Global Convoy: Overlanding Adventures in £75 Cars (Mishaps, Mayhem & Magic)

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What happens when you try to drive the world in £75 cars and a big yellow school bus? 

In this episode of The Adventure Diaries, Chris Watson is joined by Global Convoy founders Max White, Joel & Becca — the adventurous trio who turned a summer road trip idea into a worldwide overlanding community.

From rusty £75 bangers on Gumtree to a Pan-American Highway expedition in a converted US school bus, this episode dives into the chaos, charm, and community of traveling the world on a shoestring.

You’ll hear:
 ✨ The origin story of Global Convoy — how strangers became a family on the road.
 ✨ Why cheap cars = the best adventures.
 ✨  Mishaps, breakdowns & roadside repairs across Russia, Central Asia, and the Americas.
 ✨ Stories of kindness from locals in Uzbekistan, Japan, and South America.
 ✨  The epic Pan-American road trip in a big yellow school bus.
 ✨ How Global Convoy turned into a movement — and how you can join.

This isn’t just a travel story. It’s an adventure about community, resilience, and discovering magic in the unexpected.

🔗 Links & Resources

🌍 Follow Global Convoy
Website: globalconvoy.com
Instagram: @globalconvoy
YouTube: Global Convoy

 #GlobalConvoyPodcast #OverlandingAdventures #PanAmericanHighwayRoadTrip #CheapCarAdventureTravel #75CarChallenge #OverlandingCommunityStories #AdventureTravelPodcast #DrivingAroundTheWorldStories #SchoolBusConversionPanAmerican #HitchhikingAndOverlandingExperiences 

Transcript

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 One by one, I started getting more people that were interested, like Becker and Joel. And the goal was to drive into Europe and see what happens. And it was only after meeting Joel, meeting Becker, assembling this crew of about 25, I think at one point in five different vehicles, uh, mainly hitchhikers that we all collectively realized we had a thing.

So right up until that point, it had just been a bit of a pipe dream, honestly. Like we knew we needed a visa for Russia and we needed a visa for Uzbekistan, and we knew at some point we'd need to ship the cars. But we didn't know when. We didn't know with who we didn't know how. 

Welcome to the Adventure Diaries podcast, where we share tales of adventure, connection, and exploration from the smallest of creators to the larger than life adventurers.

We hope their stories inspire you to go create your own extraordinary adventures. And now your host, Chris Watson. Chris Watson.

Welcome to another episode of The Adventure Diaries. Today we're joined by the Global Convoy team made up of the wonderful Joel, Becca and Max. What started out as a simple idea posted on Facebook when summer's day led to the purchase of two beat up cars costing less than a hundred pounds, and the start of a year long journey driving around the world.

Along the way, this turned into a convoy of scrappy cars, made up of hitchhiker, and people they met along the way. Becoming a rolling community of 25 people. Five vehicles and adventures that defy belief from forging Samurai swords in rural Japan to accepting a leg of lamb during a roadside breakdown in Kazakhstan.

They've had some wild and wonderful experiences and since then, they've gone on to launch what is now the global convoy, leading the mayhem trips across continents and including converting a yellow American school bus into home on wheels where they drove the Pan-American Highway from Alaska to Argentina.

Need say more. So settle in and gonna enjoy this fantastic conversation with a global convoy team. Global Convoy. Welcome to the Adventure Diaries. How are you all? Good to be 

having us. 

Excellent. Uh, excellent. So thanks for joining. Uh, as I said at the start, this is. This is new territory for me. This is the first time I've had more than one guest on the show at a time, so, we'll, we'll see how it goes.

Excited. So typically, I, I kinda start with a bit of a backstory on everyone just to really understand who you are, your journey into adventure and, and that, 'cause the crux of today, today is to get into the global convoy, your community, your epic adventures. But before they do that, it's just to start at the beginning.

So maybe if I do this in order, ladies first, if you don't mind. So, so Becca, welcome to the show. So you're a former teacher. I, I, I think, or are you still a teacher? What's kinda led you into this, uh, uh, this global convoy and, and how did you guys and girls all come to meet? 

Yeah, that's a really good question.

So I did study to be a teacher. I studied fine art and then did A-P-G-C-E and the plan was to be a teacher. But as I was finishing that degree, max put a Facebook page up saying that he wanted to try and drive around the world. And I'd gone straight from college to university and I hadn't had that sort of gap year experience.

Um, and I saw it like we used to be friends. Um, when we were at college. I hadn't spoken to him for years. I just got this invite and I thought, okay, maybe this is something I should go and do before I kind of commit to a career and kind of commit to being a teacher. So I sent him a message and I was like, I'm maybe interested in joining, like, can you tell me a bit more about it?

And then, yeah, pretty much I guess maybe six months before we left, I started to get involved with the, um, sort of planning and organizing. And then, yeah, the rest is kind of history, I guess. 

Yeah. And maybe coming to, to you next then, Joel, what, so, so how, what's the dynamic then, before we go through? So how, how did you all meet before we go?

Yeah, 

it's just as complicated for me. I was just on a backpacking trip. I'm originally from California, and so I was just on a backpacking trip and going through Europe and I met a Portuguese guy in, in a bar in Amsterdam, and he put me in touch with Max about this idea to try and drive, um, a 75 and a hundred pound cars, uh, around the world.

And at first I was kind of like, this sounds very scammy, but it turned out not to be. And then I, I met Max a couple days later, and then I met Becca the, um, uh, the first day of the trip leaving and, uh, and, and yeah, it was a, it was a backpacking trip that never really ended. 

So, so it was, it was your brainchild then Max, you the one that kind of thought this up initially.

Short answer, yes, longer answer. It gives me a lot more credit than I deserve. It was just, I have a spare summer after university. Let's do something crazy. And just throwing the idea around with friends, we were like, well, let's drive east. And then one by one, they all dropped out. And so it was basically just me.

And one by one, I started getting more people that were interested, like Becker and Joel. And the goal was to drive into Europe and see what happens. And it was only after meeting Joel, meeting Becker, assembling this crew of about 25, I think at one point in five different vehicles, mainly hitchhiker, that we all collectively realized we had a thing.

So right up until that point, it had just been a bit of a pipe dream, honestly. So I might have started it, but I don't think I had the intentions of what it became. 

Yeah. And just for context, for anyone listening and, and watching. I mean, you didn't, you didn't pick a hardcore over landing vehicle or anything like that when you got started with two, uh, was that 75?

Was it, was it, was it the mic that was 75 pound or the, what was the other one? The micr was 

150 pounds, I believe. Yeah, that was, uh, and then the, and then yeah, the Skoda was 75 pound Score. Score. Yeah. 

Why, why did you pick two cars like that? What, what was the, what was the, the brainchild behind that and I think the nicknames I watched the documentary last night was Disco Ts in, in Longboat, I think.

Yeah, that's the one. 

Disco, tits. I mean that, that you tell, we were taking 

it 

very seriously. 

We picked them literally because, uh, the cheaper it is, the more adventurous you're gonna be with it. Obviously, you know, gave them mots and check they weren't going to actually break, but. Any, um, cost we could cut.

We did that wasn't, you know, gonna kill us. And you know, 75 pounds was the cheapest car available on Gumtree at the time, and it needed a lot of help to start, but once it was going, it was fine. Yeah, that kind of gave us a lot of confidence when we got to the weirder parts of the world that, you know, it's not our, our baby is just a cool vehicle that we like, hence the endearing nicknames rather than like precious nicknames.

So, so what was, you know, having watched the documentary last night, I've seen that you had, you had a bit of sponsorship and people behind you, like Maplin and other companies, I think Osprey Water to go, I think Joel, that you're, you're, you're affiliated with. So, so, so how did you, how did you come to plan all, all this and what was your objective then?

Was it just one grand adventure circuit in sea or did you have like a specific route? Had you thought through how you would fund it and who would join you? How did it come together? I 

think it was pretty ad hoc. So Max had done the Mongol rally along with Andre, who is the Portuguese guy that I met, and, uh, Richard Matthews.

And basically they were all part of like different teams at the time. And, uh, I mean, max, you guys would reach out for different sponsorships, kind of an ad hoc way, right. And from that point on. But basically we kind of started with their past experience of reaching out for small companies to kind of work with.

And Water to Go was one of the ones that we reached out to pretty early on. We actually still work with them today, and they're still one of our, our main, um, sponsors, uh, that we, that we really love and we've stayed with for almost coming on nine years now. 

Fantastic. What, so, so what, uh, so where we, so the journey then that you, you left 'cause you went through Europe into, was it Russia, then over to kinda Asia, Japan, through the Americas and then through Central and South America.

So, and I like the front of your car. I could see when I was watching it that you were, you were kinda drawing the root on the bonnet of the car, which I thought was quite, which was quite cool. So, so how much of that was planned? Pre-planned or just winging it as you went? 

I can't say 50 50. We definitely had, I remember at the beginning we had a really broad goal, like it was really broad goals from beginning to end.

The details, like where we actually ended up, none of that was planned. Like, we knew we needed a visa for Russia and we needed a visa for Uzbekistan. And we knew at some point we need to ship the cars, but we didn't know when. We didn't know with who. We didn't know how. And apart from those three main things, it was just, you know, there was days we'd wake up and just as have a big community circle and be like, where, who wants to go where today?

