We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Courtney Stutelberg a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Courtney, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

At Nomadic Homes, we are a woman-owned Skoolie building business driven by a powerful mission: to empower women, inspire dreams, and foster personal transformation. My remarkable journey from overcoming domestic abuse to pursing my own dreams fuels my unwavering commitment to supporting women in their pursuit of independence, creativity and fulfillment. I spent 6 years in a converted school bus and traveled to 49 states and found my passion and career.

Courtney, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I grew up in Minnesota and always sought out for something greater. I don’t remember having the greatest childhood. My parents were separated and they hated each other enough to drag my sisters and I through it at a young age. I developed a lot of anxiety and depression and didn’t have the best relationships because of it. By the time I was 18, I was working 2 jobs and trying to get out of my parents house. When I had the money for a down deposit, I moved 35 miles away from my parents to a college down. When I lived there, I worked a full time day job, then went to work a night job so I could pay my bills. The routine every single day was warning me down fast. I’ve always had a heart full of dreams and an insatiable thirst for adventure. At 21 years old, I had the opportunity to go to Alaska and in a split second, decided to sell all of my belongings and leave my long term relationship. My friends and family were driven by concern and fear and discouraged me from pursuing my dreams. My decision was undoubtedly the scariest I had ever made. Doubt often whispered in my ear but I believe that the greatest growth lies on the other side of fear and decided to book that one way ticket to Alaska. I knew without the support from my friends and family, that I would have to become my own source of strength. I welcomed Alaska with open arms and the wilderness became my canvas and my mentor. I did a ton of photography at the time and Alaska was the place to do it all. I discovered hidden reserves of strength inside me as I navigated being on my own for the first time in my life. I met someone and we ended up converting a 1990 suburban into a home on wheels. I would consider myself an adrenaline junky and the thought of living on the road was the biggest adrenaline rush I ever felt. We took out the back seats and threw a mattress in the back and traveled throughout the interior of Alaska. I realized fast that I was forced to adapt to the uncomfortable conditions around me. I had to endure the cold nights and no bathroom, but as I continued my journey, I began to notice something remarkable. I found joy in the midst of my discomfort. Waking up was a brand new day and not just another day. It was never the same routine and it made time actually go by slower. It was healing something inside of me that I had searched to feel for years. We were supposed to go to Arizona to move into our new apartment but decided the road was where our hearts were at and decided to buy a 23 ft pull behind RV. We drove 300 miles south toward Nevada and ended up blowing our transmission in our suburban and had to put another one in. Luckily, we got to Nevada with the RV and spent the winter living in the dessert just outside of Vegas. We had an opportunity to go up to Washington to work at the National Park so we had to figure out another way to pull the RV. We didn’t have much money to buy a new truck so we continued to look for other options. I remember seeing an ad online for a 40ft school bus for a couple thousand dollars and we got to thinking. I have seen other skoolies online but I didn’t realize the cost of a used bus was as cheap as it was. We knew if we could sell the RV and the truck that we could use that money to convert our new home on wheels. So that’s what we did, we packed everything we own in our truck into a run down motel in downtown Vegas and my partner at the time took a greyhound bus 10 hours up to Oregon to buy our new home. The next hurdle was to find somewhere to build it. We actually got lucky with an older couple that was using their RV as an AirBNB and allowed us to stay and build our bus at their house. We built it out in 7 days, We did nearly as much as we should have, but we created a home and we got up to Oregon to work at the National Park. We lived in the bus for 8 months and sold it for almost double for what we put into it. We ended up buying a shorter bus and built it out in 10 days but this time we were able to put in actual electricity and plumbing and it was getting more comfortable. I was learning how to build and we had a ton of fun with it.
