Where do you park your bus on your travels? How much does it cost? Aside from the cost of our conversion where we park our bus is one of the most popular questions we receive. After 12 loud hours of bumpy bus driving all we want is to find a convenient place to park that’s...
Bus Build Tiny Home Background Information
Tips on Buying a Bus: What to ask and look for...
How do you choose the right bus to convert into a tiny home on wheels?! The beginning of a bus conversion adventure is SO EXCITING. You’re full of travel dreams and design ideas. We've gathered some tips on buying a bus here from our experience. We've had little to no issues with our bus in...
Shop our Bus Build: Bus Conversion Project List
Shop our Bus Build: Curious where we found the different products and elements you see in our photos? In an effort to help others in their bus/van/home build journey, we put together a list of all the different areas of our bus conversion and the beautiful and useful things in each. Enjoy!
FAQ's
What led you to purchase the bus and pursue a mobile life? We were interested in something alternative for some time before we decided on the bus. Small cabins, yurts, tiny homes, refurbished RVs, we considered them all. At the time it wasn’t so much about mobile living or tiny living, as much as it...
The Pocket Hole Jig
The Essential Bus Conversion Tool: The Pocket Hole Jig Now that we're on the tail end of our bus conversion project, it's great to reflect on the ESSENTIAL tools that helped us get here. For many people the idea of building their own cabinets seems overwhelming. The body, the doors, the drawers, the...
Driving the Bus: Simple Tips, Maintenance & Lessons Learned
Driving our Bus Conversion: Simple Tips, Maintenance & Lessons Learned from the road... Big, loud, bumpy, and a whole lot of fun! That’s what it’s like driving our bus. But it wasn’t always that way. The first time I sat behind that oversized steering wheel I was so tense I could have made diamonds...
Insulating our Bus Conversion
How did we insulate our bus conversion for four-season efficiency? The difference between insulating a bus conversion well and skipping that step altogether is equal to the difference between livable and not so livable space. Insulating our bus conversion was one of the first major interior projects after the demolition process. It's without a doubt...
The Mobile Wood Stove: Heating our Bus Conversion
The Mobile Wood Stove: Our Tips on Heating a Bus Conversion Tiny Home. There's a lot to consider when choosing your tiny home's source of heat. We chose to install a tiny wood stove in our bus conversion tiny home for many reasons which we'll dig into here. We love the ambiance, the method of...
Wild Drive Life Featured on Tiny Home Tours
Our Wild Drive Life bus, a.k.a. "Kevin" was featured on the Tiny Home Tours YouTube Channel! Chris from Chris & G Travels recently reached out to us on Instagram to schedule a video tour and interview with us for his YouTube channel, Tiny House Tours. Our timing & location were perfect since we were both in...
How much did our bus conversion cost? Planning & preparation for a mobile lifestyle...
How much does a bus conversion cost? Updated 10.20.20 One of the most frequently asked questions we receive is, "How much did your bus conversion cost?" The costs and investment associated with a bus conversion varies widely. It can be anywhere from a few thousand dollars up to six figure builds. The latter blows my...
Painting Our Bus Conversion: What we used & how we did it.
Painting our 31 foot prison bus conversion ourselves was a major turning point in the project process. It was a reality check and flood of REAL emotions you don't often hear about among the perfectly curated social media posts of #vanlife and #buslife. Four Weeks of Prep, Four Hours of Painting Painting our bus conversion...
Bus Conversion Tiny Home Build Part Four - Then & Now...
The adventure of converting a 1989 bus into a cozy tiny home. Retelling the work completed and progress made on our bus conversion is best completed in pictures, so, here goes: Our First Bus Conversion We found our first bus on Craigslist, by chance, while searching for other retro campers to renovate. Our bus was...
Bus Tiny Home Conversion Part Three
The Wild Drive #buslife Recap Part Three - Work, Work, and Inspiration Galore. Buying a bus is not a decision to take lightly. We’re over a year into things and approaching the end of our conversion so we've had a lot of time to reflect. Though "tiny" in size, this is a BIG deal and...
Bus Tiny Home Conversion Part Two
The Wild Drive #buslife Recap Part Two - Mad Max Prison Bus, anyone? Sure! We’ll have a look-see. We drove an hour and a half down to MA to meet our… prison bus. We pulled into the parking lot and caught a glimpse of the 31 foot beast in all its glory: faded black paint,...
Bus Tiny Home Conversion Part One
The Wild Drive #buslife Recap Part One - Debt Annihilation How did we go from +$100,000 of debt and being a signature away from purchasing a house to fully embracing the idea and reality of tiny living and a flexible, simple lifestyle? Magic. Nah, just kidding... In October 2013, we were newly married and...
Photographic Tour of Our Bus - Caution: Watch Your Step!
WELCOME to the photographic tour (circa March 2016) of our bus in its tons-of-work-ahead, semi-overwhelming yet promising state. Our next step, which we're actually REALLY excited about is to gut the entire thing. Here it is in all its original glory.
Our Bus Q&A - Plans, Creepy Cages, and American Pickers, oh my!
We've all had 48 hours or so to let the tiny home conversion news sink in, so how about a little Be Free Bus background information to help solidify this excitement? This is a REALLY neat find, we promise. You'll want to hear this. Overarching disclaimer regarding the Be Free Bus purchase: Don't worry, we didn't just wake...
Retired Virginia Prison Bus to Be Free Tiny Home
I always knew we wouldn't do things quite by the book. We haven't so far, why start now? Who wrote the book, anyway? I like to think we all have the opportunity to write our own book of excellent successes and adventures, filled with highs and lows, victories and challenges. My husband Ben and I...