And someone would be like, oh, I heard about this great place in Mexico. And so we'd aim for that. Probably wouldn't make it. We'd get distracted by something on the way, but it was insanely ad hoc. 

How, how was the community side of it then? Because, because I know that like global convoys, grown arms and legs since then, you know, you, you've established it since that first adventure.

But how were you getting people aware of what you were doing at the time? And, and, 'cause you had people join you on the way h how, how were you advertising that? Or was it on Instagram, Facebook, what was the how, how was people getting made aware of it? 

At the time, I think most of it was through Facebook, like using different hitchhiking groups and things like that, but also just a lot of word of mouth.

You know, we'd turn up to a hostel if people were staying there and we had a spare seat. Obviously we invited anyone to join us. We picked up Hitchhiker on the side of the road. Yeah, I mean it was kind of, it was, in a way, it was quite disorganized in terms of like finances and things like that. No one was really in charge of anything.

It was just like you turn, I mean obviously like Max and Rich had the cars in their names, but it was like, you join us for this section, or you join for this section and you pitch in. We just split the fuel. We split everything. That's a cost at that point. Um, which happened again with like shipping, whoever was there when we shipped, the amount was just split between everyone and yeah, I don't know.

We've never really advertised or paid for. Advertising. It's always kind of just been word of mouth and friends of friends, people that we meet on the road. 

And how, how were you, you guys and girls funding it as, as you went? Was it based on savings or how, because it's quite a long old way to go. And h how was your projected cost versus your actual cost?

It was definitely a lot more on like savings and, and, well, yeah, 'cause I think the projected cost was something like five grand or whatever, which that was Oh, I think 

I told him, like when I first met Joel, I was like, oh, 3000, like, trust me. Yeah. Wrong. We sleep in the cars. It was a cheap, we cut every corner known 

to man, but it still went way over.

I think everybody that was involved, it was really just kind of what, you know, how long you could and, and how you could do it. We had a lot of people who had to drop off to go work and then come back to do other bits. I mean, we did keep things pretty cheap, but obviously, you know, a whole year on the road that's quite a big chunk of money.

And unfortunately with like the, the sponsorships and stuff we got, none of that was monetary. That was all just for things like Maplin gave us some drones and water to go, obviously gave us the bottles and, and Osprey gave us the bags. So it was cool. It was great, you know, so thankful and so excited to be like partner with them.

But none of it was financial, so everything was just on everybody ev the individual as we went and we all shared fuel and car parts and things like that. 

Yeah. So what, what was the dynamic with the two car? Because the two cars, did you set out with, with the two cars at the start or, or was it the one that then you picked up another car?

We, we started with actually three and then very quickly someone reached out and was like, can I bring a fourth car? And then someone wanted to bring a fifth car. But then they didn't have the money, so that's where this kind of digital hitchhiking began, where we were helping connect drivers with want to be hitchhikers.

And then we all set off to Europe together. I think five vehicles at the that point. A sixth vehicle came, and then some of them left and then came and left. And there was two, the, uh, koder and the micro that did the entire journey, UK to UK around the world. But at our lowest, we were just the two. And at our most, I think we were six or even seven at one.

What was the first car to breakdown, breakdown? Depends 

on your definition of breakdown. 

Well, I've seen that you had to push, uh, push a couple of them at, at times. So I think Joel, you were, it looked like you were quite hands-on with a lot of the, the, the repairs. Yeah. It wasn't 

because I had any knowledge.

It was just because, you know, there's no, nobody else was gonna jump in. Uh, yeah, we had to figure it out a lot. Uh, but yeah, no, it was, uh, it was, well, I think of the first 24 hours of the, of the trip actually. We lost a, we lost a car, a car lost a tire, and then I, we got held back. Yeah, there was loads of different breakdowns and, and setups.

I mean, everybody had to participate and do their part. Um, you know, or did, did you take 

spear, spear, uh, automotive parts with you? 

Not really. I'm trying to think of anything. Uh, maybe a tire that we forgot about. 

Yeah, yeah, 

yeah. Think it was mainly tires, you know, a jack and like a simple box of tools, but nothing, um, very in depth, I'd say.

I think the beautiful accident of, of having such cheap, you know, bangers of cars was basically, they were, they were tinker toys and they were able to be, you know, the parts and pieces and it were able to be swapped out. The first time we ever had to have something actually worked on was the Skoda. We basically, that was probably the, the, the only forward-looking job we did was when we were in Moscow, we had the timing belt changed, um, because it was so old and it had never been changed before.

Um, and yeah, so, but that was really cheap. I think it was less than $200 at the time. I think it was about 70 if I recall. Yeah, maybe something like that. But, but yeah, I mean, when we lost we, and we lost a lot of tires, we went through a lot of different rims, but the nice thing was most places we would go to, they just bash 'em back into to form and, you know, that would knock you back maybe 10 bucks, you know, if we were on the, the, the tall end.

Yeah, because I think I've seen in the documentary, but I, I can't remember if it was Russia or Kazakhstan or somewhere that you were in one of the garages. I think Max, you, it sounded like you understood Russian. Do you speak Russian? You seem like you were, I 

can definitely understand more than I can speak, but between my broken Russian and Central Asia's history with Russia, I, we can get by kind of.

Yeah, 

yeah, yeah. It must have been in, I think what you, but like you had to get, was it black market fuel at some point as well? Looks, it looks all just grand. Uh, a grand adventure quite, quite frankly. A little bit dodgy as well in aspects, but Well, the locals quite friendly when you've been in parts of Russia.

Absolutely, yeah. Like insanely friendly everywhere. Like we went in the entire world. Like, it's a bit cliche to say, but it is, we are so glad we got to experience it for ourselves. 'cause someone telling you, oh, they're friendly over there, means one thing. But when you experience it like that lives with you forever for.

Yeah, I 

think it's a big thing that a lot of other, um, Overlanders experience as well is, and they'll, they'll all come back and kind of say the same thing. It's when you're putting yourself out there and you're in a really vulnerable position, you know, nine times outta 10 people are gonna help you out and try and, and, uh, make sure, you know, you have the, the best experience in their country that, that they can offer.

And we've been very, very lucky for, you know, our last nine years of travel on every trip to, to have a lot of those experiences. 

Yeah. What, what were, what was it like as a team? So you three, you know, joined by strangers, hitchhiker and stuff. What, what was your dynamics like and how did, how do you approach that from a trust perspective when you've got some random person just joining you on, you know, a, a convoy in the middle of, I think it was a lot of faith 

in a way.

Strangers to each other. You kind of just have to like get on with it. And I think we did have a few people that we picked up as hitchhikers that we. Perhaps didn't get along with, or we weren't really sure it was like the right match, but I think we really found that often when it wasn't just us that felt that, they also felt that, and they quite often they would just remove themselves or get off at the next stop.

So I think we, I don't know, quite lucky in that sense. And I think, I don't know, I think already if you're hitchhiking you are, you know, you're putting yourself in a vulnerable, a potentially vulnerable situation, and you are kind of, you maybe are already open to be a bit more trusting perhaps. 

How long Becca, how long were people joining you for then?

Was this like days or, because it was, I mean, you're going through expansive territories, so were people with you for days, weeks, months, or what, what was the kinda typical experience like? 

I would say mostly months. Months, unless they were hitchhikers that we literally picked up on the side of the road that we were dropping in the next town.

Um, but yeah. Yeah, most people were there. I don't think people particularly joined for like a week or two. I think it was just like, okay. I think stopping at hostels and meeting people there, they were already traveling or backpacking and they had finances for that say, gap year or that time. So they were able, I guess, to commit to just traveling along until they found something else they wanted to do, or they'd reached a destination that they wanted to be at or something like that.

I 

think there was six or five of us that did the whole, that did the whole trip from start to finish? 

Yeah, it was five. Five. And like Lucas did the vast majority, but just not the end. Yeah. And, and he was a hitchhiker that was only supposed to join for a week, and then like seven months later in Guatemala, he was like.

Guys, my mom is pissed. I have to go home now. 

So like, it was a big after home to Canada, bought a car and then brought three other Belgians along with him too. 

Yeah, 

I actually seen that Richard Matthews was on that with you, so I kinda know Richards not too well, but you know, we are acquainted and he was supposed to come on this show.

Actually our diaries didn't align and it was to talk about the Mongol rally. But then when I seen that, it looks like, was the, was the, was the MGO rally part of this or did it was a crossover? What, what was the, or did you go in the same route? What was the deal with that? 

So the year before the Global Convoy, like we did our first, this round the World thing, which was our first, we didn't have any plans up until then.

The summer before that I did the Mongol rally, which is this yearly event where people try and drive from the UK to Mongolia in bad cars. And that's was my first like taste of kind of this over landing adventure. Uh, that's where I met Andre, the Portuguese guy. That's where I met Rich. And then we were always like throwing around ideas on the way back when we're driving back from him.

It was like, oh man, I'd love to just go further and see what happens. And nothing really came of it, but over time, chats became more, and it was like, well, if we need, if we're gonna do this, we need a bigger squad. And that's, you know, where Joel and Becca came in. So it was us three, rich and Andre with a five that did from day one today, 365 basically, um, of living outta these cars.

