Pan-American highway trip not going too well for this couple!

[Rapido666F]

Surrey couple who quit jobs to drive from Alaska to Argentina lose half their savings in first 6 weeks

Couple who quit jobs to drive from Alaska to Argentina lose half their savings

They are determined to continue their adventure despite the setbacks

www.getsurrey.co.uk

they were met with setbacks when their original camper broke down before they even began, and engine troubles with their truck forced them to invest in a new transmission and camper, significantly denting their savings early on.

They stayed with Matt's brother, Tom, in Canmore, Alberta, who set them with a truck and camper. Matt said: “We spent a lot of money on the camper, around £2,500, doing it up and making sure it was good to go, and we had loads of checks done on the truck.”

However, as they travelled south through Dawson City in Yukon, Canada, their camper "completely broke" – its roof collapsed. Further disaster struck in Alaska when their truck's transmission "blew up" while they were visiting a mechanic in the remote town of Valdez. The couple had to pay out $7,000 dollars (£5,390) to fix their transmission, which took three weeks to complete.

Matt said: “Our transmission blew up on the garage floor. It was in the middle of nowhere, it’s quite a small little town and it’s only got one mechanic. Most people there just run their car into the ground so we had to pay to get it fixed. Fortunately our mechanic was very kind and he gave us his spare house to live in and gave us a spare car.”

The couple continued south to Vancouver, hoping to repair their collapsed camper roof, but were told by a mechanic that it was a "complete write-off". They had to spend another £5,000 on a new camper to continue their trip.

 

[Baggydave]

Is this for real or a utube serial?

 

[Bolti]

I was wondering how far I would have to read before gofundme appeared.

 

[Just smiffy]

A go-fund me advert….

 

[CAB96]

Some very sympathetic (
) comments on the GetSurrey page!

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[DandJ]

Blimey...there are...like this classic referring to the journey they've embarked on. (like several thousand others at any given time.....)

there's a reason people don't do this: everytime someone attempts it, they get murdered.

 

[busbuddy]

What did people do before 'GoFundMe' .....oh yeah we just got on with life

Off topic..a local coffee shop/trendy place to be has a GoFundMe page for 30k to revamp their garden area
Even our kids, who are 'trendy place to be ' people think it's not right

 

[bigtree]

A pair of chancers.

 

[Puddleduck]

If I was funding an individual or a couple it would be for someone who needed the money for things like medical treatment not available on the NHS.

We had friends who bought a yacht to sail round the world but knew they would need to work in various places as they went. Visa etc sorted before they left the UK. Mind this was is 1981 - I don't know how far they got as we lost touch.

 

[Rob Turner]

Well they did spend £2.5k doing the camper up.
You’d have thought that it would be fine after spending all that on it.

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[L' Hobo]

Dawson isn't the best place to start a trip if you have never been there before, unless your a Polar Bear of course, (and possibly not for them these days,) plus, they could have picked better transport, like an old VeeDub for example!

Everyone and his Mother can fix them, especially down in South America.

 

[L' Hobo]

Well they did spend £2.5k doing the camper up.
You’d have thought that it would be fine after spending all that on it.

There's an old expression that go something like, "a fool and his money are soon parted" how true!

 

[Brains]

We took a serious look into doing the same trip in 2000-2001.
Even got quotes to ship over our LWB landrover.
We eventually decided it had too many problems and was too expensive.

We eventually drove from New York to California by way Florida, Arizona and Mexico in a minivan, and then flew to Ecuador (Colombia and Venezuela were strictly out of bounds at the time)
Where we then drove, over 3 months, from Ecuador to Chile in a Mercedes 4x4 truck.

Back in 2000 the Pan-American trip would have been about £24k for two.
We ended up spending about £7k and I think saw a lot more and had a far better experience.

I admire the balls of driving a vehicle almost as old as the drivers the distance and places they are going, but it's not quite the way I would have done it.

We looked at getting what the Americans call a 'Truck RV', basically a camper module mounted on the back of a conventional pickup truck.
It means you can buy the two separately, it also means that if one breaks, you still have the other.

We even looked at getting the camper module only shipped from Panama to into Ecuador, bypassing the Darien gap and Columbia and then buying another pickup truck there, as at the time you could sell US registered vehicles in Panama.

