A skoolie school bus is a converted school bus that has been turned into a tiny home on wheels. These buses are usually retired from their original purpose and given new life as homes for full-time travelers or those looking for an alternative to traditional housing. Skoolies offer a unique and affordable way to live nomadically or simply downsize your living situation.
Most skoolies are built by converting an existing school bus, although some people do purchase them pre-converted. The process of converting a bus into a livable space generally involves gutting the interior, insulating and paneling the walls, adding windows and sometimes raising the roof. Some people also choose to install solar panels and other alternative energy sources. The sky (or rather, the limit of your imagination) is really the only limit when it comes to designing your own skoolie.
Skoolies offer many advantages over traditional homes or RVs. They’re much more affordable, for one thing. You can often find retired school buses for sale for just a few thousand dollars – far less than even the most basic RV or travel trailer. And since they’re so large, you can have plenty of room to spread out without feeling cramped like you would in a smaller vehicle.
Another big advantage of skoolies is that they’re easy to customize – both in terms of their appearance and their layout. If you want to add more windows or change the location of doors, it’s usually pretty simple to do so (unlike with most RVs). And if you want to paint the outside or add exterior detailing, that’s entirely up to you – unlike with most traditional houses where there are strict rules about what you can and cannot do from a design standpoint.
If you’re thinking about hitting the road in something other than a typical RV or travel trailer, then definitely consider checking out skoolie school buses!