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happybus

Bus Burrow

March 29, 2019 by byerswithoutborders Leave a Comment

Living five people in a 250 square foot bus, it is safe to say Byers Without Borders is not taking up too much room. In fact, it often feels like we’re training the kids for a future in the submarine corps or as the next occupants of the space station. They even refer to their bunks as sleep pods. Hey NASA how about a couple of space camp scholarships? Or some T-shirts? Just none of that flavored styrofoam you’re calling dehydrated ice cream, please.

What’s it like living like this? If you look to the internet to understand life in a skoolie you’ll mostly find Kondo-inspired posts shaming you out of your collection of concert T’s or countless blogs devoted to making your tiny home look like an IKEA fallout shelter. According to the web, living in a bus will make your life a series #nofilter-moments taking you ever closer to parental nirvana.

The truth is you’ll likely arrive at every destination reeking of exhaust, there will always be a line of people at the shoe cabinet, during winter the walls will weep with condensation and during the summer you’ll roast in your tin-box house. These websites never mention that “free-wifi” means sharing a trickle of bandwidth with foil-hat alien enthusiasts trying to upload their latest online seminar about the panspermic roots of octopus intelligence.

The blogs never mention that your sex life will revert back all the way to high school and those hushed, under-the-blanket encounters when your pants acted as a pair of ankle cuffs. With little headroom and no stabilizers, skoolie sex is like a diabetic dessert, a reminder of how much you miss the real thing.

Life in a skoolie is hard!

But it is also one of our most fun and exciting adventure-experiments yet. The tiny space can be a source of frustration, but oddly it is also one of the bonuses of the bus. Our bus has become a cozy little burrow. Maybe its an evolutionary remnant buried in our limbic systems. But don’t we feel more at ease, comfortable and safe in small cozy spaces? Has there ever been a refrigerator box that didn’t spend the week of glory as a kids plaything? Animals make dens, kids build forts, and Byers Without Borders burrow in a bus.  

Watch a typical Saturday morning on the bus.

https://youtu.be/G7xo8kGOLXw

Filed Under: Adventure, bus life, Bus Life, nomad life, skoolie, Uncategorized Tagged With: adventure, family adventure, happybus, living with less to live with more, nomad life, skoolie life

Nearly Nested

August 20, 2018 by byerswithoutborders 2 Comments

 

Barn swallows build nests from mud and dirt. Robins use bits of dried grass and twigs. Penguins make little stone circles while an ostrich is content with a shallow dusty hole. Apparently, the nesting material of choice for Byers Without Borders is spraypainted sheet metal. Introducing Fiona! Our 1997 Bluebird Schoolbus, turned mobile command center.

When we sold our house last year we had the vague notion that an RV would be a good option for our new life. It took nearly a year of searching craigslist, dealerships, and RV shows. Airstreams, fifth-wheels, class-A’s with slide outs, we looked at and entertained every option. But consistently they were either too pricey (new Airstreams start at $100,000) or too heavy in motifs of ducks-in-flight, faux-Tuscan or wood-paneling (Jen’s style is best described as Himalayan-IKEA).

Beyond price and aesthetics, few RV manufacturers were able to meet our number one requirement, three separate bunks for the girls. We wanted each kid to have a private space on the RV. A spot that was all their own, a spot for privacy, a spot to nest into, a spot of consistency in our rolling-fluid lifestyle. We did not want to be forced to convert Stella’s bed daily into a kitchen table or sofa.

And then we spotted Fiona on craigslist/Jacksonville. Born a school bus in South Carolina, she spent a short time as a church bus before being converted into an RV by a family of five. They had been living in her, full time, for over a year, traveling to surf competitions up and down the east coast.

We found Fiona with her creators in a campground just south of St. Augustine. The better part of a weekend was spent with them, learning their story, and the story of the bus. Stella and their daughter Piper played Barbies. The big kids all went to a chalk-art contest together. In between bus questions, we discussed everything from homeschooling strategies to instapot recipes. We really got to know this sweet family, so it was with a slight sense of guilt that I drove off with their house Sunday afternoon, leaving them with all of their belongings, in a pile, at their empty campsite.

The kids have quickly claimed their bunks, dubbing them “sleep pods”. Presently they’re in deep design mode, planning how to personalize these pods. Jen is mapping out counter space and storage allowances, while I scour google earth images of our friends’ driveways. Be on alert if yours is 35 feet plus, you might be our next stop.

 

For those friends and followers who can’t make it to the “open bus” this Saturday, Isabelle and Lily put together a video tour of our #HappyBus.

 

Filed Under: Family, Travel, travel with kids, Uncategorized Tagged With: byerswithoutborders, happybus, open bus

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