We’ve started this blog to document our summer on the road in our 1984 Blue Bird bus conversion. Eight short weeks ago we brought her home in all her slightly neglected high school glory, and somehow we’ve ended up with a functional motor home put together with just our four hands. It’s a little bit unreal.

Why a bus, you say?

For a long time we pondered leaving Florida at the one year mark, and felt overwhelmed with the possibilities of how to do it. At first, we even considered just picking up and moving to another new town for another year (maybe New Hampshire?), but realized maybe that isn’t the best way to travel. Each time you move you have to settle down somewhere, find a place to rent, find a job to pay the rent, etc, surely only to uproot ourselves again in the near future.

We realized we needed a more mobile lifestyle.

The Rusty Range Rover

There are actually quite a few options when it comes to being young, creative, and not afraid to get a bit dirty. First of all there was the bus idea. We’d seen many beautiful conversion projects online, and were determined to do the same at some point in our lives. But for this trip? Did we have time and energy to work on it? Did we want to have that much vehicle to haul around everywhere? Then we wanted to take the Range Rover and camp. Soon after we discovered that the Range was rusting away under our feet, and therefore not safe. Okay, so we need to get a new truck. Get a canopy and haul our stuff, like when we moved to Florida, but put a pop-up tent on the roof. Briefly we entertained the idea of converting an enclosed trailer into a camper to haul behind our new truck. But all in all, buying a truck that would be reliable, big enough, and comfortable for a journey of this magnitude would simply be way out of the budget. Not enough cash left over for trip costs.

So it was back to the bus idea. By now we were running out of time, and this idea was too crazy to pull off. So crazy, that it just might work.

Shopping The Bus Lot In Tampa

We didn’t set out to buy a 40′ rig, but we did. And we are in love with it. And you know what? I’m positive all that hard work is going to pay off. Besides, it makes a way better story.