by Tanner Colley
Will, Kristin, and their one-year-old daughter, Roam, of Number Juan Bus having been living in a custom school bus turned tiny-house-on-wheels for just over a year. We tracked them down and talked with them about transitioning to life on the road, social distancing in a “Skoolie,” (buslife for a school bus-turned-home), and going after your dreams.
Where are you guys right now?
Will: So, We’re in Sedona, Arizona right now out in the middle of the desert. Waiting this whole craziness out.
Have you guys been there a while?
Kristin: 3 weeks. It’s the longest we’ve been anywhere. (laughs) We usually stay at one place for three to five days at a time before getting back on the road.
Will: Yeah, we are going to head into town this weekend to get some supplies, but we’ll come back out here. We’re staying on BLM land, so it’s just miles and miles of desert and nothing.
What’s BLM land?
Kristin: It’s land looked after by the Bureau of Land Management. It’s, essentially, just public land we use a lot when we need a place to set up home for a few days. It’s kind of like the Wild West where we are now, basically. (laughs)
Solo Stove knows all about you guys, but would you mind sharing a bit about Number Juan Bus and how you got into this lifestyle?
Kristin: We took a road trip to California from our old home in Florida in 2015. We lived out of an SUV for the whole trip basically, and after that, I was obsessed with the idea of living on the road. I told Will we needed to sell all of our stuff and live in a van. He was like, “No way. That’s not realistic.” (laughs) It wasn’t realistic at the time, we had a three-bedroom house full of stuff. But, I never gave up on the dream. I would tag him in posts on Instagram of people living in tiny-houses or vans. Eventually, like two years later, he was working and I started getting really serious into minimalism. I started getting rid of all my stuff. And he started to as well. One day, he was working 24/7 on a video project for a month. He came to me and said, “I was thinking when I’m done with this project we should just buy a bus and turn it into a tiny house and travel around.”
“What a great idea!” I said (laughs) Like I already wasn’t saying we should do this.
We paid off all our debt and sold our house . . .
Will: It took us like a year and a half to build the bus. My dad and I built 100% everything on the bus, which was a learning curve. But it turned out great!
What’s been some of the biggest challenges to your lifestyle during a time of “quarantine?”
Will: We built the bus to have internet 24/7 to stay off-grid but still be connected. We have to go get water every 14 days, but other than that, we can pull off social distancing pretty well. (laughs). I think the biggest challenge is not being able to meet up with our friends and family on the road. We usually get our parents or some friends to come and hang out with us. Even though we live an off-the-grid lifestyle, I’m still a very social person.
Kristin: Yeah, that’s not me. I’m doing fine (laughs)
Will: Yeah, Kristin is fine (laughs). But, I’m a big skateboard, so I’m used to finding skateparks to hang out wherever we happen to be at the time.
Kristin: I think the hardest thing for me has been the unknown. We’ve been staying in one place right now because more and more state parks where we stay are closing. It’s been more difficult finding places to park the bus. But, we have internet available 24/7 on the bus, where we’re at in Sedona has been good. There’s still a place we can fill up on water and get rid of our trash, so we’re happy to have found a place like this to stay in for the time being.
Will: I built a platform on the bus where I keep our motorcycle. So, if I need to run into town real quick to get food I can get there easily without having to move the bus. That’s convenient.
It’s a different situation right now, but how do you usually find a place to park the bus when you are on the road?
Will: We use a couple of different apps where the “Skoolie” and vanlife community post places where you can stay based on your location. I was looking around online last night for places to stay now, and someone has created a giant Google spreadsheet with thousands of names and numbers of people who have open land and allow people like us to stay at. That’s been a really cool thing our community has done right now for each other.
But, also AirBnb is a great resource. You can find folks who have space to park your bus with electric and water hookups to use.
How do you connect with others who share your lifestyle, like other vanlife and tiny-house communities?
Kristin: Mostly through social media. People reach out to us and say they are building a bus and ask if we want to come and hang out. We also went to three or four tiny-house festivals last year and met a good group of people we stay in contact with. We have a “Skoolie” family we link up with around the country. We’ve made some great friendships that way.
Will: We’ve had some awesome opportunities to stay at places in the Keys, which is a hard area to find places to stay in. A lot of people reach out to us after seeing our Youtube stuff and Instagram. They’ll see our content and let us know they have space for us to stay if we ever need it. It’s weird times right now, but it’s great to know people are out there willing to help.
You guys live on your bus full-time, so does “stir-crazy” or “cabin fever” have the same meaning to you?
Kristin: Staying put for this long has been kind of our version of stir crazy. Other than that, everything has been pretty much the same. We are both used to working from home with our kid, Roam. (Roam cries) And on that note, I’ll let you talk, Will. (laughs)
Will: (laughs) Yeah, we are on the bus a lot throughout the day, because we both work full-time. I do a lot of my creative work at night but usually try to get outside and walk the trails in the parks we normally stay in. Kristin does yoga on the bus, so we stay pretty busy. We walk our dog, Rush, and I skateboard. That keeps us from going too crazy.
Do you have any tips for those reading who might be staying at home longer than they are used to?
Kristin: I would say to find a way to best of the situation you are in. You could be using this time to learn something new or read if you always say you love to read but don’t have the time. I’ve been reading a ton and taking classes online through Skillshare.
Will: A lot of people I know back at home in Jacksonsville in skate shops are out of work right now. I’ve been talking with them about learning a skill you can use while working from home like graphic design or video editing where you can get paid while working remotely. My job is video editing, so that’s how I’m able to work full-time while still living on a bus while traveling across the country.
Kristin: Watching Netflix is great, but you can also be exercising your mind.
Will: If you are working from home, try and take your work outside. I set up our Solo Stove outside next to our pop-up table and work there. I brought my whole workstation out there and worked a whole day by the fire and just loved it.
So you like your Solo Stove?
Will: Absolutely. We use it every day if not every other day. It’s nice for us because we can pack all the wood inside the fire pit and then stuff the fire pit in the case and keep it packed away on the bus. In many of the places we stay in, you can’t have a fire unless it’s contained. It’s nice to not have to dig a hole for a fire pit. I can just set it up and go.
Kristin: I don’t campfires because of the smoke, but the Solo Stove has such little smoke. I like not having my hair smell like campfire all day. (laughs)
Learn more about Will and Kristin on their Instagram and Youtube pages.
@numberjuanbus