What do you think?

There was a lot of good discussion about using a shipping container as a cabin base here.

A city bus might be larger, and higher the a school bus.

It screams “60 year old sex offender”

Seems I heard of one that didnt work too well up north

I live 30 miles outside of Asheville, so we get bits and pieces of the Asheville culture even out here in the woods.
Five years ago the guy down at the bottom of my driveway, he owns 10 acres, he leases a little spot to a couple who was living in a school bus. This wasn't a big school bus this was the short bus. I would say, 30 feet long.

The property owner had rigged up an outdoor bathroom and an outdoor shower. I don't know, that shower might have been a little nippy in January.
At any rate the couple lived there for 3 years. Friendly young couple, about 28 years old. In fact, the guy had a lot somewhere in Asheville where he rebuilt old school buses into houses.

OK, 30 feet long and 10 feet wide, that is 300 sq. ft. Figure in cabinets, driver's seat and stick shift, bed, stove, it doesn't leave much room for walking around. Maybe 80 sq. ft. of open floor. Plus they had a big dog.
They also had a teeny tiny wood stove. Tiny stove pipe about 3 inch diameter, they ran it out one of the school bus windows.

I say screw the Tiny House fad. I went the other way, girlfriend and I were living in an 1100 sq ft house, five years ago I built an addition and made it in to a 2100 sq ft house with 2 bathrooms. To hell with the Tiny House and to hell with the outhouse.
I lived in Washington state for 7 months with a sh*t stinking outhouse, lived there in the woods near the Idaho border with my cousin and his girlfriend in a log cabin with no running water, I don't even want to see another outhouse. Disgusting.

Wets used to always be in them when I was a kid. Remember one evening we were cat hunting with the dogs just SW of Jourdanton Tex. We walked up on a camp of postados staying in an old bus. Fire blazing. Food ready to be put on the fire, stuff placed all around. And not a soul to be seen! LOL.

We just walked thru toward the dogs.

They were popular in the hill country for bunkhouses. Still one very much in use on ranch where I was basically raised.

My Appalachian farmer grandparents in 1956, never had a tractor, truck nor car.

But they did have an old milk truck/van parked out back as a chicken coop.

The Benoits hunted out of a school bus camp in Northern Maine for decades.

I remember a story in one of the old readers about a family who turned an old street car into a home. I thought that it was a neat story, but didn't think it very realistic. Reading an old newspaper from just after WWII, when the housing shortage was a real problem, lo and behold, here was a story about a family doing that very thing.

Any thoughts on how you’d get the stench out of it? I don’t think I could fall asleep with the scent of Jheri curl and vomit and urine wafting around.

We have an old box car on the property that was used as a home in the 1920's or 30's after the original house burned down. It had 2 wood stoves in it at one point and windows on the south side facing the sun. In 1962 when we moved into the place the boxcar was in real good shape. It's not now but it would of been a great place to live if a guy had to.

kwg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago,_Burlington_and_Quincy_Railroad

Wasn't there some kid up in Alaska that thought a bus would make a great home? Didn't work out so well for him.

We have one guy here I know living in a 14'x14' shed, another in a little shack that looks like a chicken coop and a couple of lesbians living in a small camper. They've all been living that way for years. The one in the chicken coop has an outhouse out back. Don't know what the guy in the shed has for plumbing. The lesbians have the camper hooked up to a well and septic. A renovated bus would probably be an improvement for the shed and chicken coop dwellers.

Somewhere upstairs in a draw I have a photo I took when going down to Williamsburg, VA in 2005. It was a bus with a VW van welded to the top going down interstate 64.

There was an old bus used as a cabin parked for years up near our cabin, but it was finally towed away. It was a mice and chipmunk haven, I’m sure the snakes loved the rodent hotel too.

I have a buddy that put a 60+ pass. school bus up on 10'-12' poles to use as a hunting stand. I built him a nice little wood stove to keep it warm. I would post pics but the last time I checked, this site sucks to do that.

When I logged for Columbia Helicopters one of the pilots had a bus conversion..That thing was nice...Of all the RV's that guy could have had and he chose to convert a bus..

Some are pretty nice IMO...Example




Jayco👍

Nice, extra nice!

Sounds like a nice area.

It’s common to see busses turned into taquerias in various parts of the country. Making one into a cabin would be pretty simple.

A guy I worked with had a caboose for a hunting cabin.It was pretty nice as it had bunks ,a potbelly wood stove,and beanbag chairs for sitting.Also had the inside head that dumped onto the tracks.

I could see it now

Yep. Kind of common in AK. I met the guy who put the bus there that the kid died in. I was kind of doubtful about him until I saw him on a documentary about it. He has several buses spread out across AK. Gave him a ride to Manley hot springs where he stayed in a bus there.

When I was a kid in the 60's there were a bunch of them being used as hunting camps in rural Potter county PA. Seemed to work for the hunters.

That was/is Fairbanks 142. The bus was purchased from the city or school district and used as housing for workers. I think road construction workers maybe. When they finished the project, they just left the bus there in the woods beside a river. A wanderer/hermit named Chris McCandless found it and moved into it. He had to wade across a river to get to the bus. The river rose and he couldn't get out. He eventually starved or poisoned himself on wild herbs. The bus is still there. The movie Into The Wild chronicled his life.

For a long time, the bus was a favorite destination for hikers and backpackers. But I think that the guberment closed it to the public.

Chris McCandless

Into the Wild

The bus is gone

https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/202...after-years-of-hiker-rescues-and-deaths/

One last episode. Maybe the drama is over now.

Or maybe not "The bus will remain in storage at a secure location, and the state is considering options for its permanent placement, Feige said."

Looks like they’ve upstaged you by quite a bit.

Are you renting from them, by chance?

I spent a week camped in a schoolbus while elk hunting in Colorado, pretty snowy but we were comfortable.

Put a woodstove in anything, even a t111 shack and you got yourself a mansion.

That’s what I’m talking about !

Those little ship stoves are nice.

I have seen a few. Mostly school busses.
Some were better than others..
I guess a tour bus would give you insulation/storage with the luggage bays..


Read a story a couple of years ago about a guy who broke down in a van somewhere up north and covered the van in hay bales so he could survive through the winter.

Pretty spiffy with a TV dish on the roof!

going to be cold without spending a ton on insulation.

Those cheap single pane windows going to be drafty

My grandparents had a milk truck chicken coop in the 60's!!