Lessons Learned from 1.5 years of Building a Skoolie
written by Ben Zapchenk
Happy New Year, everyone!
It has been a long time since we have posted consistently on this blog; we aim to change that in 2023. Our goal is to publish two blogs every week that cover our journey to complete our school bus conversion, our travels across the US (and other countries) in our skoolie, and much more!
A little bit about us: We are Brandi and Ben. We met in 2015 while serving as Peace Corps Volunteers in a small village in southern Morocco. We loved Morocco so much that we stayed there for another four years. We are passionate about creating and building community. You’ll always find us rooting for the underdog, and trying our best to uplift the voices of those who often get silenced and marginalized. Our goal is to amplify the good that is already in the world.
We moved back to the US in May 2021 to convert an old school bus into a tiny home on wheels and experience life on the road. While on the road, we will be expanding our community and marketplace of artisans from around the globe. We want to connect you to amazing people who are handcrafting amazing things. We are also committed to ensuring that all of our artisans are paid fair, honorable wages.
We also provide tips and tricks to help you get unstuck and live the life you've always dreamed of. There's a big, beautiful world out there just waiting for YOU and we want to help you dive in!
It has been over 1.5 years since we started out on our journey. To ring in the new year, we wanted to reflect on the bus conversion process and share the nine most important lessons that we have learned along the way:
Everything takes longer than you think.
There hasn’t been a single project that we’ve finished on time. Every time we start a project we say things like “This will take three days!” and before we know it, two weeks have passed and we are just then finishing up that “3-day” project.
Problems will happen ALL THE TIME and they offer so many growth opportunities.
There will be delays. Things will break. Your best-laid plans will go awry. You will dump engine coolant all over the inside of your bus when you are removing the original heating cores.
You can’t always control what will happen, but you can control how you respond to the problems that arise. Even when you run into problems that seem dire, drastic, and monumental in terms of their potential impact on your build, we have found that it is always best for our health and well-being to take a step back, breathe, and trust the process.
*Almost* every problem has a solution, which leads us to our next point…
You will become a master problem solver. (Anything you don’t know, you can learn!)
The problems that you encounter while converting a school bus into a tiny home are innumerable. Luckily, the number of potential solutions is just as numerous! With each new problem that we encounter and overcome, we continuously build on our skillsets, knowledge base, and confidence in our ability to troubleshoot just about anything that comes our way.
The forward-thinking, creative approach to problem-solving that you develop as you build a tiny home on wheels will serve you well when you move to live on the road. When you have the privilege to live each day under an endlessly changing horizon, you also have to deal with the unknown issues that inevitably arise with that constant movement.
You are capable of so much more than you know.
Brandi and I did not enter into bus life with the necessary skill sets to build a tiny house, but what we did have was a burning desire to learn what we didn’t know.
There are scant few better feelings than completing a project that felt impossible before you began; a perfect example of this on our build was constructing our own solar panel racking system and successfully mounting six 250-watt residential solar panels on the roof of our bus.
There will be many bad days where you feel like giving up, and that’s ok.
Building a skoolie is HARD. Some days will absolutely punch you in the gut and have you questioning every decision that you have made up to that point.
On days like these, remind yourself of why you started in the first place. Remind yourself of how much you’ve accomplished so far. Remember what goals you are chasing. Keep going!
YouTube and online nomad communities are your best friends.
Doing things that are far outside the norm (and far outside your comfort zone) can often feel isolating. Many people may not understand why you are doing what you are doing. You may start questioning the path you have chosen.
We often turn to our community of fellow nomads, travelers, and creatives when we start feeling down. The online community has been an incredibly supportive constant throughout our build process. From answering our many random questions to encouraging and supporting us every step of the way, it has been such a blessing to be a part of a community that accepts and honors the weirdo that you are.
We hope that we can provide the same support for you! If you ever have any questions or want to chat about anything regarding bus life, van life, nomadic living, tiny homes (or literally anything else!), please send us a message anytime on Instagram (@remote_ramblers).
Planning and preparation for upcoming projects are half (most?) of the battle.
We have spent far more time preparing for projects than actually doing projects.
Every project typically follows this pattern:
We chat about how we think we should do it and what we will need.
We research furiously on online skoolie forums and YouTube to confirm or disprove the plan we have (this is especially true for the more difficult jobs.)
We get all the materials we will need from Amazon or Menards.
We start the project and realize we are missing things we need.
Multiple Menards runs later, we have everything we need (for real this time!)
Try as we might to improve this process, it is at best a 60/40 split, where the bulk of our time is spent in preparation.
Pro tip: Make sure you have a great system of organization for all your tools and hardware - the amount of time you will save by not having to constantly search for things is invaluable!
You can’t expect yourself to be a MASTER at something you’ve never done before.
Obsessing over perfection is a curse that will often keep you from ever starting at all. The only way to get better at something is to try.
To quote Samuel Beckett, “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.”
Don’t be afraid to ask for help.
Ask your community for what you need. There are more people who want to help than you may believe.
If you’ve converted a rig before, what lessons would you add to this list? If you haven’t started the process yet, what lessons resonate the most with you?
Let us know in the comments below, or shoot us a message on Instagram @remote_ramblers.
One final encouragement from us this week: If you want to live your daydream, you gotta get out there and build it!
💙Brandi + Ben