Hello!

[jonnichols]

Well, my introduction here may be a bit premature. I'm a father of three and a husband to a wonderful wife. Lately we've been looking at lots of tiny house and bus rv conversion videos on youtube. We got into the home owner game early a few years back and got burnt with a condo that ended up in a bad area of town with a horrible condo association that was going bankrupt. After foreclosing on the condo and declaring bankruptcy, we moved into a townhome rental where we've been living the last few years.

Our original plan was to wait the seven years when our youngest would be old enough to move out on his own and then we would be free to buy a house again without the worry of which school district we were in. However, the more we looked into tiny homes and school bus conversions the more we've liked the idea.

Our plan is definitely years away, but we've been diving hard into research to see if we can survive in such a small place. We're building a wish list of layouts and design ideas that we have seen on other people's finished buses from youtube. We have looked into prices of buses, but with nowhere to store one for the time being and the fact that we just purchased a new car we're nowhere near ready to buy.

That being said, I made an account here to gather ideas and plans for the possible future. To ask questions to bus owners and get a more full round idea on whether this will work for us. Thank you for your time and allowing me to bug you with potential questions for the future!

 

[DoubleO7]

Welcome to the forum.
Another big hurdle is will you be mostly mobile or stable?
If you have a job and want to keep it, your local land Nazis might make living in a bus or tiny home nearly impossible.

 

[jonnichols]

I think we're looking at mostly mobile, as a way of seeing the sights, visiting friends and family, and enjoying middle-age. There will be some stints of stable-ness, maybe just a few weeks, maybe more. Not completely sure.

Because of that uncertainty, it means we're not sure on the job front either. We may opt to stay stable for a few years and continue working our current jobs, or look for more "work at home" jobs that we can move from place to place and still hold work.

What do you mean by the local land ****'s making it hard to do?

 

[Robin97396]

The local ****'s appear when any of your neighbors complain. More commonly known as community enforcement. Someone always complains about a bus.

 

[jonnichols]

Oh, gotcha. Yes, definitely will be making sure that if we plan to stay stable for a while that we can legally do so. One of the youtube videos we watch has a family living on a rented plot of land that the landowner has authority to park large vehicles (living in rural area).

 

[leadsled01-SKO]

Welcome. A lot of us Buckeyes on this forum.

 

[jonnichols]

Welcome. A lot of us Buckeyes on this forum.

Thanks! Yes, I've actually noticed one or two from Columbus as well!

 

[Jolly Roger-SKO]

There is a program through the state parks called workamper or something close to that. That give you a spot for free and pay you and your kids(age requirement?) to be the groundskeeper,maintenance or whatever and when you get ready for something else just give them a couple weeks notice saying I want to go to the Grand Canyon park and they will have a spot and job for you when you get there.
That was the info. And idea when my wife and I checked into it quite a while back.

 

[jonnichols]

There is a program through the state parks called workamper or something close to that. That give you a spot for free and pay you and your kids(age requirement?) to be the groundskeeper,maintenance or whatever and when you get ready for something else just give them a couple weeks notice saying I want to go to the Grand Canyon park and they will have a spot and job for you when you get there.
That was the info. And idea when my wife and I checked into it quite a while back.

Thank you! That's a wonderful resource to look into!

 

[dan-fox]

There is a program through the state parks called workamper or something close to that. That give you a spot for free and pay you and your kids(age requirement?) to be the groundskeeper,maintenance or whatever and when you get ready for something else just give them a couple weeks notice saying I want to go to the Grand Canyon park and they will have a spot and job for you when you get there.
That was the info. And idea when my wife and I checked into it quite a while back.

I looked into in the last year or so for planning purposes and it appears that the contract to provide that sort of labor to the National Park System has been let to a private corporation, and that they require that you commit to a May-through-October season, or some such. I expect that this indicates that there are enough people interested in this work that they think they're in the driver's seat, and they may be right.