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Sandra VanDenburg
January 13, 2024
235 views

What We Have Learned Living on the Road Full-Time

Are you planning to live full-time in a bus conversion? If so, there are some important things you should know about real bus life. Rule #1. You can’t believe all of the hype you read on the internet. Living on the road can be both exhilarating and exhausting.

My family of four and I have been traveling in our Skoolie for five and a half years now, with our five-year-old son and seventeen-year-old daughter. Along the way, we've learned a lot, and I believe it's time to share this knowledge with families who are just starting on their bus life journey.

Meal Planning

I think it would be helpful to categorize the breakdown by season and based on the type of facilities we have at our disposal. It may also be useful to differentiate between cool days and hot and/or humid days.

When hot outside, we try to cook as much outside as possible to avoid adding extra heat inside the bus. During hot summer days, we make most of our lunches and dinners, on the grill.

We make a fire pit when we can.
Our Smokey Joe® Charcoal 14” Grill.

If there is a way to have a fire pit, we cook over an open flame.  We also have a campfire grill that we can place over that open fire pit.  If there is no fire pit or a way to make one, we use our small Weber portable charcoal grill. We have a tote stored under the bus that holds our bag of briquets, lighter fluid, and BBQ tools.

We try and get our groceries from local farms when we stop, such as farmer’s markets, and even Harvest Hosts when it is a farm.  Always be ready to pay more for food when you are away from a city or town. Stock up in town when you can to take advantage of lower prices.

We also take our Instant Pot, and/or Air Fryer and plug it into the generator, and cook side dishes like mashed potatoes, rice, etc. Some days I just make Instant Pot Spaghetti while plugged into our generator.

If it is a cold day in the bus, we can start our mornings simply by warming up cinnamon rolls, or a casserole in the propane oven just to break the chill in the bus. For lunches and dinners, we use our Instant Pot almost daily or cook on our gas stove as any other household would.  

We would also recommend if you like to cook or have a large family, go ahead and put in a full-size stove. It doesn’t take up that much more room, but you will gain cooking luxury. Many RV stoves only have two burners.  A four-burner stove makes cooking some meals for a family much easier. Not to mention the ovens are larger.

Using the Instant Pot on solar, we are afraid would probably suck up all our power or even trip the inverter, so we have yet to try the Instant Pot on solar. Most 6-quart Instant Pots are around 1000 watts, while the 3 quarts average about 700 watts and the 8 quarts average 1200 watts.

Laundry and Other Chores

  • Laundry:  We have no washing machine or clothes dryer in our bus, so we usually utilize laundromats.  When we are full force on the road it is a weekly routine of parking the bus outside the laundromats.  My husband and the toddler complete all our laundry for our road family of three now in about an hour and a half to two hours.  Meanwhile, I am working on getting articles together for BCM.

If we are parked for a prolonged period, it is usually at a friend’s or family’s place, and they have facilities they insist we utilize.  So, we get the best of both worlds.

  • Garbage/Household Trash:  We started our journey with a slide-out tall trash can under our kitchen counter.  Very often it would overflow and trash would be littering the inside of the cabinet.  It was also very hard to get rid of one or two full-size trash bags.  We now save all the paper bags we get when grocery shopping and use those instead. When we park and have a fire pit we separate our trash into two trash cans, one for stuff we can burn on the fire and another one for stuff we need to pack out.

We can easily throw a paper bag of trash away at any small trash can along the way.  Also, my husband can take the trash out on his XR-650L motorcycle if we are parked out in some BLM land.  This also gets him out doing what he loves (riding his bike). 

  • Tank Dumps:  We have found that there are water treatment facilities that often have a dump station.  About 50% of the time, they charge.  There are also sometimes dump stations at Camping World/Bass Pro Shops, and Cabela’s.  Marinas and gas stations are also places where we have dumped our tanks before.  Again, some charge and some do not.  Be sure to read all the signs and determine if payment and/or permission is required.