So that's how we know Rich. 

Yeah. So thinking back in terms of that initial adventure, what kind of, what, what location or part of the sits with you, you know, what's, what kind of warms your heart when you reflect on that most? Maybe coming to you, Joel, and we, we'll, we'll go around. You know, what was the, the best part, actually, it's, it's a hard one 

to nail it down on, honestly.

'cause like, you know, one of my favorite places that we went to was Japan. Uh, we didn't take the cars, but we, we were just kind of, we were waiting for, we had the shipment from VO stock to Vancouver, and um, so we had to figure out how to fly over there and the cheapest way possible. Turns out the cheapest flights were from Seoul in South Korea, but to get there, the cheapest way to do that was actually to get over to Japan and then magically figure out how to get from Japan over to Korea.

So we, we all set a challenge for ourselves to hitchhike basically the length of the country, um, for about two, three weeks. Uh, and that was an incredible experience in itself. But honestly, I mean, we just hit so many different spots, you know, uh, central Asia is another place that's really incredible. That were, you know, just for some weird reason that always sticks around and then meant a lot for me because we were able to get to drive back through California.

You know, my hometown was able to show everybody that I've been traveling with for a really long time. You know, my, my home. And then, you know, central and South America are their own monsters and their own, they're just really incredible places. So, so to really drive it down to one, if I had to go into my head, it'd say Japan, but, you know, that's, that's not really fair.

Yeah. You, you met from the documentary you, you met a Ja, was, was he a hitchhiker or someone you met on the, the flight who became your bit of a guide? Your friend? 

Yeah. Honda. 

Honda, yeah. 

He was the most amazing guy. Just happened to, I mean, we didn't even talk, the majority of the flight was when I had to fill out the, um.

The, uh, entry card. Yeah. He just happened to have a pen and, and then we got started talking and, and, uh, yeah, he ended up staying with us for like two or three days or something like that. And just showing us around. He showed us how to, how, how to use the, you know, the metro system and how to, how to kind of understand the sy the not syllables, but the, the, you know, uh, and uh, yeah.

Yeah. When you mean people like that, that 

Yeah, that's 

what it's all about really. 

Yeah. Yeah. Could see it kinda really lights it up, doesn't it? So what, what about, what about yourself, Becca, then, if you think back to that, that journey, what, what sets with you, what do you look back on fondly? 

It's so difficult to say because that was the first big adventure I'd really had.

So, I mean, I really fell in love with South America on that trip, and I think Peru has definitely become my favorite country since then. I think just having the ability to drive and to reach the rural areas where tourists don't go. Really gives you a unique experience. And I think that's where we had a lot of like really genuine interactions and we really saw the kind of like the true kindness of people.

You know, it's, it's easy to just fly from London to a city, maybe stay in a resort, you know it, which is nothing wrong with that, but you just, I feel like you don't really get to understand the people and the culture. And I think particularly driving through the Andes and through South America really gave us the ability to access a lot of areas that maybe the average tourist wouldn't go 

Well.

And we come on to talk about the Pan-American adventure in a minute because I wanted to ask if you retrace some of those roots, but we'll come back to that Max in, in terms of your experience in, in looking back, what, what kinda sets with you fondly? 

Um, I mean one that does jump to mind is obviously Japan, as Joel said.

Um, 'cause we paired up, because we could only do it in pairs. You can't like get eight people in a single vehicle. So we split up into teams and kind of raced. But as we've already mentioned, Japan for me, and I don't really know why, but Uzbekistan, I think, 'cause it was one of the ones that, um, I'd been to once before on the Mongol rally and to be honest, had just the worst time, got very ill, had trouble with the police, constantly eagle there, or at least it was.

So that was a nightmare. Everything was bad. So I came in with a really negative view and we just had like day after day of meeting incredible locals going to these strange places, getting invited to like, you know, don't go there, that's where the tour go, come with me. And then going to some guy's farm or like, this guy grows melons and he has the best melons in town and like, you must take my melons.

And like just this constant like comical series of really heartfelt events. And I just, I left Uzbekistan being like, is not what I expected. And I always think about that. 

On that. Did, did you have any issues anywhere on, in the world with like border control or passports or access at all? Did you 

Probably, America would be the biggest one because we had, we, I dunno how we did this, but we'd, and this wasn't even us, this was the, the vehicles, 'cause the cars, if I remember this right, they were too old to get the standard insurance.

They had been doing temporary insurance country to country. So when they arrived in America, they assumed they'd been shipped from the uk, which they hadn't. They'd been shipped from Russia. And there was just so many layers that the only insurance we could find. And this took us weeks of research stuck in Canada, unable to drive the vehicles.

And I think Joel found it in the end. We got like. Valet insurance of some variety. So Joel and I were allowed to drive anyone's car in the US but not our own. We couldn't be registered. It 

was the weirdest, I don't even know how legal it was, but it was just the weirdest thing that kind of worked like it allowed us in, you know, they let us, they let us get away with it and we were technically insured.

But yeah, that was a weird 

Yeah, act actually. What, what happened when you had to ship the cars at one point, didn't you? And you end up spending like a month in Columbia or something like that? Actually, 

yeah. That's probably the biggest issue we had was again, you know, not with any, anybody personally, but with the cars.

Just because it was such a weird circumstance being both right hand drive. When we got down to uh, um, Honduras and we wanted to enter into Nicaragua, Costa Rica had just banished right hand drive vehicles. After there was like a horrible accident. And so basically they were just like, we're done. We're not dealing with this.

And so when we went to the, the border of Nicaragua, 'cause Nicaragua works with, uh, Costa Rica, they were like, you're not gonna be able to get this through. So, you know, your plan is basically pointless. And so we ended up staying in Honduras, uh, and sorting it out from there. But yeah, we ended up having to ship from Honduras rather than from Panama, which was our original plan to do.

So that was a more of a kerfuffle and delay and, and, uh, unscheduled time's out. 

What was your time late in Columbia then? 

Hot. 

Yeah, hot. 

It was really hot, 

yeah. Was it good to take a break though? Because being on the road and kinda hot footing a lot of the time, was it, was it good to just settle somewhere for a little bit of time?

It wasn't, it wasn't like, the problem was is that we were like, especially at this point, we were so broke, so we were, we were just kind of like determined to finish. We'd gone so far and especially the shipping. That because we had to ship so much further than initially intended, that definitely tacked on a big extra bill that none of us were ready for.

And again, because we were all funding it on our own, uh, it was, uh, it was a tough one. So we ended up going from like really sleazy hostile to really sleazy hostile. We even ended up bumming it on in a girl's that we met, a random girl's living room floor for a couple of days. And there's, there's a, the video of us like carrying around this drone, which we probably should have just sold in retrospect 'cause that probably would've helped us out.

But yeah, carrying this drone around, you know, the carte hana beaches, like lugging it around, trying to, trying to cheap out and, and stay a weird spots. So, I mean, you know, it's amazing. We were in Columbia, we were in carte, it's, you know, such a beautiful place in the world on beautiful beaches, you know, having beers on the beach.

But I remember we were living off of about five bucks a day and that was, that was rough. 

Even back in, was back then, drones were still kind of new. So when we turned up the hostels, we'd be like. Hey, we are like a video team. 'cause technically we make videos and technically we have a drone. And like the drone was enough for people to be like, okay, yeah, you guys can all stay for free.

Is this your whole squad? And we were like, yes, this is the whole team. They must all stay for free. And yeah, that was, it worked out. Yeah, 

actually that made me think there was something else in the documentary when you went through, I think it was Mexico and they had a bit of a fuel crisis on the go. And you and you guys are driving through in the cars, but you, you seem to be that you were well received, but people were drawing on the windows and, and stuff like that.

What was that, what was that that all about? I think, yeah, I mean it was 

such a long time ago. We've been through so many other different experiences like that. Um, yeah, I can't really remember. I think there was like a few. Thing going on. I think it 

was between the government and the, um, I forget the technical term, but basically the Mexican gangs, the cartels.

Mm-hmm. 

So they were restricting fuel for some reason, and we had no idea this, just to show how broad our plan was and how lack of details, we just turned up and there was like a million guns and soldiers everywhere, and the roads just had convoys of 50 plus vehicles. And we were just like, oh, wow. Yeah, Mexico's very, there are more guns than I thought there'd be.

And it was only after a few days, we discovered that there was this big, uh, countrywide protest about, uh, fuel because they weren't, they were memory service. It was something to 

do with like, the government took over and was like selling it to the us and the US was selling it back to them for more or something like that.

Yeah. It was a very political thing, 

but the, but the locals saw that we weren't part of this and they were just like, well, if you're going somewhere, here's our message. Wrote it all over the cars. And we were like, that works for us. And. 

What was your, see when you were going through the Americas, what was your route like?

Did you have to take much back country and did you ever get lost? How much of an experience was that? 

I mean, we were kind of getting lost on purpose most of the time, as long as we were heading in the right direction, that was, it was pretty, pretty good, most of it. Um, but uh, yeah, yeah, I dunno. 

I think the Americas, I mean we've just been there, so it's quite like fresh in our mind, but I feel like in a way it is quite simple.

