Our home is a school bus that has been converted into a house on wheels. Big Booty Judy, our bus, has a $1000 composting toilet along with several other features that allow us to live off the grid. My Instagram feed (@weliveonabus) is a testament to my love for this bus, the nomadic lifestyle, and taking steps to reach your goals. I want to cheer people on when they decide they want to do something similar, however, I wrestle with finding balance between sharing the beautiful side of this lifestyle and sharing the negatives. We have really hard days in this bus just like everyone has really hard days, but that doesn’t always shine through in the way that it should. People want pretty pictures, but my goal is to balance that with a dose of reality.
It weighs on me; this balance between cheering for people to chase their nomadic dreams and sharing the downside. When our engine needed to be rebuilt it drained our savings and I wasn’t shy about saying so. Still, my inbox was filled with DMs asking if this lifestyle saves us money. The truth seemed to fall on deaf ears and I realized even if I screamed the truth, it might be buried beneath picture perfect photos of skoolies with gorgeous white walls and perfect floor plans. Still, look for opportunities to share everything I wish I knew before I moved into a school bus. This is the short list.
You are Trading Old Problems for a Whole New Set of Problems
Living nomadic comes with a whole new set of problems you have never had to solve before. You may see a beautiful lake front camping spot that we found for free, but you don’t see the two hours we spent sweating on the side of the road while we tried to find it because the campground we arrived at wouldn’t take skoolies. In our sticks and bricks home, we had mastered unclogging the garbage disposal, mowing the lawn, and getting the pilot light on the fireplace to light when it was being stubborn. Common household problems have been replaced with monitoring the solar to make sure we have enough energy, monitoring our water levels to make sure we have enough water, and angling the bus just right to fit into a new parking spot each week. The learning curve is steep. Slowly, these new problems become the norm too. It just requires you to fail a few times at first as with any new skill you choose to learn. Then one evening you find the bathroom sink flooding onto the floor at the same time the kitchen is filling with smoke, and you are seemingly unphased. True story.
Your Current Problems are Going to Follow You
You can escape your mortgage, but you can’t escape your personal problems. Your relationships and perceived weaknesses will follow you down the road and rear their ugly heads just as often if not more. If your family doesn’t get along in your home, then you probably won’t get along on the road. If you struggle to socialize within your current community, you may find you are just as introverted on the road.
When we first told our boys about this new lifestyle, we told them we were all carrying around a backpack full of problems and we didn’t get to magically leave those problems behind in our house. There is room in the bus for all of us and those backpacks. But, we have found that our backpack full of personal problems has slowly gotten a little lighter as we have traveled. When you live in such a small space together, you are no longer able to ignore some of the things you were able to ignore before. You learn to grow because you are forced to resolve things. You push yourself to communicate better because you see your role in every argument with new eyes. It is painful at times and beautiful most of the time.
You are Going to Fight on Travel Day
No matter how much your grow, you are going to fight on travel day. Maybe I’m saying it wrong. You aren’t going to fight on every travel day…but if you are going to fight it is going to be on travel day.
Travel day can be a stressful beast that takes even the strongest nomadic couples down a notch. Last month, travel day inflicted one of the biggest fights of our marriage, all because someone looked at someone else the wrong way. Ugly things were said. We were hot, exhausted, and ready to engage in battle with the smallest comment. I later joked that I must have blacked out mid fight, because I would never say such terrible things to my husband who not only built but navigates this home of ours. 17 years of marriage and nothing has provoked us to fight like that since we were newlyweds. The good news is, you learn to slow down on those days. You realize you were pushing too hard to get to a destination that will still be there tomorrow. You take a step back and remember that the arrival time on the GPS doesn’t mean anything when you are traveling in a 25,000 pound bus.
Living in a School Bus is Going to Cost More Than You Expect
Our engine had to be rebuilt and it took 3 months. I have never shared how much it cost us. Maybe I will one day when I can think of the number without feeling sick. I will just say this:
Have an emergency fund.
Please, please, please have an emergency fund.
For the love of God, have an emergency fund.
Read 10 Things We Learned When Our Skoolie Broke Down to learn more about that.
You are Going to Want to Quit This Dream You Worked So Hard to Achieve
After our bus broke down in Kansas we were out of our home for 3 months. We spent part of that time tent camping in Colorado, only to have our Jeep break down on top of a mountain. I broke down next the Jeep. That night we sat in a run down hotel and I told my husband to call about getting his job back. I apologized to my kids and told them I made a mistake. I told them I would take them back to the life we had in Missouri and we could pick up where we left off.
“We want to keep going,” they said.
They weren’t done. Unlike me, they weren’t in emotional crisis mode. They were having the time of their lives in the mountains of Colorado and now hotel hopping. The next day we got a call that the bus was ready for us to pick it up. I almost gave up 24 hours before we were reunited with our home. I made up a rule that day that I would never quit on a bad day. When we decide to give it up, it will be because we know something better waits for us on the other side.
You are Going to be Scared Sometimes
Once you leave the stability of your sticks and bricks home and the 9 to 5 you are used to, there are going to be moments of fear. It isn’t that you are at risk, it is just that you are facing a lot of new experiences at a fast rate. As much as we crave adventure, we also crave familiarity. It is easy and comforting. There are amazing things waiting for you on the other side of fear though.
It is All Worth It
Before we began to travel, my husband had 3 weeks of vacation a year. One of those weeks was typically dedicated to home repairs while the other was dedicated to recovering from the Christmas rush. That left one week that was really his. It would have taken us years to see the things we have been able to see from one year of living in this bus. We have met some amazing people on similar adventures and found a community of likeminded people who lift us up on the hard days. This journey has reminded me that the majority of people are good and it has restored my faith in humanity. Each person in our family has been forced to grow from this experience and it has been beautiful to watch that unfold. Plus, you will see amazing places. See photo above.
Most of what I wrote in this post, which was long before we actually lived in a bus, is still true. We had a shift in our belief system and this lifestyle has supported those new beliefs.
This is why I say, “Do it!” Pursue your dreams. If you feel stuck, you are one decision away from a new life. It is possible. I just want you to understand that it comes with risks, fears, and a unique set of problems. You will learn to navigate through those and it will all be worth it.
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