There are always RV Parks and campgrounds that may also let you dump your tanks. Sometimes you can get lucky simply by typing into Google Maps, “RV Dump Station Near Me” or using an app such as “RV Dump Sites.”

  • Unwanted Items:  There is always a thrift store box somewhere in our bus.  The family knows that if they come across something they either do not use or do not fit, they are to put it in this box.  Once this box is full, we stop at a thrift store or a donation box and rid ourselves of the clutter.  When living in a bus, you need to declutter as often as you can to make room for items that bring joy to your life.

Energy Consumption

We have three ways we can get the power we need for our daily lives.  One, we can plug into shore power.  Two, we have a 3500-watt Predator generator.  Three, we also have 600 watts of solar panels and 400 amp hours in our lithium battery bank. 

If we can plug in, that is what we do.  However, if we are out boondocking we try our best to work with the solar power we have.  We have a 9.2 cu. ft. refrigerator and that can run for about eight hours on solar.  We shut off the solar at night and the fridge keeps temp above 40 degrees until we wake up around 8:30 AM or so.  By then, in the summer at least, the sun is already starting to charge our batteries back up for another day, if it is a cloudless day.

For those cloudy, rainy boondocking/travel days, we pull out that Predator generator.  It is quiet and efficient. On the hottest day we had ever experienced, we ran the two window air conditioning units off the generator all day and the rest of the house off of solar power.  Utilizing two power sources at once. We survived the 108 degrees in Bend, Oregon, and then packed up and left the next day. Bye-bye summer.

Filling Fresh Water Tanks

A lot of gas stations have water spigots, you can ask the attendant if you can fill your tanks.  Some will let you, some won’t. You will have better luck if you arrive at a time of day when they are not busy.  There are also fresh water fill stations at many RV dump stations. Campgrounds have also been known to let individuals fill their fresh water tanks as well as many Boondockers Welcome and Harvest Hosts. Please always ask before you fill up gallons and gallons of water on someone else’s property.

Be aware of the difference between potable water and non-potable water. One is safe to drink and one can make you very sick and is not to be used for things like bathing, drinking, brushing your teeth, and so on.

Knowing how to fix things is a real bonus when it comes to bus life.
Always have extra fuel and oil filters onboard. A rock can puncture a filter rendering your bus useless.

Bus Maintenance

  • Tires: Make sure your front/steering tires are not retreads. Know the date codes on your tires and what is acceptable. Also, try to replace worn tires while you are stationary and can shop around.  Tires are a lot more expensive when you are broken down in the middle of nowhere.
  • Engine: Check your engine manual for your basic maintenance needs. Also, be sure to keep an eye on your coolant level and power steering fluid level. You could have developed a leak somewhere.
  • Belts and Hoses:  Check your serpentine belt, your fan belt, and all your hoses regularly to limit the chance you will be on the side of the road looking for a new belt or hose.  Many people carry spare belts and hoses just in case.  It is easier to pick these up in town than when you are broken down in the middle of nowhere.
  • Transmission: Check your transmission fluid regularly.  Check your transmission manual for all servicing requirements. 
  • Start and House Batteries:  Be sure to check on the health of your batteries at least once a year. Check water levels if needed and clean any corrosion at your contact points.
  • Lubrication Points:  Some older buses have over 100 grease fittings. Know where they are and grease them as recommended in your owner’s manual.
  • Axles:  Some buses have axle-bearing reservoirs that are easy to check.  Some have oil reservoirs you can see, and the others use grease. They are enclosed, so you must pull your wheels occasionally to check those, especially if you drive in deep water. 