Like if you're heading to somewhere there, there's quite limited roads in a way. I mean like major roads. And we weren't particularly off-roading or anything. Yeah, I dunno. We definitely got lost. A hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah, because I mean, at that time as well, I don't think we. We barely traveled with data.

Like now we have phone signal and eims everywhere. It's really different. Whereas there we were relying on offline maps and things like that. So 

yeah, old school map. The nice thing though is when we get to like Central and South America, like well more Central America, like everything kind of bottlenecks and basically there ends up being only really one road that will go to a lot of different places.

So even though some of those hang off the side of a cliff, you're still, 

so before we, 'cause I wanted to kinda segue into the, your most recent adventure, your Pan American, uh, with the school bus, but, but now that we've kind. Circumnavigated your first, you know, major adventure, that, that became the genesis of the Global Convoy.

Do you want to, maybe, in your own words, just tell people what the Global Convoy is? Because I think from that, that's where your model and your community and your philosophy came from, which has been the springboard for your future adventure. So, so how, how did, when you wrapped up that first adventure, how did you come to settle on this as a, as an idea, as a community, as something that you wanted to further, whose idea was that and how did you bring that together?

I think it was kind of, we, we had this, like, we didn't, it wasn't clear yet, 'cause we kind of figured, okay, maybe we have light, like do we have this lightning in a bottle type thing? And uh, and so we ended up doing the, our first Mayhem trip. Um, yeah, I 

think we got back and we were all, obviously had the blues from not being on the road anymore.

And I think we were kind of like, can we recreate this like. The things that we got most from it was just, you know, traveling as a group, as a community brings so much to an experience and not just within ourselves, like the people with us, we saw them grow and develop so much over that time. So I think we were kind of curious like is this something we can recreate or is this, was this just a one-off thing?

So yeah, like Joelle was mentioning, we decided to kind of put the theory to test by putting together a one month long trip, the following May, which we now call our mayhem trip and it's supposed to be chaos. So yeah. I dunno. What would you say Max? 

Yeah, I think you've summed it up. We just all kind of had individually, 'cause we have very different backgrounds, but we all came out being, wow, that was incredible.

We all had a lot of personal growth, very cliche to say, but like I think it did grow us all in different ways and it was that, man, if you could sell this, you'd be a billionaire. And obviously it's very hard to sell, come be uncomfortable with some strangers and sleep badly for a month. But we were like, all right, we'll see.

And um, yeah, we did that first trip and, and the goal was never to make money. It was just to cover the cost of the fuel. And each time we do it, more people want to join. And I think we've, unless I'm missing, we've sold out of every trip we've ever planned. So there's a demand for it somehow. 

Yeah. That's amazing.

Yeah. And I've seen, you've done done the rounds at some of the adventure travel, uh, shows and stuff like that as well, which is, uh, which is great. So how many, before we talk about the Pan American, uh, trip, so how often do you run convoys and, uh, for people listening and watching, how can they get involved if they wanted to join an adventure?

Just sign up. Yeah. The website, like, or Instagram. We are, we're very, it's us three. This is the whole, the whole project is right here. If you just message us, we'll figure it out. But yeah, we probably do one or two a year, sometimes a lot more, depending on the year. COVID was not one of those years, but mayhem, we try and do every single May, and we've been pretty successful with that.

If there's another particularly cool project that we want to do, we'll do that. If people reach out and want to make a project happen, we can do that. It's, again, the theme of this is ad hoc and yep, we just kind of go as we go. 

And is it always over landing that you're doing, or anything different than that?

Or what, what's the, what, what's the, the premise 

so far? We love the idea of, uh, of, you know, we've, we've come up with like the Global Armada and Global Flotilla and you know, like we've got a lot of, a lot of other concepts in in mind. But, uh, Overland seems to be the, the most straightforward that we've found so far.

And so perfect segue into your most recent then. So the Pan-American, uh, highway Express. Forgive me. What highway, what highway, what of the terminology? I like 

the Sound of Highway Express. It don't. 

So this time you, you upgraded your vehicle, uh, a big yellow school bus. How did that come to be? Did you just find a, a school bus on Craigslist or something come to you or something?

What, what was the, the idea behind that? 

So we, we've always wanted, so it's really about the community for us, right? And bringing people together. Um, since the round the world trip, we had this kind of joke that we always end our presentations with at the adventure shows that we wanna get a double decker.

So for the past, like eight years, we've joked that one day we'll get a double decker bus. I drive around the world and it's, I don't know, it is always kind of been in the back of our minds, but not really something that we've had time or finances to like sit down and actually be like, right, we're doing it now.

And in 2022 on Mayhem, uh, we were in Morocco and we had a friend of a friend join us, uh, from the US. And we were just sitting around campfire that, you know, the conversation came up, what's next? And we were like, oh, well, you know, we've always wanted to do a double decker bus. And then Nick was like, oh, well if you wanna do a bus in the US I could probably help you organize that.

Um, and then, yeah, basically we just kind of, I dunno if any of us really took it seriously. Maybe a little bit, but I think we were just kinda like, oh, maybe, you know, we'll talk about it after. Um, and then he kind of kept following through with messages and was like, my parents have a workshop that we can use to convert it.

Luckily his family are quite sort of mechanical. The bus is like next level for us, right. We've never, 

it's basically a lorry really, rather than a, it's huge, you know, normal deal. Totally 

huge. 

So over the, the course of, uh, 2022, going into 23, I, whilst Nick was back in the US, he was going to look at different buses.

We put out feelers on our, uh, social media to see if anyone would actually be interested. And then we were like, okay, what, where are we gonna go? What are we gonna do if we do get a bus? And, uh, we thought about doing the Pan-American Highway because we'd covered quite a lot of it on the round the world trip, but not, you know, we hadn't been up to Alaska and we hadn't been down to re at the bottom in Argentina.

So yeah, we were just kind of like, I guess, yeah, 

just 

started it. Yeah. 

Basically came up with the idea around a campfire, and then a year later we were standing in front of a bus that, yeah, we owned, 

it's mad. You could probably park the Skoda and the little Micra in the back of that thing. It was huge.

It's absolutely, yeah, it definitely 

could have, actually, you could say it's three or four cars in there. Yeah. Yeah. 

Did it feel a bit more luxurious then when you got into that? 

It wasn't, it wasn't, it had its, it had, its, its, I mean it had its great draws in the sense like, we really have a full kitchen in there and like we were like, if it was raining, we were able to hang out in there and whatnot.

But then a big draw was if like somebody really gets on your nerves, you can't hop out to the other car the next day. Yeah. So, you know, it's ups and ups and downs. It 

must have been a, a bit of a fuel guzzler. I I would imagine it's, yeah. 

Yeah, yeah. But I mean, it, well, it, it was a fuel guzzler, but when you, when you actually pack it out to the amount of people that we had on the bus the whole time, then it becomes, you know, of course insanely efficient when you, when you look at the amount of fuel per person that we were going through.

But it 

becomes more efficient. Yeah. 

It's a lot more efficient than having four cars, that's for sure. But 

yeah. So, so, so talk us through your journey then for, was that Alaska down to, uh, Argentina? So down to, is that, is that the start end points that bookended that, 

so we started in Minnesota. Um, and then, 

yeah, so we decided that our Mayhem 23 would be just a month driving around the US to test the bus because we had no idea.

I mean, this was also sort of learning for us how to navigate with something this big logistically. We used to just turning up to whatever carpark now, we actually had to think about, okay, can we fit? Yeah, can imagine. So imagine we thought we'd take, imagine a month, imagine to just test it to see if we felt comfortable enough to attempt the Pan American.

So after that month from Minnesota, we, so we picked everyone up in Chicago and basically drove across the US hitting national parks to Vegas where we ended. Then we made some modifications on the bus, kind of got it ready and drove it up to Alaska where we started. The Pan-American 

did, did you all take a turn of driving it or wa was it a designated design?

The original plan is that all three of us were gonna be driving. Yeah, 

I did drive a couple of times, but it was just. It was so different and so big. It was quite on the road in the US it was kind of okay, but I dunno. Yeah, some of the scary hairpins, basically 

the, the, we, we were able to convert the bus to becoming an rv.

And uh, with that conversion in the US any normal driver's license will allow you to drive and insure the vehicle as long as you don't have more than a 15 people within the vehicle, including the driver. So essentially that is what we did to make sure it was insured and up to par for, for doing the whole trip, which to a European sounds absolutely insane and it kind of is, but that's insane.

That was how we, that was how we managed to get away with it. 

So the 15 people in the bus, did that include those that were on the roof or could you get away with or on the roof? 

Sadly. Yeah. 

Yeah, I've seen a few parties happen or legality wise. Yeah, I've seen a few parties happening on the roof. I think on some of the videos it looked, it looked pretty epic.

So how long was that in comparison to your round the world trip? Because it was quite a lengthy journey that as well, wasn't it? You were on the road for about two, 300 days or something, is that right? 

Yeah, it was pretty close. So from start to finish was, um, start line to finish line, I should say it was 243 days, so call it like eight-ish months.

