Welcome to our blog!
We are a family of 3 that loves to travel. Since getting married 6 years ago we have traveled to over 40 countries, 6 of which we did with our 1 year old daughter. Seeing so much of the world made us realize how little we have seen of our own country. We decided to spend next summer on the road exploring all the beautiful places in the United States. We looked into buying an RV, but stumbled upon a school bus conversion and knew right away that’s what we wanted to do.
I have a background in construction, having remodeled homes and restaurants, and my wife loves interior design. Together we are taking on the project of converting a school bus into our family vacation home on wheels.
After a little preliminary research and discussing what we would like to include in our bus, we agreed that we needed about 28 feet of interior space. I looked for school buses for sale and found 2 large dealerships in Tampa, Florida, about a 4 hour drive from our home. That same weekend we drove up to Tampa and we bought a bus!
So what did we buy?
We decided on a 2005 Thomas Freightliner with a Mercedes Benz engine, with only 90,000 miles. It came from Alabama, so it has minimal to no rust, which is going to save us a ton of time and money during the renovation.
It’s about 39 feet exterior, with 29 feet interior usable space. One of the most important things for us was finding a tall bus. We wanted a dog-nose style bus, but most of them only have 70-74 inches of height inside and that is before adding flooring and a wood ceiling. I am 6’2 (aka 74 inches), so that would not work for me. You can sometimes find 77-78 inches of height, but they’re not very common. It is always an option to raise the ceiling, but that was not something we wanted to do. We were lucky enough to find the perfect bus, with 77 inch height. I learned after finding my bus that there’s an easy way to spot a tall bus, look for a hump on the ceiling, if you see the hump at the beginning, you know there’s a few extra inches of height inside.
And everyone’s favorite question. How much does a bus cost?
Our bus was $6,400. After adding tax, title, fees and delivery, we spent $7,432.
Now it’s time for the fun to begin. Please follow along as we convert our school bus into a beautiful vacation home on wheels for our family to enjoy. We are 2 Cool 4 Skool, the skoolie.
Follow us on Instagram @2Cool4SkoolBus and our YouTube channel 2Cool4Skool. Here is our first video….