Tiny Home Maintenance

  • Plumbing: Check your water lines. It's important to regularly check your water lines to ensure that nothing has become loose or is in danger of doing so soon.
  • House Batteries: Pay attention to your battery banks: It's important to maintain the water level in your batteries if they require it. Additionally, keep track of your battery usage to avoid completely draining them, as this can cause them to wear out quickly and become costly to replace.
  • Solar Panels:  Make sure to get up there and clean those solar panels. Dirt can do a real disservice to how much solar power you are generating.
  • Water Heater:  If you have an electric heating element, replace your anode rod every year. If you notice discolored water, a rotten egg smell, air in the lines, or intermittent hot water in your electric water heater, it could be a sign of a bad anode rod. The anode rod plays an important role in protecting the tank of your water heater. Be sure to drain and flush your hot water tank at the same time.

Internet Service

I have a company phone that is Verizon with a hotspot.  I get 30 gigabytes every month and I use every bit of it when on the road.  We also have two personal phones that are Metro/T-Mobile.  Both of those phones also have hotspots and have 15 gigabytes each.

If we have a good signal on those T-Mobile phones, we tend to try and use up those gigabytes first.  This is so I can keep the Verizon gigabytes for when we are out further from the city and towns. Verizon works a lot better all over the nation than T-Mobile.

I have seen weboost and such, but I feel like most of the ones I have tried in friends’ buses, you had to be inside the bus and near the booster. 

If I need more time to work online, we can also find a nice park for our son to play, a Riverwalk parking lot, or some other daytime parking area with good cell service. We pick somewhere nice so the ones who don’t need to work online can get out and enjoy whatever surroundings we find ourselves in.

Remember, no matter what service you have, no service is no service. Until Elon opens his network to the public for free to everyone, nobody will get service while camping in the boonies unless they have a lot of money to spend on Starlink.  If you can afford it, however, Starlink is the ultimate for being connected almost anywhere you can park your rig as long as you have a view of the sky, i.e. not in a densely wooded area.

Homeschooling

Homeschooling in a bus can be a very rewarding experience for some families.  Your children can not only read about places in history, but you can visit them to show them what it was like back in the day.  They can read about rocket ships in books, but there is nothing like going to NASA and seeing a real rocket ship up close. You can read about livestock, but until you visit a farm with your kids and touch and smell the animals, you will not know what it is really like.

  • Middle School: When we started homeschooling, my daughter was in middle school.  In the first year of middle school, we tried making most of her classes work with hardcover books and teaching materials and a few with online classes. This style of Charter School requires that I be the teacher.  Which was fun but required me to grade every single assignment.  In the second year of middle school, she did all her classes online and excelled in every way. 
  • High School: We used The American Academy, a private online high school. She started as a Freshman in September 2020, and she graduated in May of 2021.  She loved this program, as she had free access to tutors for all subjects. A personal counselor and access to her teachers in each subject.  She liked that there were no Zoom calls or meetings to complete class tasks. The teacher uploads videos, content links, and tasks and if the student has a question, they can use email to communicate back and forth.  Because this is a private school, there is tuition.  However, that tuition can be broken up into monthly payments. They even set you up for college entry.

Overnight Parking

  • Boondockers Welcome/Harvest Hosts: Boondockers Welcome and Harvest Hosts have recently merged to continue providing a fee-based membership that allows travelers overnight parking on private land, wineries, breweries, farms, attractions, and golf courses (for an extra membership fee).  This has been wonderful on those long travel days.  Sometimes we stop for the night at a small business winery or brewery, have dinner, and camp out overnight.  Sometimes we end up at a farm and the kids get to unwind by petting farm animals and staring at alpacas.
  • HipCamp:  I have not tried this one personally, but I hear great things about it. We have heard that these can be pricey. That is why we haven’t used this option, we try to get by CHEAP and save our money for more important things.
  • Federal Parks: There are lots of Federal Parks with campgrounds.  Each usually has a website, or you can even google map the campground and see if your rig will fit.  They usually have warnings on their website specifying what rigs will and will not fit in the campground.

There is also an annual Federal Parks Pass.  “The America the Beautiful National Parks” and Federal Recreational Lands Pass is your ticket to more than 2,000 federal recreation sites across the country. A pass covers the entrance fee, standard amenity fees, and day-use fees for a driver and all passengers in a personal vehicle at per-vehicle fee areas (or up to four adults at sites that charge per person).  Children aged 15 or under are admitted free.”

