the art of taking your home everywhere

The art of taking your home everywhere

South America

“Living in a motorhome is a very new experience for us. The thing that motivates me the most is Brian, since I was little. One of the first words he learned to speak was “Boo”. He arrived on the bus and was already talking; “Boo, boo.” During the trips he is the happiest, every time he realizes that we are going to travel, he is very happy”, says Lucas, Brian’s father.

You know that desire to be like a turtle, have your house on your back and go around aimlessly? For some this may just be a dream, but for the characters in this edition of Vozes, this was a dream that became reality. This is the story of Lucas, Paty and little Brian, this family that has their house on wheels.

Lucas and Paty have been together for 14 years and just over 3 years ago they added another member to the family, Brian. The idea of ​​having a bus was a dream that Lucas had since he was little and that became reality due to a great deal of luck. They had a car worth around R$12 thousand and they found a bus that was being sold for R$20 thousand. As they didn’t have the money to make up the difference, they offered an exchange with the bus owner and managed it, without having to return the difference.

With everything going well from the beginning, it was time to get down to business. After all, according to Lucas himself: “there was no point in having the bus and leaving it parked in the garage”. That’s where the idea of ​​making the motorhome came from. With the idea in mind, they began to disassemble the bus, working on each part of it. The harder they worked, the more excited they became.

A 1992 bus, with TV, double bed, some single beds, bathroom with hot and cold water, kitchen and solar energy. It looks like a luxury hotel, but it’s a house on wheels. In order to live comfortably, you have all the appliances you would have in a “normal” house. It took a year to build, inside the garage itself. The investment was approximately R$50 thousand.

Motorhome: how to make your dream come true

The assembly process usually begins with disassembly. “In my case, I started by dismantling the bus bench, removing the trunk. After it was just on the bodywork, I started doing the thermal insulation and covering the sides. Assembly does not follow an exact sequence, after assembling all the hydraulic and electrical parts, it is time to start furnishing the car. It’s time to put up the beds, the bathroom, place the water tanks and go to the kitchen. One thing depends on the other. There’s no way to do it all at once, it’s a bit of a complicated puzzle”, guarantees Lucas.

The first trip they took with the already adapted bus was to a travelers’ meeting. When they got there, the surprise: people already knew their YouTube channel and wanted to see the motorhome and take photos. For them it was all big news, after all, they had spent a year working in their garage, making videos, without knowing what was happening in the world outside.

“When we left home and went to this meeting, when we realized that there were so many people who liked it, I was speechless. It was a very good feeling. The vibe is speechless. I advise anyone who wants to know how it works, to go to a meeting of travelers and then you will get the real dimension of those who travel and you will feel the energy of travelers, of detachment. Seeing people sharing a hose, an extension cord, having a barbecue. It’s really cool.”

After that, they traveled through the interior of São Paulo, through historic cities in Minas Gerais and in Rio de Janeiro. For now, they still don’t live on the bus all the time, this is a dream for the future. As they don’t have much free time, they started traveling nearby. The biggest project is to build Route 66, in the United States.

renovated motorhome with beds and TV

Motorhome: YouTube channel and courses

When they started thinking about building their own motorhome, they searched the internet and didn’t find much reference. The videos were from the USA and there was a lot of reference on how to assemble a Kombi, but never how to assemble a bus. From then on, they saw the need to produce material to help those who, like them, also wanted to have a home that could go with them everywhere. And that’s how “Motorhome the dream” came about, their YouTube channel.

Both on YouTube and in the courses, they answer all kinds of questions, but documentation is among the most common. These are questions like: which is the best vehicle: small car, kombi or bus? How do you build a bathroom, water tank, insulation, what materials to use? They respond to everything!

“We set up the bus and the canal and now wherever we go with the bus, people pass by honking their horns, calling us on social media. Wherever we go, there are people calling to come and see their motorhome, they want to see ours, it’s really cool”, says Lucas.

Documentation, a separate concern

“In Brazil, the bureaucracy is very large. Because of this, many people end up giving up on building a motorhome, but as it is growing a lot, this scenario is changing. Many people are already able to carry out documentation and artisanal assemblies.”

According to Lucas, this is the biggest difficulty. People often want to transform their vehicles, go to the responsible bodies to ask for information and do not receive much support. He says that because the culture of assembling homemade motorhomes is still very small and weak, when people go to the agency to do the documentation, employees are generally unaware of the subject.

To regularize the documentation, the interested person needs to go to DETRAN, get the car’s documentation, go to INMETRO and inspect the already transformed vehicle. After the inspection, you must return to DETRAN and issue a new document, changing from a van or bus to a motorhome. “Basically that’s it, but you need to meet some requirements, you need to be very informed, but it varies according to each vehicle. Depending on the state, it can also change”, advises Lucas.

The tip for those who want to build their own motorhome is to have patience, determination and keep an eye on the DETRAN in your city to find out about the legislation in your state. Furthermore, good luck, good retirement and good travels!

The Voices

Vozes is a special newsletter, sent every fortnight, where we tell stories of extraordinary people and projects, who use the world of travel to transform the world. From time to time the content is published here on the blog too, but if you always want to receive the texts, and first hand, subscribe to our newsletter. It’s free and you also get an ebook full of tips for planning your first trip abroad.

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