We ended up going to Florida and got the itch to build another one and again sold the bus for double for what we put into it and bought our 3rd bus. I noticed that these bus homes were never losing their value, they actually had more value. My partner and I ended up splitting up halfway through the build and I was stuck not knowing what I was going to do. I didn’t know much about building and knew what I couldn’t do what needed to be done. Luckily, I met a lot of great people on the road. There are meet ups for people that live nomadically and found a lot of like minded people that felt like family. I got some of my friends to help me finish while I learned and watched carefully. This is the time I also met my abuser. I met him shortly after cutting ties with my ex at the time. He also lived in a bus and was 13 years older than me. I was 24 at the time. My break up was really hard on me and my vulnerability at the time was at an all time high. I was actually doing a trauma yoga program at the time because I was so depressed and I was learning skills to cope with it. When I first met him I didn’t have attraction towards him. I thought he had a huge ego and acted like he was better then everyone else. It wasn’t until the first night he came into my bus. It was my last night before I hit the road so I was up at 2am trying to move everything in. I wasn’t ready to hit the road myself, I was actually terrified. I spent 2 years with someone that was there to help navigate when things when wrong and I didn’t have that anymore. I heard a noice come from outside and it was him. He walked into my bus and sat on the floor. He was asking me all about my life, my challenges, my family, friends, trauma experiences … literally everything. I have to admit, he was extremely charming. In that moment, I thought he was really listening. He would look me deep in the eyes, he would find the perfect words to say, and it pulled me in. Growing up, I had a roller coaster of a relationship with my parents. I saw them constantly fighting and get a divorce. No child ever wants to see that. My dad was in and out of my life, but not by choice, we just had a very hard time keeping a healthy relationship and staying connected. So, I think as an adult , we tend to have trauma experiences that make us who we are today. So this guy kinda filled that void. I felt heard and seen. He actually ended up sexually assaulting me that night and I didn’t even blink an eye. It didn’t even phase him so in my eyes it seemed like it was my fault and I must have asked for it. After that night, I couldn’t stop thinking about him. I ended up leaving the next morning because I had to go to Arizona to meet my mom for a girls trip and had 10 days to get there. Those 10 days were hell for me, I cried every single day that I couldn’t do this myself and he was the one I called. He would check in often and the calls went longer and longer. He wanted to know everything about me and it felt good. He made me feel like he cared and convinced me to come back down to Florida. We would meet up in the woods or at campgrounds and our relationship grew more serious. At first, it was good. I felt like he maybe could have been my soulmate but then it started to get worse. We were fighting all the time, he constantly thought I was hiding something from him. It didn’t start physical but he was very emotionally abusive towards me and knew how to tear me down, but he was also brilliant with building me back up, so I would always come back. I also noticed I was losing more and more of my support system around me. Nobody liked him, but I continued to see the good in him. It was like this for about 6 months. When he put his hands on me the first time was when I finally drove off. I actually drove all the way to Colorado to get away but he always knew where to find me. Not physically at first, but he would reach out all the time apologizing and telling me that it was going to be different and at the time, I thought I actually couldn’t live without him and that I needed him. He made me believe that. So I gave him another chance but this time he sold his bus and flew to Colorado to move into my 25ft bus. Just me and him. It wasn’t always physical but the emotional abuse was almost everyday and I found myself getting comfortable with a life I didn’t want. Actually, he had convinced me that I was the problem and I fell for it. I convinced myself that I was being too needy, or that my voice was too weak. The strength and courage I once had was no longer there. I knew he was in charge now. I lied about my life online. I had a good social media following and I would continue to share how great life was and who I was with. Nobody ever had any idea how bad it was. We traveled around for a good 6 months and ended up in Maine in the fall at his friends property and built out my last and final bus. We were in the middle of nowhere. The nearest town was 5 miles away and the nearest neighbor was down the road. During this build, we were getting a lot of attention on social media, people were