Get on the Bus!
by Jill Cousins
While discussing her family’s unconventional new lifestyle in a phone interview with J Life magazine, former Lake Mary resident Nicole Damiano was suddenly distracted by a stunning sight. She was watching her children play on the edge of a river in Driggs, Idaho, located in the Teton Valley, just west of Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
“Oh! The cows are coming!” Nicole exclaimed at the sight. “The cows are crossing the river. They’re coming for dinner! There’s like five of them!”
Scenes like this are among the many perks that Nicole’s family – husband Adam and children Gavin (age 8), Jake (6), and Avilene (4) – have experienced since they decided to rent out their home, purchase and renovate a massive school bus (known as a skoolie), and begin living life on the road. Their journey began on December 29, 2020, and at the time of our interview in early July 2021 (on day 191 of the family’s trek), the end date for this adventure of a lifetime had yet to be determined.
Since hitting the road in their 2004 Blue Bird All American 40-foot bus, which gets a whopping eight miles per gallon, the Damianos have resided in countless locations in eight states, never staying more than 14 days in one place. They were, however, tempted to linger at Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona, which Nicole says was a highlight. In addition to cows, their wildlife sightings have included moose, bison, coyotes, turkeys, and surprisingly cute kangaroo rats.
Beauty in the Chaos
On Instagram (@the.kaja.project), Nicole has described their current life as “our perfect chaos.”
So, how did this Lake Mary High School graduate (Class of 1998) and former Millennium Middle School social-studies teacher come to embrace this nomadic lifestyle?
“Like, every three months, we get an itch and just start talking,” Nicole says of herself and Adam, who married in Thailand in July 2010 after teaching English in South Korea for a year. “Adam and I don’t let fear of the unknown – or that something might sound crazy – stop us, and we just do it. That’s what makes it exciting for us. It’s something different. And that’s what we need in life.”
Nicole was born in Massachusetts and at age six moved to Maitland, where her mom, Marla Appel, was a teacher at The Roth Family Jewish Community Center preschool. The family then moved to Lake Mary when Nicole was in eighth grade. Her father, Howie Appel, still lives in Lake Mary, and younger brother Brandon lives in Orlando. Her mother passed away in 2016 after a long bout with cancer.
When Nicole met Adam in 2007, through a Facebook chat room for
Americans looking to teach English in Japan, it was a match made in adventure heaven. After they married, the couple spent three months backpacking through Southeast Asia and then flew to Germany, where they rented a recreational vehicle and spent another three months driving through Europe.
After having an official wedding ceremony for their families in downtown Lake Mary in December 2010, the couple tried to make a go of it in Florida, but it was like reverse culture shock, Nicole says. A few months later, they moved to Denver. That lasted six months, and then the itch was back.
“We needed to get away again,” Nicole says. “We went to Japan to teach, but after about six weeks, it was not the experience we had hoped for. So we went back to Korea, where we had jobs on opposite sides of the country.”
Eight months later, Nicole discovered she was pregnant with her first child. At that point, her mother was very sick and was reluctant to keep fighting. Nicole made a deal with her: She would move back home if her mom would continue taking her medications. In September 2012, Nicole and Adam moved to Sanford, and Gavin was born in April 2013.
One year later, they moved to South Carolina, followed by a move back to Denver, where both Jake and Avilene were born. Then, in April 2017, Nicole says she and Adam – who had been working remotely as director of project management for an internet marketing company – were once again getting bored.
On a whim, they posted their house on a vacation rental website, and that turned into a six-month road trip with stops along the east coast of the United States as well as in Canada and Mexico.
From there, the Damianos spent a year living in Lake Tahoe, California, took all three kids to South Korea for a month, and then landed in a rental home in Tacoma, Washington. When they couldn’t afford to buy a house there, the Damianos packed up their bags again and moved to Kansas, where they bought their dream home in February 2020. Just two weeks after the kids started school, the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
“So, we rented out our house again and left,” Nicole says.
Catching the Bus
After trips to Ohio and Oregon, where they lived in rental properties, Nicole and Adam made the decision to buy the school bus – with the money they made from selling their Denver home – and hit the road. They searched online for the perfect skoolie and found it in Minnesota. Among the selling points were the bus’s rooftop solar panels, which supply all the necessary electricity, and a 200-gallon water filtration system, which provides enough drinking water for a month “off the grid.”
The family rented out their Kansas home and packed only the necessities, including five outfits of clothing per person. They headed south towards Palm Springs, California, and made their first stop at beautiful Joshua Tree National Park, where they spent the next two weeks. While Adam works remotely during the week, Nicole works part-time for his company but mostly plays the role of “mom and teacher and whatever,” she says.
Nicole and Adam named the bus Kaja, which means let’s go in Korean. Each time the Damianos head to another destination, they all start the trip by shouting in unison, “Kaja!”
“The kids were so excited when we decided to do this,” Nicole says. “Who doesn’t want to live in a school bus?”
Living the skoolie lifestyle has had so many perks for the Damianos. In addition to exploring the beauty of the country’s national parks, Nicole and Adam have stashed away tons of money into their retirement accounts while paying off all their debt, since they basically have no bills except for gas and food.
“We really do love this lifestyle, and I love how close our kids are,” Nicole says. “We are together, and we’re learning to support each other. I know they’re still young and this all might change, but for now, it’s really something special.”