A young couple who struggled to find work after graduating during Covid are now living the dream "off-grid" - out of a school bus in the US.

Harri Cook, 23, and Nicky Horsley, 22, left university in 2020 and walked straight into a tough job market.

Unsure what to do, YouTube inspired the pair to purchase a Ford Transit minibus - which they converted and drove around Europe in.

Bitten by the travel bug, Harri and Nicky then returned to the UK to live with Harri's family in Ascot and took part-time jobs so they could save to buy an iconic US school bus.

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The couple are currently living a nomadic life, travelling up and down the West Coast - and say they are enjoying taking every day as it comes.

They estimate that they spend just $1,000 (£820) a month on food and fuel - while living "rent free".

Nicky said: "We saved up from selling the Boxer and having part-time jobs and used that to buy the bus which cost $10,000 all in including taxes. It's from 2012 with 96,000 miles and was well looked after.

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"We spent $5,000 on the conversion making it $15,000 all in - and we're hoping to sell it for $30,000 to $35,000 when we're done travelling. We spend about $250 a week on food and fuel so spend about $1,000 a month.

"We get negative comments from people saying it was funded by the bank of mum and dad - it gets under our skin because people always think our parents pay for it but they don't pay for anything."

Due to the pandemic, they found employers were cautious about taking them on and they started watching vanlife videos on YouTube, discovering they could experience a different way of living.

They documented the conversion on their YouTube channel to teach other people how to follow their vanlife dream and began to earn commission on the affiliated links.

Inspired by their travels, they knew they wanted to continue their adventures and to save up extra funds, Nicky took on a job at Starbucks while Harri worked pulling pints at their local pub.

They converted the school bus while living in an Airbnb for their first month in California.

"Our family have all been very supportive - they were a bit surprised at the beginning and probably thought it was just for a few months but the more seriously we take it and the more professional we get with it on the content creation side they appreciate it a lot more and see that we're happy," said Nicky.

"We thought 'let's buy a van and do it ourselves' and in November 2020 we bought a Ford Transit minibus for £5,400 and started doing it up.

"We watched a load of YouTube videos and thought it looked doable and we were stuck at home anyway with the second lockdown.

"We did the conversion in three to four months for £5,000 alongside our part-time jobs and documented it on our YouTube channel - we kept it simple and taught other people how to do it.

"We took that to Europe for three months from June to September and visited eleven countries before we came home and realised converted vans were selling for so much and decided to sell it, making £17,000.

"We watched all these people online with their skoolies which looked awesome - they were so big with so much space, being wider and more homely, so we thought let's go to America and try to convert one ourselves."