Hey my name is George Holiday I am a freelance songwriter and producer
we're in Croatia at the minute at festivals because I'm doing some
songwriting and some performing with some artists I have loads of friends that
are guitarists and singers and I was so jealous I'm just getting on planes
going and like sitting on the beach and recording and writing really cool music
and then as a keys player I never got the opportunity to do that
so I was gonna buy Sprinter van and then my mum actually found this bus. She was
like I know this isn't what you're looking for but are you interested in
going check this out and then the next day I put the deposit down so now it's a
10 meter vehicle I have an HTV licence to drive like 30 tonnes now and now I
live in it full-time as well I never thought I'd like want to live
full-time in a van or a bus and I absolutely love it. Having musicians call
me and say and "I really want to Italy I don't know what the sound of Italy is like"
I can take them there and then we can just live and travel it's just like
a texture that you can't get in the studio.
This is my Mercedes it's an eight one four is the model. diesel engine four and a half litres, gets about 20 miles to
the gallon a 2001 model it's only done like 85,000 miles used to be an old
library bus in the UK they just go around schools so used to be owned by
the council sort of serviced every 3,000 miles we've got three solar panels on top
which gives us I think it's six hundred watts of power we've got the equivalent
of this for our leisure which is underneath the bed these are our big
batteries that like run the bus these are 155 amp hours each
quite a lot and now they have got flat on us once which is not fun because
you can't move the whole bus without these working another thing that I love
about this bus is like here you can block off all the Isolators when we
stood still I can turn that off and then I can also isolate and turn off all my
lights like if I'm going out for the evening I can turn that off and know
that everything's not draining any battery we have a hookup but I rarely
use it actually because most of the time we tried to do like wild camping as much
as possible tech geeky stuff for all the electrics so we have like isolator
switches fuse boxes I have a battery charger in here that's running for like
24 volts they also charged in 12 volt but our whole system on here is 24 volt
24 volts simple answer is just because all the gear I already use is 24 volts
my favorite little feature is this reversing camera in the back here I have
a huge heater keep all my gas and we have all of our like Isolators so that
when we're driving we can just lock it all out it makes me feel super safe but
then and I also keep quite barbeque in here this is like the exhaust from the
boiler that's like inside for the heater I always go through the driver's door
the reason being is my all the other doors are like bolted from the inside
for extra security and then on the outside I have this great big a lot
called a UFO lock these are really great because you can't like just wrench all the
screws on the inside you can't just like wrench them of., so inside, so inside
my dad is a carpenter so he helped me with like cupboards and built stairs and
helped with like a lot of the decor in the kitchen and and helped with ideas
I brought a lot of ideas to the table and he'd sit there and go "no you
don't want to do that" or he'd sit there and go "yeah cool I think you
should do it like this though in a different way" so like these tables
fold flat I would have just built solid tables so his ideas have been great yeah
he was a big part of like helping make this like a reality I'm very much like
it an ordinary guy that's just tried to build something so you know I'm a
musician not like a craftsman it was tough process but like I think
you just gotta throw yourself in and learn along the way the main focus of
building this bus was that I wanted a studio in it the first bit that I was
like thinking about and how much do I need as a producer I used to have loads
of loads more gear like loads of outboard get here and there in my little
studio at home with technology being so good I was just like how much do I need
to have and really its speakers as a key player I need a keyboard and a laptop
for all the sounds. Adam a7 speakers. I've built like a bit of a bass trap wall
behind this which is useful as well because that's part of where the door
goes to it only came to here but it's not like a big bass trap wall which is
great because I don't need a sub on here now my favorite keyboard ever is the Nord Stage 2
we have azden microphones on board they pretty much record anything
not just vocals like they're great for Strings and guitars. Focusrite is what we
use for our interfaces because they're just super small and light and easy
sometimes we do like video work for brands and it means we can like pull up
into their business go in and start filming and doing all the things we need
to do and then we come back here start editing on the screens and then by the
end of their working day we can get the bosses in to sit down and literally watch
what we've been doing. I guess the laptop is like the workhorse of everything.
Upfront I really wanted an area that we could all like sit down on have meetings
and like sit and chat but also people can sit and get away from the writing
session a little bit but still be involved in it
so these free chairs all spin like individually and they lock in place for like
driving and stuff and here is the screen for the reverse camera like my favorite thing
black and white and sometimes it flickers but what you can't do with new
TVs is like whack it and you can whack this one and it works if I whacked that
one it would break this was one of my favorite features when I got it as a
library bus that was originally in here and I wanted to keep it so when I have
guests this is one of the beds it hides all of the tech stuff so I've been little
lock on this side that slides out behind here I keep all my like I've got a water
tank 75 litre water tank which it isn't that big that it works out great for
like two people living on here my heater sleeping bags to people when they're in
the tent we have a tent on board so we can keep all that stuff like Wi-Fi
router box just bits and bobs you don't need that often that drops down and
there you have a bet but it means we can have like you know two extra people and
we also have a Z bed that goes down here so we can sleep like five people
but it gets quite cramped so we don't tend to do that too often kitchen was
like something I really wanted to keep feeling like it was in a flat I wanted
actual cooker because I really love cooking it's my way to switch off
gas for when we're off-grid and when we plugged in it's also electric which is
super useful but it's it my main thing was that I wanted a gas like fire cooker
pretty standard sink but most people like love that this thing drops down
just to create more counter space and we also have like a fridge freezer this
one's actually 24 volt which I've sometimes felt was an issue if we're
like off-grid for quite a while sucks up a lot of power for like the freezer so
I'm potentially going to downsize to like 12 volt so back here we've got like a double
bedroom so we have like TV up on the wall which isn't necessary but it's so
nice to have film nights tons of storage a whole bed as well lifts
the whole bed lifts up I mean we don't have like a back door so we couldn't
build it up and do like what they what people doing like transits and
Sprinter vans this is their only other alternative actually saving space under
the bed batteries are also in like another locker that's underneath there a
full-size wardrobe for hanging shirts and the bathrooms in here it's quite a basic
bathroom we have a full like electric flushing toilet quirky features is the
tap becomes the shower and it's hot water so you can have like
a proper shower storage above as well but keeping it like pretty basic
small but very satisfying features all the blinds
pull them down and they just stay IKEA fully recommend IKEA for stuff like that
the most popular question I get about travelling in this bus is like how did
you afford to do this and it works out like 6,000 pound a year is what I'm on
track for like so far like spending wise the cost of the whole thing to do I
bought it for 11 and a half thousand pounds spent three and a half on it
because I was trying to recycle an upcycled as most of the deposit yeah the
whole projects was like 15,000 pound it's definitely cheaper than people
think it's gonna be and I know a lot of people that do it that still have their
jobs and they haven't they don't travel too much they just live in it because
it's just cheaper to do. you can see and experience so much more like living in a
bus whether you're a creative person or whether you just want to bring your
costs down anyone that's like not afraid to make some sacrifices in terms
of like you really realize how lucky you are turning on your tap at home where as here
you've got to think about it a little bit more it's a small sacrifice to be
able to see the world I don't have a ton of money and I still get a sea view like
every day so that would be my biggest recommendations if you want to see the
world and change your view every day and feel just like different inspiration
from different places 100% do it