It is a strange set of circumstances that leads to someone waking up one day and suddenly deciding “I think I’m going to buy a bus.” As you might expect, beer was definitely involved, but not in the way you might think. Well, not entirely in the way you might think.

In 2014, brothers Evan and Hayden Faram started TheCoolestStuffInTexas.com, a blog dedicated to highlighting, you guessed it, the coolest stuff in Texas. “Whether it’s your favorite Texas craft beer, local taco joint, or floatin’ down the Frio river with nothing but water shoes and a cold Texas beer,” the site’s about page says, “we want to know about it so we can share the experience with Texans across the world.”

Of course, covering everything there is to eat, drink and do in Texas isn’t exactly a small task. While Texas may be less than half the overall size of Alaska (aka Canada Minor), it still covers nearly 270,000 square miles of plains, deserts, forests and beaches, and Texas is home to three of the top 10 most populous cities in the U.S. It’s not really something you could cover with a couple of road trips and a few weekend outings.

“We were traveling around the state crammed into a car, having to stop at coffee shops to hijack their wifi so we could update the website, and having to wait until we stopped for the night to write posts, and we didn’t even know where that would be,” Evan told me. “We would crash on couches, camp, and shell out money for a hotel, which we couldn’t afford.”

In a day and age when most people under the age of 30 aren’t buying homes or even cars, the brothers purchased a retired Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) bus with the goal of turning it into their mobile office, studio and bunkhouse.

“We decided that a bus that was outfitted specifically for our needs – i.e. bedrooms, bathrooms, wifi, and workspaces – would be the most efficient way we could travel the state and produce meaningful, useful content without having a large network of writers all over Texas,” Evan said. “This bus, essentially, would allow us to be in a bunch of different places at once. Almost.”

Back the Bus

Unfortunately, a well-used public transit bus does not come with all the amenities of home or the office, and Evan and Hayden realized that the bus needed a lot of work before it could be the mobile batcave they needed. Aside from outfitting the bus with essentials like beds and running water, they also needed a generator or solar panels for electricity, reliable wifi, and workspaces, none of which would come cheap.

Despite feeling a bit awkward at first about asking strangers for money “hat in hand”, they decided to turn to Kickstarter for help, but they found that running a successful crowdfunding campaign is easier said than done.

“Running a Kickstarter was much more labor intensive than I expected,” Evan said. “Before we started, I thought we would click ‘Launch’ and sit back for thirty days and watch the money roll in. Not at all.”

The initial goal for the campaign was $7,000, with a stretch goal of $9,000 to make the bus greener by using roof-mounted solar panels instead of a gas-powered generator for electricity. As with most crowdfunding campaigns, the brothers saw a steep drop-off in donations after the initial excitement of the Kickstarter launch.

“The first two days were really great, and then everything just came to a halt. We got pretty nervous after a week or so and then realized that the money wouldn’t be there if we weren’t searching for it and asking for it.”

Despite the mid-campaign slump, the Back the Bus Kickstarter turned around with less than a week to go and became fully funded with only a few days left. In the end, the campaign earned $10,000, reaching its stretch goal with a little extra remaining. While a good portion of the money is going into refurbishing the bus, Evan and Hayden told me that some of it will also go toward making the Coolest Stuff site better with higher quality video and more frequent updates.

With a fully mobile office and living space, the Coolest Stuff guys could theoretically live and work anywhere, and I asked why they would choose to stay in Texas.

“People can eat any ice cream anywhere. Why eat only Blue Bell?” Evan asked. “Because it’s the best and it’s ours. I’ve spent the last seven years outside of Texas. In that time, Ive been to over 23 other states and more than 11 different countries and all the while my soul never crossed the Red River. That might not have answered your question but it’s the best I can explain it. No matter where I live, Texas is home.”

The bus is still a work in progress, but once it is finished, the Coolest Stuff guys plan on crowdsourcing their destination ideas through their website and social media. They also plan on eventually having a way for fans to track their location, sort of like a food truck, but instead of selling you food, they eat yours.

While the “Back the Bus” Kickstarter campaign is over, the video is still worth watching:

Images courtesy of The Coolest Stuff in Texas