We Bought A School Bus

Well, you guys, a lot happened in 2020. We planned to travel more. A global pandemic occurred, and all of our travel plans were canceled. We sold our house, and we bought a school bus. 

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By the end of 2020, we decided it was time to sell everything, move closer to our family, build a skoolie, and travel the country. 

We might be crazy, but it is going to be awesome. Hopefully. 

So how did we come to this conclusion?

Working remotely during a pandemic

A year ago, the world stopped as it grappled with the unknown effects of COVID-19. Will began teaching through Zoom, and I started working from home as well. 

Working remotely comes with a whole new set of challenges such as realizing your home internet sucks, dogs barking during conference calls, and navigating this new aspect of corporate America. 

Luckily for us, our son’s daycare only closed temporarily, so we both got to work in the comfort of our own home, with no children around, and thrive during this time. We never thought that we were a couple who could live and work together 24/7. Truthfully, I thought those couples were nuts. We both loved having work lives and friends that we could tell each other about. 

But that changed, and we loved it too. We loved having lunch together and an afternoon walk in the neighborhood every day. We surprisingly didn’t want to bicker and kill each other after being stuck in our 1,320 sq ft townhome 24/7. Most of the time.

By the end of the summer, our perspective had changed. If we can happily work remotely, we can live anywhere. 

Should we move? 

We moved to Tennessee three years ago for my job as an engineering firm’s public relations manager. And things were going really well. We LOVED the Nashville area and spent most of our weekends exploring the nearby towns, waterfalls, and parks. There are a LOT of parks in Middle Tennessee. With the pandemic, we couldn’t do this as much. 

We also started traveling back to Alabama more to spend time with family. I was six months pregnant with the first grandchild when we moved away from our entire support system. That is a tough thing to do. 

While still working remotely, my department manager asked if we wanted to do this part-time on a more permanent basis – where we each went into the office only a few days a week. At this same time, my dad’s health worsened, and he was having complications from an artery bypass surgery.

Therefore, I asked my manager if I could continue working remotely but move closer to our families. She agreed. So we were moving back to Alabama. 

Do we need all this stuff?

As we were packing, we were both sitting in our living room looking around, and we agreed that we could live without 90% of the stuff in that room. A few pictures, some heirloom books, and a record player, that was it. Everything else could go. 

We have always enjoyed a reasonably minimalist lifestyle, but there was very little that we wanted to keep as we were considering moving.

And while we wanted to build a house in Alabama, we wanted to travel too.  

Traveling during a pandemic 

With our perspective changed how we can live and work, we asked ourselves, “How can we manage to travel safely during a pandemic?” 

Bingo, RV travel. 

We have considered traveling in an RV during summer breaks, but it wasn’t something that we thought we could afford or be in such a tiny space for long periods. 

However, we wanted to prioritize travel before we settled back in Alabama. We weren’t sure how long we wanted to travel but we knew that there were a lot of places that we needed to see. And what better time to do it while our son was little.

We spent hours researching RVs, RV traveling, budgeting, and everything else you can think of when it comes to this subject. And yet, we couldn’t quite agree on what kind of RV we wanted.

Let’s live in a school bus 

One day, I came running downstairs in our home and said, “Will, what do you think about converting a school bus into an RV?” 

He shrugs and says, “Let’s do it!”

Y’all, something clicked. I was obsessed with knowing everything about skoolies. While looking at RVs, we realized what was missing. A skoolie can be anything we want. We could make it a home. 

We talked to our accountant, our financial advisor, and a skoolie expert. Also, We created a list of what we wanted and started looking at buses. 

Ironically, we found a bus on eBay that was in Franklin, Tenn., 20 minutes from where we lived. We decided we would just go look at it. 

Three days later, we owned a school bus. 

Starting the build process 

We want this to be a family project with my dad. He is a wealth of knowledge since he has his RV, and we wanted to learn all we could learn from him. He has a sawmill and a lot of resources to help us. And most importantly, this would be a family bonding experience. We also had several other family members and friends who wanted to help us, and we know we can’t do it without them. 

We brought the bus to my dad’s property in Alabama for our build. So far, we have gutted the seats, most of the floors, ceilings, walls. 

Next, we plan to do a roof raise as every man in our family is over six feet tall. 

Questions about skoolies and traveling? 

We made a life-altering decision by doing this and received several questions about skoolies, traveling, and working remotely. Let us know what questions you have, and we will create a post answering them all.