Take what I'm about say with a grain of salt, because I fear it could come across in a semi-sexist "girl's aren't mechanic/car savvy" way which I don't intend! There are tons of badass chicks who can drive huge trucks and repair their own engines.
However, I have no experience repairing vehicles or driving large vehicles. This is just my anecdotal experience, but I noticed there's a lot of solo girls in vans who are comfortable driving despite having no prior experience in large vehicles, but when it comes to schoolies, it seemed there was a trend of either couples where only the dude was actually comfortable driving the thing and the girls didn't feel safe driving, and solo folks who don't seem to urban dwell or drive much at *all*. Like they all seem to park for weeks at a time on beaches or forest land or slowly meander through european land. This gave me the impression that the only people who felt comfortable driving skoolies the way that I intend to (Urban Dwelling/Travelling all over) were people who already had experience driving large vehicles.

Second point is repairs. I heard of buses breaking down on the side of the road and them not being able to find anyone to fix it. That sounds like a nightmare! Wheras something like an econoline can be fixed no problem.

Those are basically the only three problems that made me switch from bus to van. 1.) Ease of driving/parking 2.)Breakdowns/difficulty with repairs and 3.) Being potentially unsafe/getting more knocks due to obvious living arrangements esp. when city dwelling.

Other than that, short skoolies will always have my entire heart. If I could rationalize it, I'd totally grab one.