in awe of this bus, it was one of a kind. We decided also during that time to venture out on building Skoolies for other people. I had just been laid off at my remote job so we had to find a way to make money. My abuser had help build previous buses for other people and also helped me build mine so we said why not and put a post out on social media. Being that I had a good following on social media,when I let the word out that we were building buses, we booked up the entire year in less then a week. People also loved the uniqueness I was putting into the design of each and every one of the builds and were eager for their bus to bring in the same creative atmosphere. I was able to have control over the design and layouts so it helped made me feel like I was apart of the business but didn’t have much control in anything else. We were fortunate to have a home on wheels because that meant that we could drive to their physical location rather than ours and it would still mean we could travel. The builds were great, but we were charging way less then what we should have because I wanted to help people that didn’t have a ton of money to put into their bus. I knew what the feeling was like so I sacrificed my own comfort and security for other people. We were also building these buses under 30 days and that is imaginably hard. We got no sleep and worked 12 hour days with no days off. With this stress, it only made the abuse harder to tolerate. For another year I endured his abuse. He even dislocated my shoulder and shattered a mirror on my back leaving a scar on my back for the rest of my life. You would think I would have left at this point but I didn’t. I stayed and I can’t tell you why but I did because I had no one. I was completely isolated from everybody in my life but one person. My family was fed up with me choosing to stay so they reached out less and less. I had one really great friend but she was thousands of miles away and I kept a lot of it a secret in fear of my life. He was always watching. Every time I would be on the phone, he would hide or even set up video to record me. I was with him for over 2 years before I finally made the call for help. I actually found child porn on his phone and when he found out, he put his hands around my neck and I didn’t think in that moment I was going to make it out. I got away from him and was able to call for help and ran for my life. The cops got there and arrested him. In the state of Maine, if someone is arrested for domestic violence, there is a mandatory no contact order and I can’t say anything about it and honestly without that no contact order, I probably would have tried to bail him out. I didn’t want to suffer the consequences if I didn’t. The minute he left though I was all alone and I didn’t know what to do. So I ended up calling my family. They came up with a plan to get me out and told me to take everything including the bus and to leave. I immediately disagreed and knew I couldn’t do that. It wasn’t just my fear of the consequence, in that moment I was thinking about him. Where he was going to go, where he was going to sleep, I couldn’t do that to somebody that at the time I thought I loved. But there was another side of me that was screaming to run, to go, to set myself free. That same familiar feeling I got when I found my strength and bravery on the road. My dad booked an airplane ticket to Maine and he was there the next morning and in the next minute, I left all of his stuff behind and we drove my bus back to Minnesota.
When we got back to Minnesota I was really numb. I had a million thoughts running in my head about what I was going to do. The good thing was by the time I drove that bus off that property, I felt better about leaving him behind. I felt free at last and I didn’t have to look behind me wondering if he’s watching. Though, I was in a ton of fear that he would find me. He was good at finding people He told me that was his job when he worked over seas. He said he worked for a “Black Ops” and did some really scary things that are top secret. He even had scars on his body that he said they were gun shots and that he watched his best friend get blown up by a bomb. Before he moved into his bus, he said he worked security for some really “powerful” people. He made it very easy to fear him which is why a huge part of me wasn’t able to leave. I thought he’d kill me. After he went to jail I found out some information about him and turns out everything that he told me was a lie. He never worked in security, he never worked for the government and that friend he watched get blown up didn’t exist. The scars on his body was actually just a surgery from his childhood. I was in shock, I couldn’t even believe it at first. Everything was a lie. I felt so stupid because he made it so easy to believe, he had this way about him that made me believe everything that he had to say. Even after those words, I still believed he would find me. Luckily, it wasn’t his first time in jail so their was some relief he would sit in there for at least 6 months.
