Nobody wants to talk about this stuff. I get it. You’re watching bus tour videos and dreaming about mountain views and freedom, and the last thing on your mind is what happens when you get a sinus infection in rural New Mexico or your kid spikes a fever at 2 AM in a Walmart parking … Read more
I’ve been down the rabbit hole on double decker bus conversions for a while now, and I’ll tell you, the more I learned the more I realized this is a completely different world from standard skoolie builds. It’s not just “a bus with a second floor.” The planning, the buying, the building, the driving — … Read more
When I first started looking at bus conversions, I assumed a school bus was the only real option. Then I fell down a rabbit hole watching coach bus conversions on YouTube, and suddenly a $5,000 school bus felt like settling. Coaches are a different animal entirely — smoother ride, more storage, bigger windows, and an … Read more
When I first started looking at buses for conversion, I kept seeing the same advice everywhere — buy a school bus, buy a school bus, buy a school bus. And yeah, school buses are great. They’re cheap, they’re everywhere, and parts are easy to find. But somewhere along the way I stumbled across a church … Read more
When I first started digging into CDL requirements for bus conversions, I thought it’d be straightforward. One federal rule, 50 states, done. I was wrong. I spent weeks going through DMV websites, reading forum threads from people who’d actually dealt with this in different states, and calling a few DMV offices myself. And what I … Read more
So you’ve been watching the YouTube tours. You’ve seen the couples with the gorgeous wood-paneled interiors parked next to a lake somewhere in Colorado. You’ve seen the family of six who sold everything and hit the road in a yellow school bus they bought for $4,000. And now there’s a part of your brain that … Read more
When I first heard the word “boondocking” I thought it was something people made up. It sounded like a joke. But the more I dug into bus life, the more I realized that boondocking — camping off-grid on public land for free — is basically the backbone of the whole skoolie lifestyle for a lot … Read more
If you’ve spent any time shopping for a school bus to convert, you’ve seen the name Blue Bird. A lot. They’re one of the three big school bus manufacturers in North America, and depending on where you live, they might be the most common bus you come across at auction. I spent a long time … Read more
If you’re thinking about doing bus life by yourself, you’ve probably already heard every opinion from “that sounds amazing” to “aren’t you scared?” I’ve spent a lot of time digging into this because the solo angle changes the equation on almost everything, from the build to the budget to how you handle a Tuesday night … Read more
This question kept coming up in every forum I browsed and every comment section I scrolled through while researching bus conversions. People are genuinely torn between the two, and I get it. Both lifestyles promise freedom, adventure, and a way out of the rent trap, but they get there in very different ways. A skoolie … Read more