BY WILL SUTHERLAND
y first school bus conversion
(skoolie) was an escape. I was
living under the dual thumbs of
my student loans and mortgage,
working two jobs to pay for a life
I didn’t have time to enjoy. After a crash course
in turning a 16-seat school bus into a dwell-
ing, I had both an outlet for adventure and an
income source I loved (West Virginia’s top-
rated Airbnb since 2015).
Why on earth did I turn a retired school
bus into a mobile tiny home? Simple: Big yel-
low buses are cheap and durable. A used bus at
auction goes for about 10 percent of the cost of
a used RV. And where RVs are designed to be
lightweight, buses are designed to work. That
gets you a steel-framed body and steel paneling
on top of a heavy-duty commercial truck frame.
And under the hood, most school buses feature
commercial-grade diesel engines that have
been reliably maintained by f leet mechanics.
My book, Skoolie!: How to Convert a School
Bus or Van into a Tiny Home or Recreational
Veh i cl e, covers every step of the process, along
with every hard-earned time-, sweat-, and
money-saving insight I’ve picked up. But to show
(and hopefully inspire) anyone who can hold an
angle grinder that they’re capable of building a
home on wheels, I’ve shared the basic process
for turning a bus into a clean, well-insulated
room to outfit as you please.
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