Land Yacht – Our 1998 Thomas MVP Saf-T Liner Bus Conversion

We were traveling in a 22-foot Travelcraft RV, and we took a camping trip with our good friends to Greenwater, Washington, where we were asked if we had ever thought about tiny living or seen people converting and living in a school bus. At the time, we had seen some converted vans for weekenders and some tourist camping spots, but we had never considered fully converting a school bus into a tiny home.

She showed us a few YouTube videos of people who had just started their conversions, and we thought it was such a cool idea. We sold the RV after that trip and started looking into the Skoolie life. We watched so many videos and did a ton of research to learn as much as we could before we started our build.

We only looked at three buses before settling on our 1998 Thomas MVP Saf-T Liner. We chose the Saf-T Liner because it was a diesel pusher with an 8.3 turbo diesel Cummins and a 4-speed Allison transmission, and it was within our budget. This bus also already came from the factory with an interior height of 6.5′ so we didn’t feel the need to do a roof raise, although it would be nice to have a bit more headroom at times.