So in that sense it was shorter than the round the world trip. But the big difference was a, we had the big shipping problem in the middle trying to get to Columbia. So that was basically two months of just waiting, just paperwork, just stressing and such for multiple reasons. We'll get into in a sec. But the other thing was like Becca was saying, it's hard to describe how big this vehicle is if you've never driven one.

Like when you turn left, the backend turns right. And we had to do so much planning. Of where we could drive, not just what Google Map says, not just what other GPS systems say. We had to like scrape it through in satellite view on our phones before we started driving. And so whilst it was half the length of actual driving, it felt about as long as fun as it was.

It was quite tough. 

What kind of trouble did that get you into on some of these roads? I can imagine, especially in the Americas being a bit 

tied. Well, uh, the worst by far. I can see Joel grinning was, uh, in Nicaragua. So luckily this was neither Joel or I driving at the time. It was our friend Nick, but, and this is not his fault, this wasn't bad driving.

This is just, it goes wrong sometimes. We were going to a very old colonial, uh, Nicaraguan city and the roads just get narrower and narrower and more and more people are parking their cars. And at one point we attempted a left turn. And about everything that could go wrong went wrong. The back left tire hit an old like bent piece of metal, a drain pipe, and so bust the tire burst.

And then in the backup from that, clipped a local car whose owner was there as a fire engine turned on its sirens to say, I have to go down here, you have to move immediately. And it was just absolute chaos and that was one of the most stressful nights ever. 

That sounds absolutely stressful. 

Yeah, most of the time it was fine, but once in a blue moon it was a nightmare.

Did you get yourself any, did you have to tip your way out of any problems at all with those parts of the world damaging cars or anything like that, or, 

that was the only time we made contact with another vehicle and it was not even a big, like, it was a tiny dent. And I'm not just saying that and the woman like understand, but was like, who's gonna pay for this?

And I, I was speaking there with her saying, I think this will be about $50 and you'll be fine. And she's like, no, it'll be 200, two different taxi drivers drove past. And had a conversation. It was like, make sure he gives you 50. That's at least 50. And so we were like, cool, here's our 50. And then, you know, quote it a day.

We're very lucky in hindsight. 

Yeah. H how, how reliable was, was the bus compared to, to the cars when you'd done the circum navigation? Was it quite steady? 

It was pretty, it was pretty good. It had, its of course like different challenges and things like that, but the engine was very solid. Our first month when we were doing the test run for mayhem, within the first, uh, couple of days, we actually lost the transmission.

Transmission. Yeah. So that was pretty detrimental. We, and that was the big, uh, challenge within itself. We had to end up basically Reiv, probably half the United States too. Find a used transmission of this style. And you know, of course, because these are all bigger vehicles, these, this is bigger, heavier duty equipment.

You know, most people don't buy and sell these things on their own. This is all through industrial trucking, you know, organizations and things like that. We just happened to find the only transmission in Minnesota that was for sale, like free, and when we went to pick it up, it even, it looks, it did not look good.

Like when we brought it to the guys that were gonna put it in for us, they basically took one look at it and they were like, we're gonna install it and you're gonna pay us the money to install it, but if this doesn't run afterwards, that's not our fault. 

You've, that's thought like, because they look quite, quite prevalent to those school buses in the US I would've thought just naively that there would've been lots of parks and spares and these would've been quite, you know.

Scrap yards full of these types of things. But is that not the case then? Or is it just because they're in, you know, industry vehicles or something? I that really now there 

definitely still is. They're all over the place. But because it's exactly like you said, they're industry vehicles, so for people to have them, you know, like there's a lot of schooly people who own their own vehicles, you know, and convert buses and stuff like that.

And there is a secondhand market, but it's very limited compared to, you know, the industrial market 

I think as well. 'cause I mean, obviously we broke down and went, the first thing we did was to find a local school to talk to everything in a mechanic. Quite a lot of the school districts had like one specific mechanic that they used for the buses and it was very difficult to try and convince them to, well, I mean, they were always willing to give us like tips and advice, but they were so busy they couldn't really help us as, as such.

Um, and quite a lot of truck mechanics tried to avoid touching the bus. I don't know. It was kind of weird. I think probably because they're like service vehicles, like the aftermarket is sold, like I think we bought it from a, you know, a ding the ship that sells like, um, service vehicles, I guess. Yeah, yeah.

In terms of, we were lucky to, so I was just 

gonna finish with, we were lucky because when we, after we fixed the transmission and took it, like went up to Alaska, from that point on, it was mostly just tires and, you know, things, things that we could fix and repair on the way down. Obviously tires, we couldn't do our own, but that we were able to find plenty of people who could scrape and, yeah.

I was gonna 

ask you on, on the tires in terms of like the terrain, you know, Alaska down to, I, I can imagine very, very different, you know, temp climates and terrain and stuff. Did you, did you have to take snow chains or anything? Or what, what was, or did you just kinda. Used the CNC tires. Yeah. 

Um, yeah, we, we were able to stick with pretty much the same set of tires with the, with these, the, the bus that we were on and a lot of lorries from the states, especially because we were real wheel drive.

We have a really different traction system. What's most important is the two front tires. Basically, the way it was explained to us was that, that that's your lifeblood. If these front tires go, you know, you could, you could roll or crash the, the bus, you know, that's, this is something that you've gotta take very seriously.

You know, me and Max always had a really keen eye on making sure every single time we got off the bus, every time we started the bus in the morning, we would make sure we inspect the tires to see if there was any big gaps or, um, gauges. And we even replaced them at one point. Um. Just to, uh, keep them safe.

The back tires on the other hand, you know, they're, they're usually quite knobby and grippy and we were able to swap those out with pretty much anything because the bus is so heavy. Like, you know, you have the opposite problems of not having correction and things of getting stuck. And especially with her having such a wide back backend, that was actually a problem that we would regularly have of actually, instead of like sinking or getting stuck in like, you know, mud or things like that, we'd actually be able to apply through the mud.

It's just the backend would actually sit on the ground. And it was the whole other selection of issues. 

Did, did the bus have a nickname? 

It had two. It had two Stacey's. Mom was the original one. And then slowly Babs developed as like shorthand for Stacey's mom. 

Okay, say no more the community side of that journey then.

How, how did that unfold? Did you pre-book all your guests or community members beforehand or did just people just hop on and hop off as you went across the expressway highway? 

So we calculated the rough cost of the whole expedition. So the shipping, the fuel, you know, breakages and things. Um, and then we pretty much sort of divided that we worked out like an average of how many seats we would need filled and for how long.

And then, yeah, we just kind of got interest from people. I mean, it was kind of this like similar to around the world trip, we had people that joined us on Mayhem. They came for the month, they flew back to the uk. So we started the Pan-American in August. So there was like a two month gap. Um, they decided they wanted to come back out.

Yeah. And 

we had two or three people that joined. Mayhem came back home, started working, and then they were like, no, I'm coming and doing the whole thing to make the project happen. We knew we needed a certain amount of commitment, but quite a lot of the seats, I guess, kind of were 

as we go. That's an awesome dynamic that the fact that it's so flexible as well, that people can just kind of dip in and dip out of it.

It's, it's, there's nothing else like this on the planet at all. It's phenomenal work. It really is 

because it's a lot of work. That's why nobody else, 

it's equal part madness as well, which is I think, which is what it kinda, uh, which kinda lus, uh, which, which brought me, uh, towards it a little bit. So yeah, it's, it's wonderful.

It really is. 

I think the thing is as well, like we're we are not doing this to make money. 

Exactly. Yeah. We are 

really doing it because we, we have a wonderful experience, but also it's really rewarding seeing other people have that too. Uh. So, yeah, I mean, it's not a great business 

model for making money trying get, but it's, it, I mean it's, it is about the experience and, and when I talk to a lot of people through this show, it's when, when you can tell the difference in, in that and when people are actually doing these things for the experience and the adventure and it's like trying to bring people along on it as well.

And if everyone can chip in and contribute, you know, whether it's monetarily or, or buy skills or, or whatever, then you know, it's the experience, uh, you know, experiences over, over possessions. Uh, absolutely. Yeah. 

Yeah, it's really amazing, like seeing a lot of the, the people who kind of come together that, especially my favorite thing is seeing the people who joined on that were really shy and, and are quite timid before, and then at the end of the trip are just like a whole new person and suddenly have this amount, like immense amount of confidence.

And, uh, that I don't know that that is really, there's a lot of satisfaction that comes with, you know, people that like that, that join our trips. And luckily for us, we usually tend to get at least one every single trip. 

Do you keep a community, like a, a group or something like that on Facebook or Discord or something like that?

Do you keep in touch with everyone? How does that, the community side of it work? 

Um, we've got Facebook groups and we have a chat for every, um, trip that we've done. So that trip can stay in contact with each other, but then we have, as soon as the new thing needs to happen, a new chat gets made. So we just have a laundry list of different chats where we know who can find who and who needs to speak to who.

But yeah, once again, very ad hoc. 

Probably the big benefit of joining any of those groups is whenever we have a weird idea or something like that, that we wanna throw out, we throw it out there first. 

Yeah. Excellent. Yeah, I, I really like the idea that the, the fertility type, uh, 

yeah, there we go. Mm-hmm.

