I did that Yirme,
moved from Ontario to BC
now moved back but still miss BC and my friends there!

I bought a School Bus from the board, went to the Mechanics that service them, told them what I wanted to do and why. They listened to me, told me which School Bus had what issues. Every School Bus had problems. The one they recommended to me only had one issue that he was aware of. I was told it needed a new Rad Core, so I ripped it out myself, took it too a Rad Shop and had it re-cored. Make sure you get a new Rad Cap as well, I did not and had problems all across Canada until someone told me about that, $15 fix, no more problems.

In BC School Buses from Ontario are sought after as they have a different set of rules there. (that was then, this is now, so who knows now?) I picked up my School bus from the Depot for about $1000, $400 to fix the Rad, no other repairs. I removed the seats using a torch, in future would use an angle grinder with a better quality cutting blade to remove the nuts now. Mine was a Propane powered Bus, much cheaper to run. Although Northern Ontario was way more expensive to fill up in past Barrie, way more.

Lived in the Bus for the first Year and a half - wished afterwards I had not sold it, but that is another story.
Sold the Ontario School Bus for $5k, paid for everything in the trip from purchase, fuel and food.

Other lessons;
keep only speciality items, do not move most tools, you can get everything there for the same price or cheaper, sell it off
do not move furniture - cheap there, go to Auctions or Garage Sales, or Win Lotto and keep it or just go buy everything NEW
unless it has sentimental values, sell it off or give it away.

Keep 75% of the seats in the bus, you can sell it faster and easier that way to some Logging company that wants it for taking peeps up and down the mountains! Lesson learned
take out the back 5 or so rows, put all the rest of your stuff in between the seats, secure for travel
The last 5 or so rows you can put your bed there, build a platform, turn seats around use them for platform. If your bed is comfy, take it, boy o boy lesson learned there. Yes you can buy beds there, but you have a nice comfy one, KEEP it.

So all you need now is a Fridge, options;
get a smal bar fridge run off inverter
get a RV fridge, run off inverter while driving, propane when stationary
get a Koolatron, run while driving (wrap with stuff to keep it cool overnight) Takes way lots of power, unless engine is running!
buy fuel from Truck Stops, they give you shower coupons, you and the wife then only need One coupon
buy groceries along the way for fresh stuff use your prepper food for the staples and as a way to rotate it out, normal drill then.

So that is a few ideas, now some on vehicles
Look for Diesel, yes Diesel is now more expensive, advantages Diesel is also more energy and fuel efficient
Look for a Decent Box Type Truck, Diesel, use it to move in, keep as Bug out Vehicle, secondary vehicle or movable shed and power plant in BC
Look for Diesel School Bus
Sell everything, everything off, Fly there, get another car, drive there quicker in a Car or Pickup, buy everything there

If you drive there, Stop in Alberta, get Alberta Mailing Box address, drivers licence, etc
move to BC then or Foot Steps of Rockies stay in Alberta enjoy it there.
if move to BC tell everyone you are from Alberta, you will get jobs easier, able to pay Mortgage then, most BC hates people from Ontario, will not give them jobs unless you are in the Lower Mainland, lesson learned hard way.

Thanks for the tips Wilderness Return. We thought about buying a school bus and using it as a moving van. However we have a SUV - small house trailer combo that should work. It's tough to let some possessions go but we are currently downsizing our things. The big question is what to do with our dehydrated food supplies. Thanks for the insight on getting a job there. I'm curious, why did you move back to Ontario?

My ex wife is there, well first ex wife,
and see the whole job thing! I could only get work in Whistler area, so expensive and came back for family.

Well I would put all the dehydrated and speciality food supplies in the house trailer, sleep in the SUV till I got there, then put up a shelter and store the food stuff there, just a thought.
Keep guns/weapons/knives
keep food supplies that are lighter, get rid of the Metal can stuff, buy there.
keep speciality tools e.g. extra thick heavy duty jumper cables that you just can not buy anymore, unless you sell off a kid or two
keep mementoes, mementoes do not include furniture unless Grandpa made it.
keep solar or wind power items, sell batteries though you should just keep one for now
keep your water purifiers

Buying stuff out there makes sense as you realize every pound is adding to drag and fuel costs. Both Men and Women normally like Auctions, so you get to go to an Auction and She gets to shop all at the same time! We did that, and I gotta say, I could afford better furniture, fixtures and tools than going to a store and buying them, even on sale.

Now if you have the money, why not buy a School Bus as well, load it up, drive both vehicles out there? When you get there, you have movable storage and storage that is cheap cheap as well. Or sell it when you get there, might take a few months hold out on the price and I am sure it will pay for itself. With the new porty hand held communication devices, you do not need to get two CB units unless you already have one or two. The little units put out amazing power and can be hear for miles, they are also better than the CB's for distance in most cases, even between vehicles. Some also have an antennae as an option, great for vehicle to vehicle.

My wife and I are here in BC right now and are thinking of taking a trip across Canada sson, at least to northern Ontario as we look for a place to settle down and put our homestead together.
I was born and raised in southern Ontario until I joined the military and went west to brrrrrrr Edmonton, Alberta. On leave I went to Vancouver and have never left BC again. The reason we are going as far as northern Ontario to look for our “perfect” place is the cost. Here in BC they want and arm and a leg for land and seeing as I am an amputee and only have one leg as it is, I choose to let go of neither. Hopefully land is more reasonable there.
If we could find a good place here in BC we would stay but who knows, if we can’t find the right place we will be back in BC after the summer and begin a more intensive investigation for land.
A number of years ago after owning houses and acquiring enough possessions for ten people we sold almost everything we had and bought a truck and large 5th wheel trailer and have been nomads ever since. The only regret we have about buying the trailer is that we didn’t do it sooner. Life has been that good and more.
When we decided to sell off our possessions I came to realize that it is only STUFF. The real great memories are in your mind and you will never get rid of them. After selling it all off we realized how much actual stuff we had that was only valuable to us and we have not regretted getting rid of what we did one little bit.
I am not sure about how expensive the basics are in northern Ontario but for whatever reason everything is more expensive here in BC. Sure there will be a few exceptions but overall they charge extra in BC because they can.
If you have any questions that you think I might be able to help with feel free to contact me here on the site or at my email address of:
enhannigan@hotmail.com.

Noli illigitimi carborundum
(Don’t let the bastards get you down)

WildernessReturn and Captain Ahab,

Yes, no doubt family, employment and housing are a major draw.

We went out to SW Alberta and Okanagan, BC and had a working vacation for two years back in 2006 - 2008. I found it easy to find jobs as a trucker but in retrospect I guess I was lucky. I found most BC folks to be friendly enough with a few exceptions. I did experience some fellow employees who lacked the basic human courtesy of greeting one's presence with a hello, a grunt or anything. That was a turn-off.

We did a survey of available real estate and didn't find anything acceptable within our price range of less than $150,000. If we go to BC, obtaining a house and property doesn't look promising. We will either have to get an RV and nomad it or buy shares in a prepper community. Housing and taxes are very reasonable in Northern Ontario and hence our return back here.

We have non-prepper friends who could put us up in the Kamloops, BC area but the big cost is moving all our stuff out there. And with the war looming in the Middle East the price of fuel may double and time may be too short to hunker down. At one point, we were minimalists and had few possessions and now we've collected way too much stuff. Though time consuming, I like the suggestion of visiting auctions.

As far a buying another vehicle, my wife isn't able to drive along with me so that option is out. However, we do have two FRS radios that we rarely use. Perhaps, we'll find some use for them along the way.

Welcome to the forum!

~Iz

Thanks for the greet mamaizzy.