The Gypsy Wagon – The Story of Dolly Parton’s Bus

Somewhere along the way between the rhinestones, hit records, movies, and sold-out concerts, Dolly Parton discovered that one of her favorite places to be wasn’t a mansion, a fancy hotel, or a private jet. It was being in her tour bus. For somebody who could afford just about any form of transportation imaginable, Dolly has spent a remarkable amount of her life rolling down America’s highways with her own bedroom, kitchen, clothes, and personal belongings traveling right along with her.

For more than five decades, buses have been part of Dolly Parton’s life on the road. They weren’t simply transportation to get her from one performance to another. They became her home between shows, a place where she could cook, sleep, relax, work, and surround herself with familiar things while the scenery outside the windows constantly changed. She affectionately referred to her rolling home as her “Gypsy Wagon,” a name that fit both the bus and the woman who spent so much of her life on the road.