- Maggie Peddicord and her boyfriend, Joseph, bought a school bus and traveled in it for one year.
- To fund their journey and bus expenses, they both started working on the handiwork app Taskrabbit.
- They also made connections through Taskrabbit that helped them in their respective careers.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Maggie Peddicord, a 25-year-old gig worker on Taskrabbit and student based in Fort Collins, Colorado. It's been edited for length and clarity.
I'm a graduate student, a Tasker on Taskrabbit, and a health coach. My boyfriend, Joseph Chazin, 28, is also a Tasker.
Before I started on Taskrabbit, I worked as a research assistant at Cincinnati Children's Hospital. I decided to leave my job because I wasn't passionate about it and wanted to focus on living, working, and traveling on a bus I bought with my boyfriend.
We met in the Outer Banks in North Carolina when I took a surfing lesson offered by the shop he managed. We've always had the urge to travel together, and we were inspired by all the nomads and van lifers we saw on Instagram. Joseph is also an avid windsurfer and had been wanting to travel to more windsurfing spots.
We bought a 'skoolie' in July 2021 to make our dream a reality
We took the leap and bought our traveling home, Willow the Skoolie, a 2004 25-foot international school bus, for $22,500 from a Texas couple we found on Facebook. We put $2,000 into it when we bought it for a new battery, a new electrical system, a new roof rack and Thule rooftop storage, and a bed-to-dinette conversion.
We waited to move into it until April 2022 because Joseph was finishing his last season as a manager of the surf shop, and I was wrapping up a research project at work in Ohio.
Once we moved in and started traveling, it cost about $500 a month for gas and other repairs and about $250 a month for groceries.
By autumn, we knew that we would run out of savings if we didn't find ways to make money. We found the Taskrabbit app and created profiles while we were in Seattle in October 2022.
I started with several skills on my profile
I was frequently hired for indoor painting, yard work, and organization, but I was most often hired for cleaning, which became my focus.
Joseph started out by offering indoor painting and yard work. As time went on, he slowly started jumping into furniture assembly, cleaning, personal-assistant work, packing, and unpacking.
My hours varied, but I was working the most when we were in San Diego. I did about 20 hours a week, and Joseph averaged 10 to 15 hours. My income averaged $800 a month, and Joseph averaged about $500.
Here are the biggest downsides to living on the bus
Living in a "skoolie" presents you with many chores and challenges, but we felt the trade-off was more than worth it.
There were a few times when we struggled to find clean water to refill our tanks. We also dealt with our battery occasionally running low on power, so we would turn off the fridge to save the battery until we could recharge at places such as campsites.
We had a shower and a bathroom — we just needed to be cognizant of how much water we were using, especially if we were in a more remote area and didn't have immediate access to a dump station or water refill.
Finding places to park overnight, especially in cities, was also a significant challenge.
Despite the challenges, we got to see so many places
We traveled and lived in San Diego; Seattle; the Outer Banks; Washington, DC; Columbus, Ohio; Northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula; Missoula, Montana; Skokomish, Washington; San Francisco; and Los Angeles. San Diego was the best city for Taskrabbit gigs.
We're lovers of the outdoors, and Taskrabbit helped us see 11 national parks. We'd work a few weeks in a city, including Seattle, then take a couple of weeks to visit a nearby national park.
After about a year of traveling, in July, we both moved back home to focus on developing our careers. I'm in Colorado finishing my master's degree, and Joseph is in San Diego working in yacht sales. We hope to travel full time again in the near future and are working on saving to buy a new van in 2025, when I graduate.
We still do Taskrabbit gigs as needed and plan to work on the platform more consistently once we return to van life.
Here's my best advice for being a nomadic Tasker
For those who are also interested in traveling and being a Tasker, I recommend having reliable transportation such as a bike, scooter, or e-bike, or learning how to use public transportation in the city you're in. Because of the size of our vehicle, we sometimes had to get creative with transportation to job sites.
If you're using public transit, I also recommend making sure your Tasker map range is drawn to include neighborhoods and areas that are easily accessible by the public-transportation system so there's less stress during your commute.
We were surprised that working for Taskrabbit gave us networking opportunities with clients. I was able to find people who were also in the health and wellness space and form connections and collaborations as a health coach.
Joseph networked with Taskrabbit clients by finding people who might be interested in selling or purchasing a yacht one day. If you're a Tasker, be open to the opportunities that can come from the people who hire you.
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