Muralist and graphic designer Rita Carr bought a secondhand Ford minibus for $3,500 in 2020.
She then spent $9,000 converting it into a mobile tiny home and studio.
The 31-year-old has since visited 48 states in three years while working on the road.
Rita Carr said she'd always loved the idea of living and working on the road.
In 2020, she decided to take the plunge, setting off on a six-month road trip across the US in her Jeep Wrangler.
But the muralist and graphic designer said that after a while she started to find that the Jeep was too small for what had turned into "a full-time lifestyle."
So in August 2020 she bought a secondhand Ford minibus, which had close to 400,000 miles on it, for around $3,500.
She then spent a week — and $9,000 — converting it into a mobile tiny home and studio.
Carr told Insider how she converted it and how she crafted a new life on the road.
The first thing she did after buying the minibus was wash it.
Rita Carr
Carr said that when she got the minibus, it had a "hideous mildew green" color and moss growing down the side of it.
"I pressure washed it on the outside and once it was dry the next day I sanded it all down and painted the whole thing pink," she said.
It took her six hours to paint.
Rita Carr
She initially planned to live in the bus for six months, but she's now been living in it for three years, she said.
"After painting it, my dad helped me take the seats out of the bus — there were eight or nine seats in it and they were really heavy," she said.
"There's a wheelchair lift and I borrowed a fork lift and took that out of it. Once I had it cleaned from the inside I took a pressure washer and cleaned it all from floor to ceiling," she added.
Carr stripped out the minibus and added flooring.
Rita Carr
She said she put down flooring, added lighting to the top, and used tape on the floor to figure out where she wanted to put her bed and the kitchen — but she added that she left most of the minibus intact.
She moved into it a week after buying it, she said.
"I lived in it in a parking lot for a month while I finished building it out, which was wild," she continued. "I look back on that and I'm like that was so uncomfortable I can't imagine doing that now."
It has a bed area, kitchen, studio space for her to work, a bathroom, and an outdoor shower.
Rita Carr
The minibus has an outdoor shower on the back doors, and Carr said she would hang a curtain and shower outside for around half the year.
But if it's cold where she's staying, she said she'd use the bathroom inside of the bus, which has a composting toilet.
"I can shower inside when it's winter, but I don't love to do that," she said. "It's just a little bit messier and cramped and it's kind of fun showering outside."
The renovation cost her around $9,000, she said.
Rita Carr
The total cost of renovating the minibus — including registration, engine work, insurance, solar panels, the kitchen, and the bathroom — was around $9,000, Carr said.
"I had a $10,000 budget when I started," she added. "I used the extra $1,000 for gas to get from the East Coast to the West Coast."
Carr started getting work painting murals on walls for breweries.
Rita Carr
Within six months of setting off on her road trip, Carr said she started doing graphic design for breweries that she came across.
Her first client was a brewery in Dallas, Texas, which asked if she could make the art for its beer can labels.
"I've always been an artist, but I never really considered that creating art could actually be a real career for me," she said. "A few months into doing that as a side gig, I was doing around two or three beer labels a month. Then I started considering that I could get more clients."
She picked up more clients on the road.
Rita Carr
Carr said she visited a lot of breweries as they were usually air conditioned and dog-friendly, adding that she would often speak to the owners and give them her business card.
"Living in the pink bus has also attracted some clients because they think it's interesting and funny," Carr said.
She added that she has a handful of breweries that provide her with a consistent amount of work.
Half of her income comes from creating murals and the other half comes from graphic design work.
Rita Carr
When she gets graphic design work, like designing beer bottle labels, Carr said she works from the studio that she's set up inside the minibus.
She's visited the 48 contiguous US states.
Rita Carr
"I travel based on pleasure and then I'll be able to just work my own hours and as long as I meet my client deadlines, I can pretty much work whenever, wherever I want," Carr said.
She said she'd visited all 48 contiguous US states in the three years she's been living in the bus, but added that she'd spent a lot of her time between Southern California and Colorado.
She likes to visit places that are off the beaten path.
Rita Carr
"I made a point to get to a lot of places that are off the beaten path and spent a lot of time in small towns, meeting people, and understanding the culture of America," Carr said.
She said she'd driven through a lot of the Midwest and visited all of the Great Lakes.
Last fall, she said she also drove along the east coast from Maine to Quebec.
Carr said she's much happier now.
Rita Carr
"When I look back on my old job and lifestyle, I think I was trying to achieve all these traditional measures of success," she said.
Carr said she used to live in a condo in a townhouse in a "fancy" part of Dallas, Texas — but when she looks back on her old life, she sees that she was "massively unhappy."
"I had used life achievements to strive for happiness," she said. "I felt like achieving the next career title or the next pay raise would impress my parents enough or be a mark of success that proved to everybody that I was happy. Now I get to do what I love."
People underestimate how exhausting it is living in a tiny space, Carr said.
Rita Carr
Carr said it could be "taxing" having to be resposible for so many different things.
"You have to be very responsible and scarce with your water consumption and you have to locate fresh water on a weekly basis as well as power," she said.
Giving yourself breaks is important.
Rita Carr
Carr said that she sometimes found all the travel and work tiring.
"Last summer I decided to stop moving for six months and stayed in one town," she said, adding that she took a break from work and got a job bartending for a few months.
"It was nice to have a stable community for a while and to listen to what my body and soul needed. There's a lot of pressure with van life to live an aesthetically pleasing life and go on adventures but sometimes what you really need after doing so much is having a community around you and to take it easy," she added.
Carr said she's now certain about what she wants out of life.
Rita Carr
"I've loved getting to know myself better, meeting new people from around the world, and figuring out how it all works," she said.
"I'm certain who I am now and what I want out of life. I know all decisions I make in the future will be well-thought out rather than something I fall into. I know I have the skillset to survive and thrive in the future," she added.
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