Need some, need some more captains. I don't know if anybody's got an experience with boating, but that's the other big thing about this. It's, you know, it's just that it's, it's us, you know, and we're really personable and we like that, uh, that kind of like personal touch. And so we always really encourage people to just reach out to us, you know, as a, yeah.

And when this goes live and stuff, I'll do as much as I can to get more, uh, you know, awareness and stuff like that because Oh, cheers. Yeah. We'll just, yeah. Yeah. You know, we'll hopefully join you at some point, even for a short stint at some point somewhere. Absolutely. Yeah. See, in terms of the whole experience, just to ask that, because it's a massive undertaking, so you're away from, you know, other friends and family and stuff.

D does it ever get to you that you think you've just bitten off too much that you can chew or like, you know, I just want to pipe this in and get back to normality. What's, who do you wrestle on the mental side of that, or, or is that even, is, is it an issue? 

I think, well maybe I'll go first and then Max can speak, but I thi so for example, with this, with the Pan-American trip, I think we were aware that it's such a long time to be away, so we did plan to have a month gap in the middle.

So we had the three months from Alaska to Panama. Then we know that shipping always goes wrong and it takes more time than it. You know, it says it's gonna take, so we were like, okay, we'll have a month break, then everyone can go off and do their own thing. There's no commitments. Whoever's there that wants to stay there can organize their own things, but it gives us a break from kind of being the ones that are always leading everything.

And also it gives a buffer of time if there were complications with shipping and then, yeah, we had another three months after, but I mean the shipping went wrong anyway and took two months. Even with planning, it still doesn't go to plan. But yeah, I dunno if, if you guys wanna add anything to it, 

I feel like exactly what you said, luckily more than anything, I think every time we've been in a situation where you have that moment of like, how in the world are we getting outta this?

There is no way back. It's only forwards. And you can look back and go like, oh man, we did it. Aren't we great? But realistically, it's just there was no other option. I think the bus with the cars, it was quite scary 'cause we had, um, issues in Peru with the cars, but the legality, it was still easier to get them back to the UK rather than trying to scrap them or find their history or something.

The bus was that on steroids. Simply, it is so big. It is so hard to find parts for it just in America that like the second we were in Mexico, like I had that feeling. The entire trip was like, have we bitten off too much? And the further we got from the Mexico American border, the more real it became. And then when we were in South America, it was like, we have bitten off more.

We just have to chew now. So, you know, and there were lots of issues, but we overcame them all one by one. And luckily none of them were too big to, uh, handle. But it was, yeah, it's a very regular feeling, but it feels good to look back and be like, and we still made it. 

I also think Chris, 'cause you, I just wanted to touch back on, you were talking about like being away from friends and family, like for long periods of time.

I think for friends we just try to drag them along with us, you know, so that's easier than not. But uh, for family and stuff, I think because we've been doing this for so long, this is just, we've just kind of dedicated like all of our, you know, time to trying to make these kinds of things happen. So I think our families kind of gave up on, on us a long time ago and just accepted that this is 

Yeah, I think so.

We are, it's we a life, isn't it? So we a life to an extent. 

I think also though, like we live in such a, like a time where we're so well connected. Like my sister had a baby whilst we were away, but I was still able to video call and have regular updates. And I know it's not the same as being in person, but we are, we can still stay quite well connected, I think.

Yeah. Which 

makes it very different. 

Yeah. And probably more so than when you're done the first trip around the world. I mean, technology is, you know, to one significantly, hasn't it? 

I mean, yeah. Having data like that was such a. We never had data when we were on the, around the world trip, we were all off. I mean, we were lucky to connect to wifi once a week, maybe McDonald's, something like that.

Yeah, at McDonald's or wherever. And it's crazy. The bus trip we had, we had four or 5G most of the, most of the time. I think our biggest stint was Alaska, where we had maybe five days or something like that with no, no connection whatsoever. Yeah. And then, you know, spots here and there for South America, central America.

I can't think of a place we were at that. We didn't have full connection. 

Yeah, it's crazy now, isn't it, with the Eims? Like you just load that up and you can just hop from continent to continent and country pretty much. You put in Americas and you're always connected. It is. It's, yeah, it's, it's crazy. And te see, rolling back a little bit.

Did you have any backout plans at all? What you know, max, you spoke about, 'cause that was in my mind, you know, you're going through the, you leave America into Central and South America and the access to mechanics and schools and, and stuff like that and thinking, well, if this goes awry, did you have plans in terms of what you would've done if that had happened or We, 

we had as always, some very broad plans.

This was definitely one of our better plan trips. Like the round the world thing was off the cuff. And every trip since then, we've become better at it. And knowing where to put our time planning and not waste our time planning. This was by far the most detailed one, but even still, you know, we had a list of, um, possible like heavy diesel mechanics that.

Be able to help in certain countries. And even that's pretty broad because what if we a don't break down? There's no point wasting time trying to figure that out, or what if we break down in a specific place and eventually you'll meet someone who knows someone who knows someone and you can find the solution.

The problem with the bus is just if we are out in the middle of nowhere and get stuck, which happened quite a few times, if we can't get ourselves out, we'll never get to the help that can help us. And so most of our preparation was how not to get the bus stuck. And we were mostly successful with that, 

mostly.

Uh, what happened in Columbia that, so the, because obviously you had to ship the bus, didn't you, at some point, was that because it was impenetrable in terms of like the, the jungle or the roads or something? What, what was the, the need to ship the bus on that trip? 

Yeah, there's the, the Darien Gap, which is quite infamous for being, um, a, a, a huge jungley, mountainous, rivery piece of terrain that's in between Panama and Columbia.

Yeah, it basically, we actually, we actually met the man who did it, but the, the only person to drive a vehicle through, or the last person to drive a vehicle through was in 79, I think, or something like that. With the help of both the Colombian and 

British military, what, I can't remember what she said was like more dynamite than you could sneak a stick out or something.

It's just not a dumb thing. Like to go there. Yeah. Did you, did you think you were Yeah. Think you basically have no choice. 

Yeah, I was gonna say, Joel, did you think you, were you going to attempt it to try? No. No. Alright. 

No, no, no. It's also quite dangerous. It's become, uh, and that's, it's, it's become a massive immigration route for refugees and, and other people trying to seek, um, asylum just better lives.

But of course, because of that, it's, it's run by a couple cartels and, uh, you know, it's, it's very, very heavily traveled. Uh, there's a lot of, for lack of a better way of saying it, there's a lot of like white YouTubers that have gone and followed these people doing it. So, I mean, you can see it, but you know, it's not something that you have any business being a part of.

And we especially did not. So, yeah, I mean, especially the idea of getting, I mean, just getting a car through in the first place is, is comical as is. So the bus, we were just, you know, yeah. We planned ahead. 

It attract, attract a lot of attention. I, I would imagine as well. Yeah. So in terms of bringing that trip to, to close, then, so what happened with a bus at the end?

So we were trying to figure that out once we got to South America. 'cause another part of it was we didn't know if we'd even make it that far. And luckily, and this was very stressful at the end 'cause we didn't know who, and there were lots of things that fell through, but we ended up finding a guy that wanted to buy it and he wanted, he helps convert people's vehicles and repair vehicles for driving the Pan-American.

So he really resonated with the story of the bus, first school bus to ever do the full Pan-American. And he wanted to convert it, not scrap it, he wanted to convert it into a bunkhouse that people can live in whilst they're working on their own vehicles. And we just figured this was like the absolute perfect sendoff to Stacey's mom.

She'll forever be housing people. And I remember when we first, uh, showed him the bus, he looked inside and we have graffiti all over the inside from people we've met signing their signature. And he was just like, I can't remember what he said, but it was like, this is, this is only gonna grow. Like, I'm not taking any of this out.

And it was just like he got it and we were like over the moon to give him the bus and, uh, convert. It 

went from a lot of stress to a lot of happiness of, uh, where the bus went at the end. 

Yeah. How does it make you feel to, to think that bus is sitting there and it's getting, you know, people are coming and going and stuff.

Do, do you miss it? Does it, do you feel, you know, an element of being rewarded that like, that it's been taken care of? It seems quite serendipitous that, that, that it's kind of found a new life of sorts. Yeah. 

I think that was something we were really hoping for as well. 

Yeah. I think, I mean, at the time I think we were kind of like, you know how it is when you're on the road and it seems like you still have so much time left and then suddenly it's the end.

And I think we were probably all like slightly relieved that it was over, but also, you know, really sad to see the bus go. It was our home for almost a year. But yeah, I think now it's, it's nice that we, it's in a place where we have a good sort of relationship with the new owner. We know we're welcome to go back and visit.

I'm actually gonna be there in two weeks. 

Really? I was gonna ask if you're gonna do a PE meet. I didn't realize. Yeah. Planned already. Amazing. 

Um, I'm going out there for a different expedition, but I was like, I have to go and see it. Yeah. 

Amazing. 

So, yeah, it's, it's just a nice feeling kind of knowing that it will be there and still be used.

If we were in a financial position, maybe we would've driven it back up, you know, we could, would've continued going, but it's nice that it wasn't scrapped and that it's kind of, it's got a home Yeah. That we can go to, you know, if we have kids, if we have grandkids, yeah. We can maybe one day take them there.

You know, it's kind of a nice, like time capsule in a way that we know that we can always go visit. 