Minnesota didn’t make me feel any safer though. It was the middle of winter and I had nowhere to park my bus. I didn’t mention that I also had 7 cats and a dog on board. My cat had given birth a month prior and had 6 kittens. My family refused to take any of them in and I was forced to find them all homes. It destroyed me even more. I was still able to keep my dog, Mala and she’s been my rock since. I didn’t like the idea of moving in with my family. I knew their agenda was different then mine, I had to get out of there asap. I didn’t like the way they tried to persuade me into certain decisions that I didn’t want. They wanted me to stay, find a job and settle down. I had to keep in mind that I had a fully booked calendar full of builds that I knew I couldn’t make happen. These clients had put down deposits for their build and I clearly couldn’t do it myself. So to make it right, I ended up having to make the decision to sell my bus so I could pay back those clients. It wasn’t their fault this happened and I’d do anything to give back their money. My dad found me a spot for the bus to do some remodel and after 30 days of work, I put it on the market. I moved in with my mom and waited for the bus to sell. During this time, I spent all my time thinking about what my next move was. I knew I had to get out of Minnesota and wanted to find a way to get back to bus building. I knew what I was capable of and the anger and revenge inside of me fueled my desire to keep going. My twin sister actually lived down in Florida and had offered me to come down there. My twin sister and I are really close. We were actually too close to each other which caused a lot of co dependency issues growing up. When I first left for Alaska, I think she hated it the most. We were always attached to the hip and were always there for each other. I also felt like she was the only one that I really felt like was family to me. I always felt like the scapegoat. I was too free spirited and no one else was. Anyway, I entertained the idea to her that we should start a all women owned bus building business and she was down for it. I got to thinking. Just a couple weeks later my bus finally sold and it was the first time I felt my smile come back. I was finally able to free a lot of guilt and pay back all my clients. I then bought a car and loaded everything I could up in it. At this point, I had shared the news about my relationship on social media and got nothing but love and support. It was when I started to get a flood of messages from other people that are in or have been in similar situations. They were thanking me for sharing my story and how my story could help others. It was so empowering. I wanted to create a business that demonstrated more then building, I wanted to create a business that demonstrated that we as women are capable of everything and nothing in this world would define who we are. My traumatic experience wasn’t going to define who I was. I shared a social post online about the business and in a matter of days, I had a potential build if I could make it happen.
I got down to Florida and immediately started to look for a place that we could do this build. My sister had no experience with building but I was determined to teach her. She lived in a townhouse so we couldn’t do the build there but I already had a ton of connections down in Florida that I asked online. This couple that I had met on the road had a property a couple hours north and said that they had space for us to do the build. They even had their already converted bus on the property and even offered for us to stay in their bus while we were out there doing the build. They had a house there so the bus was open for us to stay in. The way things were manifesting for me made me feel like all of this was coming true. We booked out first clients for Nomadic Homes and I used the remaining couple thousand dollars that I had from the bus sale and bought all the tools we need. In the next four weeks we made the announcement, we were booked out the entire year. Every Sunday we would take the 2 hour trip north to work on the bus and then every Friday we would drive back down to Clearwater to reset. It was amazing to see the confidence I thought I never had when I started working. I could do things I thought I couldn’t do and it was the most empowering feeling. I was resilient. The bus was coming out beautiful! Cassidy also became a great builder and was learning really fast. I even hired another woman-builder that lived in a bus to help. I wanted the business to represent we as women.
The property we were building on became pretty hard. We didn’t have good service so we weren’t able to go online as much as we wanted and the nearest hardware store was 45 min. We also didn’t want to intrude too much on our friends property so we were desperately trying to find a place closer to Clearwater where we lived. We had two weeks to finish the build and find a better place to build the next. A lot of these places that we were looking at needed a good credit score and I didn’t have a good one. Credit was something I never understood. I never pulled out any loans or credit cards. I was debt free but it didn’t make it any easier to get money when I needed it so I was stuck again not know what to do. After weeks of looking, I found this 1700 square foot warehouse 20 min from where we lived on Facebook marketplace. The price was good and it didn’t mention anything about needing to run a credit check. I reached out immediately and got a response back. He didn’t need anything but first and last months rent and a 2 year lease signed. The only thing that was holding me back a bit was the lease. I had to be sure that I could make payments on the warehouse for 2 years which meant making sure this business could stay afloat. Cassidy and I did almost all the work on these buses. We weren’t charging nearly as much as we should have which meant we didn’t