Bottom line is I think this couple have under budgeted, and had a run of bad choices and bad luck.

 

[DBK]

My eyebrows shot up when I read their current vehicle cost £5K. But on reflection if you are going to take a vehicle into South America I guess something of that vintage will be more easily repaired in remote regions.

 

[carolyn]

All this go fund me stuff is getting ridiculous. We’ve only been home 2 weeks and there’s been 2 on our local Sherborne news and views requesting donations to pay for good send offs for people who’ve died. Not their funerals which would be sad if people can’t afford that for their families but a party!

One was for the local cobbler and yes that’s what he was known as and the other was a little old lady who died in the council run old people’s home. Whilst she may well have been loved by her family why on earth would they think the public would want to pay for them to have a party.

Bah humbug.

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[chaser]

If I was funding an individual or a couple it would be for someone who needed the money for things like medical treatment not available on the NHS.

We had friends who bought a yacht to sail round the world but knew they would need to work in various places as they went. Visa etc sorted before they left the UK. Mind this was is 1981 - I don't know how far they got as we lost touch.

Wow don't you never think of finding out?
I couldn't help trying.

 

[Brains]

We had friends who bought a yacht to sail round the world but knew they would need to work in various places as they went. Visa etc sorted before they left the UK. Mind this was is 1981 - I don't know how far they got as we lost touch.

We had some friends who did the same thing in the mid 1990's.

He had made a enough money buying/selling shares that they could afford to sell the house and car, buy a yacht and take 4 years off in their mid 30's to sail around the world before planning to return to California and get proper jobs again.

They were tracked down in Papeete after 3 years by a lawyer, who had flown out just to find them.

He needed to know what they wanted to do with their 1% stake in what was by then a household name computer company.
They didn't even know they had the shares, which had gone from a value of 10 cents each to hundreds of dollars each.
They literally realised they were multimillionaire's overnight.

They never had to work again.

(We also lost contact with them, but the last I saw, the yacht had been replaced by one that requires a crew, and they had a house built in California with the first infinity pool I'd ever seen)

 

[busby]

Dawson isn't the best place to start a trip if you have never been there before, unless your a Polar Bear of course, (and possibly not for them these days,) plus, they could have picked better transport, like an old VeeDub for example!

Everyone and his Mother can fix them, especially down in South America.

Tread the Globe did France Italy Albania Greece Turkey USA .Canada up to Artic Ocean..Vancover Island..USA. Mexico. USA.Japan lots of South Asia..India..South Africa..Botswana Zimbabwe and back to UK in a 2004 Fiat Ducato Adria Twin..took them 4 and a half years. BUSBY.

 

[L' Hobo]

Tread the Globe did France Italy Albania Greece Turkey USA .Canada up to Artic Ocean..Vancover Island..USA. Mexico. USA.Japan lots of South Asia..India..South Africa..Botswana Zimbabwe and back to UK in a 2004 Fiat Ducato Adria Twin..took them 4 and a half years. BUSBY.

I nearly bought one of them back then but thought £32,000 was too much for a Campervan!

 

[DandJ]

All this go fund me stuff is getting ridiculous. We’ve only been home 2 weeks and there’s been 2 on our local Sherborne news and views requesting donations to pay for good send offs for people who’ve died. Not their funerals which would be sad if people can’t afford that for their families but a party!

One was for the local cobbler and yes that’s what he was known as and the other was a little old lady who died in the council run old people’s home. Whilst she may well have been loved by her family why on earth would they think the public would want to pay for them to have a party.

Bah humbug.

I bet a few morons chipped a fiver or tenner in....and a few members of the recipient family will have been chuckling whilst swilling a glass of Liebfraumilch or Kestrel 8%....

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[Puddleduck]

Wow don't you never think of finding out?
I couldn't help trying.

Yes, I have tried to find out a few times. I wrote to their last address several times ( the last letter returned as undeliverable) and to one of the parents' addresses but never received a reply.

I hope they found their Shangri-la and often think of them.

 

[chaser]

I missed out there I should have set one of these things up to pay for my gearbox

 

[Howard4734]

I have been following them on Instagram, genuine enough. Unlike the 3 traveling from London to Cape Town in a Toyota Hiace. Truck broke in half and had too be completely rebuilt so they asked for some help. Next thing you know thay are staying in 5 Star hotels and living the high life!