There is a lifetime Senior Pass and an Annual Senior Pass. They have a “free, lifetime pass – available to U.S. citizens or permanent residents of the United States who are over 62 years old or have been medically determined to have a permanent disability (does not have to be a 100% disability)."

You can also “receive your free Military pass by presenting your Current US military ID at most Federal lands that charge an entrance fee. As of November 11th, 2020, veterans qualify for free entry into federal parks. The Interagency Annual Military Pass has been expanded to include both veterans and Gold Star Families.” 

  • State Parks: Each state has its own parks and recreation department. Each state charges different fees and if you are an out-of-state visitor, expect to pay more than a resident, in most states.
  • Bureau of Land Management: The Southwestern United States has lots of Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land.  Some you need to buy a long-term camping pass for and some you do not.  I would encourage you to visit their website for maps and rules on acceptable lengths of stay.  For example, in Quartzsite, $180 will get you seven months of camping (from September 15th to April 15th
  • Army Corps. Of Engineers Land: These are mostly levees and dams.  This can be a hit-and-miss on the ability to overnight, but sometimes you can find good spots for at least a night.
  • Parking Lots and Boondocking: Walmart is always a popular option. Cracker Barrel is sometimes a better calmer option.  Some parking lots will have signs up stating that there is “No Overnight Parking Allowed.”  We have also stayed the night at truck stops after buying fuel.
  • Free Roam: This App shows you a map of where you are. Then you can pull up different colors on the map, depending on if you are looking for BLM land, Federal land, campgrounds, and RV parks.  It also will pull up maps for cell phone coverage.
  • iOverlander: This is great if you are trying to find last-minute overnight parking.  Be aware that lots of smaller vehicles, like vans, tend to use this and post locations.  Some of these places are not bus-appropriate either because of size limitations or loose ground. Getting stuck in sand or mud can be very expensive when recovering a bus. Get out and walk in first.
  • RV Parks:  If you are in a Skoolie, it is far more difficult to find an RV park that will take you short-term or long-term, it doesn’t seem to matter. They like to pull out the ten-year-old-RV or newer rule on us, even if we say, “Hey, it was just converted in 2018.” We have written these off altogether.  It is just not worth the frustration of dealing with discrimination to park in most RV parks.  We have plenty of other options, as you can see in the above list.

As someone who travels full-time on the road with their family and dog, we've learned to be flexible and mindful of our resources. We regularly set aside a day to restock our RV with food, water, and fuel, a day that we call "Chore Day."

When we first started, we aimed to camp as long as possible without refilling, but I've come to realize that there's an "itch" to keep moving. For us, it's usually about four days to a week before we're ready to hit the road again. So, doing chores weekly is a good opportunity to explore new places and satisfy that itch. Not to mention, who wants to deal with the added stress of running out or overflowing?

My advice to anyone new to this lifestyle is to just go for it. Don't over-plan, as everything will change once you're on the road. Embrace the journey and have fun. Who knows, maybe we'll cross paths someday!

Article written by Sandra VanDenburg
Sandra, who was born and raised in Sacramento, California, has always felt a strong desire to explore. Along with her husband and their two children, aged seventeen and five, they have been traveling across America in their 1995 Thomas Saf-T-Liner (The Enterprise).Recently, their daughter joined the United States Air Force and is undergoing training to work on F-15s, leaving two adults, a young boy, a cat, and a dog aboard the enterprise.In September 2019, Sandra began working at Bus Conversion Magazine as an Administrative Assistant and Sales Representative, getting stories from Bus Nuts from all over the world. This family of wanderers has no plans of slowing down anytime soon, as they have been bitten by the travel bug and are eager to explore more.

You can follow the @Buslivin adventure on FacebookInstagram and YouTube.

You can also contact Sandra via email: Sandra@BusConversionMagazine.com

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