have any money to pay someone else full time to help us. That wasn’t going to take me down though. After careful consideration with Cassidy, we signed the lease to the warehouse and we finally had our own space to do all of our builds. We were 20 min from home and had every resource around us. It was a dream come true. I am now almost 2 years in business with another year booked up. Since I opened in Spring of 2022, I have worked on 10 buses and am growing rapidly to a point where I need to find a bigger space. I’ve only been able to really work on one bus at a time due to lack of space in the shop for more buses but it’s a great problem to have! I’ve been able to get my pricing almost right and it feels good to be finally making a profit. My current partner has done a amazing job with helping me understand my finances and credit and I’ve been able to jump my credit over 110 points. The future looks bright and I can’t wait for it.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Earlier this year, my twin sister walk away from the business. I never imagined the vast amount of work and dedication it would take to run a successful business, and to this day, I am still learning more and more. We entered the beginning of our business journey in a healing phase of our life (and still are). It became tough to both run a business with just the two of us, and also be there for each other in a way that we each individually needed. In the majority of times we were struggling internally, we allowed business to rule, but we didn’t take a step back to realize what it was doing to us and also our relationship. Unfortunately, we also didn’t know how to ask for help when we had the struggles of running a business also looming. When everything boiled up, it became difficult to be either a sister to one another or business partners. About 8 months ago, she decided to walk away from the business to go find another path for herself to be able to continue her healing journey. When the dust settled, I was left with a business that was still running with actual booked clients and a legitimate build schedule. I was left to do this by myself. Although I love a challenge, this was a bit much. I was in such vulnerable state where it was hard to even receive help or trust anyone. I was emotionally destroyed and mentally exhausted, but the universe put out every sign for me to keep moving forward, I just had to pay attention. So, I lifted my head out of my hands, stood up from my knees, and started looking for answers. I realized a lot when I started paying attention. Sometimes the people closest to you in your life are also the ones you should look out for. I have a strong sense of empathy, and that can make me vulnerable. I trust the people I decide to surround myself with to not take advantage of this piece of me. I’m the type that would do anything for the people I care about. Unfortunately, I’ve been feeling manipulated and taken advantage of lately from certain people close to me that I no longer will allow back to hurt me. I’ve chosen a path of freeing myself from anyone intentionally weighing me down, and I will protect my energy going forward. I have really taken charge of my business and keep putting one foot in front of the other and it has made me very strong. Life is full of unexpected roadblocks, but our strength life’s in our ability to keep moving forward. When challenges arise, they’re not meant to stop us, but to test our determination. I’ve learned to embrace the obstacles, learn from them and let them fuel my drive to succeed. It’s not about avoiding the roadblocks, but about overcoming them. I will continue to stay strong, stay focused and keep pushing forward. That is where I will continue finding my success.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

I haven’t had to spend a dime on marketing because all of my clientele is from social media. I didn’t have a following before I got on the road. I was plain Jane and didn’t post much. It wasn’t until I started sharing about my travels and what I was doing when people grabbed on and wanted to see and know more. To think that people who watched what I did were in absolute awe, I mean geese I was too, but after a while, the way that I lived just seemed normal. That didn’t make me turn my head though, I wanted to share my travels, it was a great way for me to also get more of my photography out there. In 6 months I’d grown to 5k followers and that was just the beginning. I mostly shared stories on instagram and the more I was sharing my life, the more followers I grew. By the time I started building buses, my following grew to over 20k followers. I was recognized in the “Skoolie” community. Even though there’s a ton of people that live in buses, out of the majority of us on this planet, we are really just a very small portion. Also, not a lot of people live in buses for more then a couple years. So being that I went on almost 5 years, I was well known. Over the years, people knew me as a plant eutyhiest and someone who loves to use live edge. I love using reclaimed wood, it’s like brining nature in. Even though every single one of my builds is different and unique, I use plants and reclaimed wood in every single one of my builds. I incorporate me and my love for design and nature. It’s easy to walk into any of my builds and know it was one of mine. My attention to detail and my artistic “out of the box” ideas makes my business and I different than any other bus conversion companies.
To this day, I don’t have any plans of spending any money on marketing, I value the worth of my own self marketing more than the need to outsource marketing. Social media is a great strategy for any business. If you believe in your business enough, so will others!

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.Nomadichomesllc.com
• Instagram: @nomadichomesllc
• Facebook: @nomadichomesllc
• Other: Tik tok- @nomadichomes