Yeah. Wonderful. And to see, can I ask about, 'cause you've done the documentary, the one that I'd I'd watched last night was about your first adventure, but in terms of the, the content that you've captured with us, what's the intent to, if at all, to, to create a follow-up documentary?

Yeah, yeah. The, the, basically exactly that. We just wanna make a, not a follow-up documentary to our last, but a, a documentary on its own about, you know, the bus, uh, the people that we had on it and kind of the Pan-American Highway on its own. It's something I feel like surprisingly not a lot of people think about, even though it's one of the most incredible roads, you know, kind of out there in the world.

And so we're hoping we can do a little bit of justice and bring a bit more light to, uh, the good, the bad, the ugly and, and the adventure of, of the Pan-American Highway. 

Yeah, I think that would be pretty epic to, to, to, to watch that. I think it's, it is, I mean. You know, the, the first trip's incredible as it is, but there's just something captivating, I think about this, the, the vehicle as well in the, in the community.

Yeah. So I, I look, do, look forward to seeing that hopefully in time. What's next in terms of big adventures? How do you, how do you top that? A double decker. A double decker, A Harry Potter style theme? 

Yeah. 

Are, are you trying to get your hands on a double decker? That would be excellent. 

Yeah. We, we, we have the idea and I think it's more, it's more of a financial thing and then we have to figure out the time for it.

Would you start in London? Would you start it in London or somewhere? Maybe. 

I think we, right now we're focusing on the documentary about the Pan American Highway. We've got this year's mayhem coming up where we're heading to Kyrgyzstan. So it'd be good to get back to Central Asia 'cause it's been quite a few years now and yeah, I don't know.

I think, I think there will be another bus. It was very rewarding. But I think we need some time to catch up on life admin and build up some finances before we go again. 

Yeah, yeah. Excellent. So what, tell us what the mayhem, so that's an annual event and Kyrgyzstan, so, so where has that been typically over the past few years for people that want to know?

Well, basically it's, it's just, um, a thing we do in May. It can kind of fluctuate depending on the time, you know, what, what our schedules are and whatnot. But yeah, basically we try to do a, a trip in May every year that's as chaotic and new and different and weird, uh, as we can possibly imagine. So it sounds like a good, uh, setup for the, you know, global armada.

Yeah. 

You know, 

excellent beginning 

at least or something like that. 

Excellent. Fantastic. But yeah, 

it's just, just keep in touch. We always, um, announce what we're doing for it. 

Yep. Wonderful. This has been excellent. I've, uh, thoroughly enjoyed this so far. Conscious of all your, your, your times we've been on for over an hour, which I can't, can't.

Believe, yeah. Know I'm 10 minutes and my head's full of questions, but I'll, I won't, uh, cut too much of your time. I wanted to move into, what we have is the closing traditions on the show. So there are three essentially. So, so one is a pay forward recommendation, so for, for each of you to recommend whether it's a charity or work a project, a worthy cause, something for listeners and viewers to, uh, go and look into and, and maybe support in some way.

So maybe start, you know, I don't, I don't know. This is the first time I've done it to a group, so maybe if I ask you each individually and we'll, we'll, we'll see how it goes. So maybe starting with yourself, Becca, what would you recommend, what would you say is a pay forward recommendation? 

So, oh my gosh. I feel really on this part.

I'm trying. Well, okay. So, uh, maybe let's start with this. This might be an answer for us all if they don't have one, but we recently became Ambassadors for Adventure Mine, which is a organization put together by Belinda Kirk. She's really trying to work with peoples, that sort of work within healthcare and with adventurers and scientists to get everyone talking about how good it is to be outside for your mental health.

And as ambassadors, we're hoping to try and collect some data or some things whilst we're on the road because we physically see these changes. And this is why we're really, we love what we are doing because we see people build resilience, confidence, you know, people that join us that may be a bit lost in life, maybe a bit depressed.

And I think kind of giving people that chance to adventure and push them out of their comfort zone, but within the kind of comfort of being with other people, um, is really beneficial. Yeah. Have a look at Adventure Mind. Um, Belinda's doing some great work and she's got her book as well. Uh. 

Venture Revolution I think it is.

Which is, yeah, yeah, yeah. Follow Belinda's work, uh, very closely. Excellent. That's, uh, fantastic Max. Joel, anything else to add to that? 

It's a bit of a cheap answer, but kind of same like, I feel like while, for me personally, I know Joel and Becker and Barry's extents the same. It was the growth from the first adventure and the getting outta my comfort zone, that changed me as a person for the better.

And ever since that's what we've been trying to do. And now find someone like Belinda championing a cause like that so publicly, it's gotta be a den mind. 'cause it just makes your life better and makes you happier. 

To go along with that though, there's, I mean, all you really need to do, I think, is to look back into your local community and wherever you are and what you're doing.

Especially I know in the UK we've had the pleasure to, to work and, and kind of rub elbows with so many different amazing organizations that do so much for everything from cancer research to mental health, to just getting kids and people outside. I know a lot of people are terrified of what the next generation's gonna come out like because everybody's on their phones nowadays and things like that.

And I think that's probably more important than ever to, um, to make sure that people are getting kids out and get them to understand the, the access that they have the right to get out and enjoy. And there's so many different wonderful organizations, sorry to be vague about it, but there's just so many out there that are trying to get people out such as 

adventure Mind.

Yes. Excellent. Very, very worthy. And yeah, and it's just reminded me I need to follow up 'cause I've been trying to get Belinda on the show and diaries didn't align, but that's a timely reminder and a very worthy cause. Thank you. So secondly, a call to adventure. So a recommendation to get people often doing some exciting, adventurous, but what would you recommend 

Join the global Combine.

I think that says it all, quite frankly. So, uh, yep. Excellent. 

I would say from my own, my own personal experience, um, one of the things that got me into traveling the most and like sustainably was, um, was finding a, a summer job. Like, you know, if you're, if you're a younger person or even if you're older, you know, if you find a, a summer gig somewhere out that gets you out to nature, that allows you to work in a really beautiful, amazing place and you could spend time or at least a season, you know, somewhere that's quite different or unique from where you are, I definitely take advantage of doing something like that, whether it's, you know, backpacking or guiding or just working at like a ice cream stand.

It doesn't really matter that that's a huge, that was a massive gateway for me when I was. In my early twenties to getting out and kind of exploring the world in a financially sound kind of way. 

Agreed. Excellent. Yeah, just, you know, especially when you're younger, you know, getting exposure to, to nature in the wild and being out and not falling into the trap of getting behind a desk to early on as well.

Excellent. So that's the two closing traditions, the the fi. The last and final piece that you'll be glad to hear is that a quick fire round, which has 10 questions so you can just answer as you see fit. Now don't know whether to do this if everyone wants to answer or anyone wants to pass, but we'll, we'll see.

So I'll start ladies first as as usual. So question one of 10, Becca, you can have a dinner party with two guests, dead or alive. Who would they be? 

Well, David Attenborough, a hundred percent would be one. I don't know who else. Oh gosh. I don't know. Do you guys have any I'm definitely 

good with Attenborough.

Yeah. Because we'd probably be at dinner party. 

Right. And Joel, who would you, who would you add to that? 

Uh, yeah, trying to think. That's a, it's a tough one when it's someone that's on the spot that you're, you're kind of going at it at probably Attenborough, I don't know. I guess 

maybe someone like Shackleton Yeah.

From was thinking a very different line that we could just be like, you know. What was on your mind? Do you know who would be incredible? 

Is, um, uh, is a Sullivan or Richardson, the guy from the original. Yeah, actually, yeah. That's the, the first guy to ever attempt to drive the Pan-American. Just to tell him how much has changed.

Yeah. Because 

there's a scene that Joe loves where he's like, and as you know, no one will ever drive through Costa Rica 'cause there are no roads. And it's just like, to compare that to today is. Uh, that would be, that'd be an interesting, 

yeah. Excellent. Brilliant. Uh, so question number two, what's the craziest experience you've had on the road?

And we'll ask each of you, that's Becca. What's your craziest experience? And if first to one 

of the others, go first. 

Right. Joel? Go to Joel. 

Uh, so probably one of my, one of the first like real mind blowing kind of things that shows the generosity of people. Was it Uzbekistan or was it Kazakhstan with the leg?

Kazakhstan. It was 

Kazakhstan. Yeah. We'd gotten into Kazakhstan and we had basically been told like, okay, you know, you gotta be careful 'cause they have these unmarked vehicles that are like secret police kind of thing. Yeah, we kind of heard these like rumors and like urban myths or whatever, and so you get pulled over by like a white, a Toyota, four runner, and uh, and, and the guy just basically flags us down.

And so we were, we were really nervous sitting in the Skoda and, uh, and wasn't really sure like what, you know, what was gonna happen, what was going on. And, and, uh, I see they start talking to, I'm in the car behind and I see 'em talking to, to Max and whoever was in the car. And uh, and I see him kind of shaking his hand and he's speaking really like, like, you know, almost emotionally like, like it, you can see.

He's got a lot of, he's got a lot of umph to him. And then I see him suddenly he runs back to his, his, uh, vehicle and then comes back out and he's got a giant bag and then suddenly he gets back in front of the car and he holds up the bag and then he pulls out a giant lamb leg. And, and essentially in a nutshell, he was like, where you guys come from England?

