“Buy a bus, pull out the seats and road trip around with your best friends.”
This is just the sort of vaguely inspiring quote that you often see shared on your Facebook feed, and then scroll right past it, perhaps feeling a vague sense that you’re missing out on some big adventure somewhere. Well, not everyone is quite so blasé. Last year, six young Australian friends came across that quote, and decided to do just as it said.
On realising they wanted a grand adventure, the six friends saved up, quit their jobs and moved to Canada, where they bought a beat-up old bus. They then spent several months doing it up by hand, with the aim of road-tripping across the U.S. The group, including a lawyer, an engineer and a financial adviser, knew it was a risky decision, but they figured the prospect was too exciting to pass up.
The build ended up taking three months, while the group worked at a ski resort in Banff. Starting with no tools and limited experience, they converted the bus into a beast of an RV known as ‘The Moose‘. When it was done, they headed south to chase the dream, road tripping through some of the most picturesque parts of America.
All six saved for a year to make the trip possible, spending somewhere in the region of $17,000 CAD to buy the bus and fit it out. They bought a National Parks Pass for $80 US – not a bad deal at all – and stayed at van parks around the United States.
They blew a water gasket on the way to Coachella, but a kindly man in Idaho was able to help out, and they reckon that old school buses like theirs are so common in the US that the price of spare parts is negligible.
