A Nomadic Fleet: Vintage Bus, Camper Van and Boat

As we approach our 16th year on the road, it seems we have built a nomadic fleet.

And we’ve received a lot of questions on how it’s working out to manage a boat, a van and a bus. The quick answer – far better than we ever imagined.

Before we left Zephyr behind in Arizona this winter and took off in Blooper to return to our Y-Not, we took a moment to film a bit about our fleet and how each fits into our journey at this point in our life.

Zephyr – Our 1961 GM 4106 / SKP Co-Op

We purchased Zephyr in 2011 after an epic cross country train adventure to find our next RV – a vintage bus conversion.

We found our bus in the 115 degree heat of Yuma, AZ in June 2011 – and decided to name her Zephyr after the Amtrak train route we took to get across country to find her.

Zephyr was our third RV after several years on the road, and was our full time nomadic substrate up until 2017.

We love her 35′ length and sleek 8′ width with no slide. She’s a beauty, and we’ve poured a lot of heart into making her ours.

We’ve been through several rounds of renovations and an out of frame engine rebuild of her 8v71 2-stroke diesel engine.

She’s been an adventure of her own. These days, she’s our winter home base in Arizona, stored at the SKP Saguaro RV Co-Op where we own a lifetime lease to a lot with a cute little pink casita.

Our intentions are to return in the winters, maybe doing some southwest adventuring together. Although those intentions don’t always line up with reality.

For a full tour and history:
Zephyr: Our 1961 GM 4106 Vintage Bus Conversion

Y-Not – Our 1999 Bayliner 4788

When Chris and I were first dating back in 2006, we not only talked of me joining him in his RV adventures – but of future nomadic pursuits. Amongst them, boating – something we both had dreamed of before encountering each other.

We started our boat shopping in 2010, originally intent on sailing. But we soon figured out we likely weren’t well suited for a sailing cruising lifestyle at this time of our lives while still working full time.

We put the plan on the back burner until 2016 when we shifted focus to something that seemed more achievable while still in our careers – the Great Loop.

This leaned us towards a motor powered boat like a trawler or motor yacht, which led us to purchasing Y-Not in 2017. Y-Not was the original name give to our boat, because the first owner was name Tony (get it?).

We loved it, and decided to keep it… because Y-Not is a great answer for just about anything.

We knew we’d have to take the Loop slower than the traditional year to still work and stay sane – which would mean winterizing the boat as we reached northern climates. Thus the desire to keep Zephyr for splitting our time between cruising and RVing.

While the Great Loop hasn’t been completed yet after five years (maybe we will, maybe we won’t?), we have fallen in love with the cruising lifestyle in general.

We love having a mobile condo on the water to move between fantastic coastal towns to explore.

For a full tour and history:
Y-Not: Our 1999 Bayliner 4788 Motor Yacht

Blooper – Our 2020.5 Winnebago Travato GL

We ended up keeping our MINI Cooper after we got the boat, after discovering how easy it is to move a car from marina to marina as we move slowly up the coast.

We did one cross country trip from the boat to the bus in the MINI, and decided – not an optimal setup.

Since we really didn’t need a vehicle we could tow behind the bus anymore (we can always convoy for the shorter trips we might take), we landed on the idea of a camper van.

Something we could continue to easily park in marina lots, use as a daily driver, have a comfortable shuttle craft across country, keep RVing options open while boating and something that would be considered a car (not a second RV that we’d need to store) when back at our Co-Op in AZ.

After a lot of research the Travato G floorpan called us strongtly, and we purchased a used 2016 model in 2019 to try out the concept. It worked better than we ever thought. We named him Cooperinicus (Cooper) in homage to our Mini Cooper.

In 2020, we decided to upgrade to a newer and more spiffy lithium powered GL model. We named the new one Blooper, because well.. she’s our Blue Cooper.

We love the flexibility, and actually ended up spending more nights in our Travato in 2021 than the boat and bus.

For a full tour and history:
Blooper: Our 2020.5 Winnebago Travato 59GL Van Conversion

Cons

Having a fleet of nomadic vessels is overall just awesome and really fits our current lifestyle. We love the variety this affords us not only in location, but in what is currently our home.

At this point, we couldn’t chose just one. Or heck, just two.

But there are some downsides:

• When we’re in one of our nomadic vessels, we do miss the others. But nothing wrong with a little heart yearning.
• There’s maintenance on all three to keep them in tip top shape. That takes time, money and effort.
• We have to keep active insurance policies on all three. None of our policies have a ‘storage’ rate option, especially since our RVs cover our full time coverage that replaces the benefits one might get from a traditional house or rental policy (contents, liability, etc.).
• We selected traveling in our home so we didn’t have to move in and out of hotels or AirBnBs when moving about. We do have some moving effort when switching between each of our vessels. We do have each outfitted with their own dishes, bedding and accessories – so usually it’s just choosing which clothing is going with us, stocking the kitchen and moving the tech.
• When not in use, we do have to find storage. The bus is easy, it stays at our park in Arizona. The van is usually easy, as it’s almost always with us or is staying just a short time in a lot or with friends. The boat can be a challenge as we need either a safe feeling marina with friends to keep an eye on her, or hauling out. And the costs of storage aren’t too much less than when we’re aboard.

Costs

We’ve gotten the comment multiple times that owning a motorhome, a van and a boat just isn’t feasible for most average people.  Well first, striving to be ‘average’ has never been a goal. We’re quite happy being uniquely us.

But really, it’s much more accessible than many think. When you combine our purchase price of each of our vessels, it’s just about $270k. Not including the upgrades we’ve made to each, of course.

 

Now sure, that’s a lot of money. And all are supposed to be considered depreciating assets (not true in the craziness of the current RV and boating market, not that we bank on that).

But we also don’t own a traditional home or any other vehicles.

And when we find a city that speaks to our hearts, we always hop on Zillow to see what housing is going for. We’d honestly be hard pressed to find a modest home for less than that. And if we owned a home, we’d likely have to have a car. And we’d still have insatiable wanderlust and spend a lot on traveling or keeping an RV or boat anyway.

Instead, we have three awesome houses that can move and have almost always million dollar views.