That's amazing. Here have this leg of lamb. Welcome to our country. This is incredible. And, and that was a, that went from like, wow. Like, oh my God, are we, are we gonna be okay? Is this all right to, it's like, yeah. Wow. Like what? What a welcome, you know? 

Wow. Excellent. Can anyone beat that? 

Uh, I definitely can beat it, but it's similar.

More, yeah. Similar vibes of just local hospitality. When we were doing the, um, hitchhiking through Japan thing on that same trip, one of the guys that picked Joel and I up and we were hitchhiking together was, uh, his name's Jean Chiro, and he basically was like, well, I have like this office, you can sleep in my office tonight.

And we were like, cool, that sounds great. Next day, wake up. And he's like, I'm going to like an art festival. Do you guys wanna come? And we are like, of course this sounds amazing. But it was a traditional iron smelting thing, and they were basically making a traditional Japanese catana from scratch. And they were like, we need someone to work the bellows, get the white guys to do it.

So me and Joel were there, like working the furnace, and it was just this moment that kind of dawned, it's like, are we making a samurai sword? Like I thought we were hitchhiking. And it was just like, that takes me back to Japan and just, it was two weeks of that, just the weirdest, wonderful things. 

That is absolutely wonderful.

Excellent. I love that. I absolutely love that. So question three, hidden talent. Becca, do you have a hidden talent 

I, for detail? Oh yeah. We, we would've failed years ago if it wasn't for Becca fact. A hundred percent 

Excellent. Uh, Joel. Hidden talent, 

geez. Pretty good at just slamming my head against something until it either goes or we have to quit.

Excellent. Uh, max, do you have hidden, hidden talent? 

Uh, I don't if this counts. I'm pretty good with languages. Like I picked them up I their languages. Yeah. 

And that's been fairly helpful for us. 

Yeah, 

it's amazing how quickly, especially when we were in Japan, I think one it helps because Max is really already fascinated with it.

But then two like. Once he grabs onto something very, uh, very almost on the spectrum level, just, just cannot like stop looking at it. And uh, and he was looking at the, all the Japanese symbols and within like a week. 

Yeah, he had 

a, a pretty good, I remember the first time we, we figured out what exit meant and whatever, and we were like super excited.

But it works for every language. I mean, like, we were in Bulgaria for a while and like he managed to speak a pretty decent amount of Bulgaria, like within like a month. Yeah. Russian was quite 

impressive in, in the movie when the guy was talking about his time in the military and stuff like that. So it was quite impressive.

Number four, favorite movie? Fifth Element. That's a good one. Kind of random, but 

think about, I dunno, 

like Planet Earth or something. 

No, I love Pixar movies, but I'm trying to think of which one. 

Hmm. 

It's okay. You can pass. 

I can't think of a clear enough winner. It would take me too long. 

Yeah. Uh, okay.

Favorite book other than the Oh, 

uh, the Alchemist. Do you know that one? 

I do that too. Yeah. 

That was, I was reading that shortly before we did the, the Convoy originally. And I thought, spoiler, not spoiler. It's about following your dreams. And I was just like, okay, well if it's not now, it's never, and that's the vibe of the book.

And I was like, off we go. And it all worked out. So Cool book. 

Yeah. I thought it might have been a Nissan Micra handbook, but nevermind. 

Yeah, there you go. We have a Hanes manual for the Skoda, and that was used to death. We had a breakdown in Kazakhstan in the oil refinery in a desert, and they, we were using the Hanes manual to explain to them what was broken.

And it was just like Hanes Manual. Yeah. 

Yeah. Excellent. What's the last music gig that you either of you went to? You remember the name, 

like big one or a small. 

Anyone? The last one 

we just went, well yeah, we were just in London for the past few months and we loved going to like just small gigs anywhere.

We went to one in Camden? Yeah. To a band called Alpha Horse. I can't think of a big one though. 

I can't, I can't say I've heard of them. Yeah. 

Yeah, they're like 

a metal band. They're from 

Panama actually. So they're They're pretty, yeah, they're pretty great. 

I 

dunno if I, main thing in the world is live music.

I just, 

it's a running joke and it's also the truth. I don't like live music. 

I got to beat this some Estonian heavy metal punk rock band thing recently. 

Nah, it just, music isn't my idea of a good time. Like you're always joking about me being on the spectrum. I thinking, right? Like the last light of music I probably went to was in Belizean Independence Day when we were on the bus in Belize.

We turned up on Independence Day and there was like a fair and we went to that. So very sad answer. 

That that fair enough. Right. If you could snap your fingers and be anywhere right now doing anything, what would it be? 

Ooh, exactly where I am winning the 

lottery,

probably in a jungle somewhere looking for hummingbirds or doing some sort of research. We've been, yeah, 

for me, I'd say, uh, we're gonna be there in a, in a few months in, uh, Kyrgyzstan, in the mountains. Ah, that's something I'm really looking forward to 

actually. You, you answered, made me think about something.

Becca Explorers connect, 'cause I know Belinda's kinda connected to that. Do you guys ever use that to get people onto the convoy or, 

yeah, yeah. We used it the best actually. 

Yeah. Excellent, excellent. 

Another great community. Yeah. Actually, can we add that into our, like, recommendations for Adventure as Explorers Connect?

Is it super place to begin for all levels? 

Yeah. It's funny 'cause I, I seen to put someone put a post up, uh, yesterday or today and it was about, uh, traversing the OK of Angle Delta. And it's in the same day that I'm having a call with someone to, to organize a trip to go and do that. But the timings just don't, so it's quite, quite odd that that has been in my mind.

And then I've seen someone put a post about that on that. 

Yeah. Wonder, wonder Show met that guy, right? Yeah. Was Jay. Yeah. 

Oh yeah. So it's, uh, it's mad. It's mad how when you just start speaking to people like yourself and you can get involved in this community, how these things just present themselves.

It's, it's wonderful. It's so 

cool. 

Number nine, if you could relive any moment in your life, what would it be? Why? 

Ooh, man. I think, I think maybe driving the, uh, well, most recent, like, just to get an answer down, I think when we were driving the bus through Alaska on like, uh, like just, just going through, oh, no, through the Yukon, not Alaska, the Yukon.

'cause that the Yukon is just so insanely gorgeous and normally we have to kind of struggle to find like, you know, good campgrounds or things like that. But I mean, because everything's just so vast and so open, you know, every single night we had, you know, great, amazing campgrounds, but a lot of 'em, the wood was supplied.

Like, it was just, that was luxury. That was really, and we were just able to, yeah, it was just, it was just so much fun. That was, yeah. 

Awesome, awesome. Uh, and number 10, and finally, what is the best advice you've ever received? 

A ship in a harbor is safe, but that's not what ships are built for. Like, basically, you know, you can do the safe thing, but is that all you are good for you?

Just 'cause something's uncomfortable doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. 

Yeah. Just because something is uncomfortable doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. That's, uh, yeah. Yeah. What about you? Mine is be Joel, I 

think. Uh oh yeah. Was your Oh, you go for it. It's the, the dumbest person in the room. Be the dumbest person in the room if you can, 

you are here.

Exactly. 

I don't know. I think I would go with something similar to Max's, but I can't, I don't have like a particular phrase or something. 

No. Uh, really, really like that. Well, that's it. You'll be pleased to know that's, that has circumnavigated this conversation and we'll, back to the, uh, so yeah, I absolutely love this.

I'm sure everyone that's, uh, going to watch and listen to this will be exactly the same. If they don't know of you already, I'm sure they'll be going down the, the rabbit hole. It's phenomenal. The work that you, you guys and girls are doing is, is phenomenal. It really is. The community side of it is, is just really exceptional.

Which, uh, uh, hopefully I can join up with you. And an adventure at some point and and some time as well. 'cause it sounds phenomenal and you're all very personable as well, which is fantastic. Which is the biggest, which is sometimes the hardest part of doing these types of trips and adventures. So thank you for joining us today.

Thanks. Thanks for having us, bud. 

Yeah, so the way that kinda just round out is where can everyone go and find out more about everyone and the global convoy and all your mayhem and whatever else is coming in the future? 

Anywhere on social media with global convoy.com, global Convoy, and Instagram, global Convoy, and YouTube.

On Facebook, on TikTok, on like, even if we're not very active on them, we're on most of them, but if you wanna shoot us a message, the website's probably best or the Instagram. 

Yeah. Fantastic. 

Yeah, I feel like the Instagram we're probably. All three of us are the most on, but, but yeah, anything, we'll eventually get to it and if you don't hear, then just send another message and, 

yeah.

Excellent. No, this has been fantastic. I thank you all. It's been, and I've been a little bit of a juggle trying to organize it with all the diaries, so I do appreciate it. And, uh, with that, I'll, I'll bring it to our close. 

Thanks for tuning in to today's episode. For the show notes and further information, please visit adventure diaries.com/podcast.

And finally, we hope to have inspired you to take action and plan your next adventure, big or small, because sometimes we all need a little adventure to cleanse that bitter taste of life from the soul. Until next time, have fun and keep paying it forward.