #solarenergy #forestcore #naturelovers #offgridlife #getoutandexplore #homeonwheels #buslifeliving #lifeontheroad
One of the easiest and best hikes we did in the pa One of the easiest and best hikes we did in the past year: Grand View Point Overlook at Canyonlands.

And this isn’t even the overlook! it’s the trail, which follows along the edge of the canyon.

We were in awe staring out like this the entire time. 😅

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#canyonlandsnationalpark #moabutah #nationalparkphotography #natureisamazing #canyonlands #hikemoreworryless #exploreutah #canyons #nationalparksusa #utahadventures #moab #naturelandscape #getoutsidemore #takeahike

The most dangerous risk of all -- the risk of spending your life not doing what you want on the bet you can buy yourself the freedom to do it later. -Alan Watts

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