First Steps of the Rest of My Life

[BrieSauce]

Hi! I'm new here and I've never posted before. One of my best friends and I are planning on living the skoolie life next year and right now we are searching for a bus. We live in the Southeast Texas area and it is incredibly hard to find a bus between 25'-30' where we are. Are there any place we can go to look like specifically? We are in the infancy stages of this so any and all help/replies/advice is welcome. We are looking at auction site, scrapyards, and private sellers but so far, no luck. In a perfect world we would find one for a couple grand at an auction or scrap/graveyard since we plan on gutting and renovating the crap outta it anyway. However we are willing to pay more for a bus that requires substantially less engine and transmission work. Thank you for your help in advance and I'm sending nothing but good vibes and low gas prices your way.

[Jolly Roger bus 223]

welcome.
low fuel prices are not coming back soon.
can not speak for your specific location but on here reach out to the other texas skoolie builders and see where they found theres.
born and raised in EAST TEXAS and you have plenty of support around you.
maybe try a thread for TEXAS skoolies?

[Simplicity]

Welcome.

Many folks have found their buses from far away. Airplane rides there and drive the bus home. One recently went from, I think, CA to FL, and with no problems!

You're in a good area, dry and hot. School districts are generally required to auction their vehicles. You may want to check with some smaller districts and see how they dispose of their old buses. Might get a good lead. Who knows, maybe some districts still auction them off themselves.

Private schools, I got mine from a Catholic High School, are not under the same government thumb as public, so they can sell direct to a buyer.

Some people who have started a conversion are selling, so you might find a bus already started, but still allow you to make it your own.

More importantly, assuring the bus drive train, tires, brakes and electrical are in good working order is key. Buses are more expensive to fix than to simply by.

Best of luck.