A Wicked Fast School Bus Conversion

With our boat sold, and a bus procured from the local district in Maine, it was time to head south. But you can’t just travel legally far and wide in a yellow school bus, and painting outside in November’s freezing temperatures is foolish. So, we burned south, as the authorities turned a blind eye, until the butter melted in South Carolina. In a Lowes parking lot, roller in hand, Base Camp received her new sea-mist-green-you-said-you-wanted-to-be-stealth-but-you-FAILED color. After the 100th, “Oh isn’t that a cute bus,” comment, our youngest son said, “We mind as well have painted babies all over it…!” 

We named our beauty Base Camp, and we fondly describe her as our mullet bus. 

She’s “business” in the front, with three standard school bus seats still in place.

And she’s a “party” in the back— not that a triple bunk bed, a double loft bed, and an enclosed bathroom compartment, containing a cassette potty in any way constitute a “party…” There is however a foldout galley on the side where the wheelchair lift was, and there is tons of storage under the loft bed to haul toys, so “party” it is!

Our build is certainly not traditional. Whenever we go online to research school bus conversions, the first thing we see is people ripping up the floors and tearing down the ceilings. They create amazing tiny homes, and works of art, but that’s not what we wanted or needed. We needed Base Camp.