What started as a dream to drive to Argentina to witness a solar eclipse brought a Nanaimo couple to navigate 17 countries in 17 months in a 48-year-old mini RV and create a YouTube channel chronicling their adventures.
Matthew Yeomans and Stacey Tourout, both 31, had just started dating in 2019 when Yeomans told her he planned to drive to Argentina.
91裸聊视频淭hat was the second-date ultimatum,91裸聊视频� Tourout said. 91裸聊视频淗e was, like, 91裸聊视频榊ou either come or you don91裸聊视频檛.91裸聊视频� I was stoked on the idea. I honestly didn91裸聊视频檛 know you could drive there.91裸聊视频�
91裸聊视频淚t was something I wanted to do, but the how just wasn91裸聊视频檛 there,91裸聊视频� Yeomans said. 91裸聊视频淭hen in 2017 I went to Oregon and watched a solar eclipse and I thought it was the coolest thing and I wanted to go to the next one, which happened to be in Argentina in 2020.91裸聊视频�
The COVID-19 pandemic halted that plan, but proved a blessing in disguise by giving the couple time 91裸聊视频渢o think about what they really wanted the trip to be and what it could be with the right vehicle.91裸聊视频�
Yeomans and his friend Jason Lapointe, who owns WestCan Overland in south Nanaimo, are big fans of Toyota four-wheel-drives, but the vehicle needed for the journey was a heavy duty four-wheel-drive compact RV, which didn91裸聊视频檛 exist. Then in 2021, Yeomans found a 1976 Toyota Chinook mini RV in Comox he hoped could be converted to four-wheel-drive.
"I brought it to Jason and was like, 'Can we do this? Does this actually work?' Because in my head it works, but I haven't actually built anything like this," Yeomans said.
In just 100 days, Yeomans, Tourout and Lapointe created an off-road mini RV they named Sunday, by marrying the body of the little truck to a 1996 Toyota Land Cruiser frame and suspension, a V-6 engine and manual transmission from a Tacoma.
"I was really interested in it because I love that kind of stuff,91裸聊视频� Lapointe said. 91裸聊视频淏ecause all the Land Cruiser stuff's all underneath there, we wanted to keep it so it was technically stock. If you broke down you could still get a bearing or a brake line."
The logic proved solid when the vehicle overheated at the U.S.-Mexican border.
"We thought it had blown a head gasket 91裸聊视频� and it turned out just to be the radiator fan clutch," Yeomans said, adding that the replacement part cost $100 at a local automotive parts retailer.
Throughout the next 17 months and 50,000 kilometres of the trip, only two components failed: a spark plug wire and an aftermarket inline fuel pump Yeomans chose over the stock in-tank unit. Because the Chinook had a 160-litre fuel tank, if the stock pump failed, the full fuel tank would be too heavy for him to remove from the vehicle to change it. An inline fuel pump is easier to swap out.
"Well, sure enough, it was and I had to do it five times because they kept overheating," Yeomans said. "The irony of that was so stupid.91裸聊视频�
One pump failed during a six-day, completely off-road and off-grid expedition in the Andean plateau.
91裸聊视频淚t's about 4,000 metres [altitude] and you need about 600km of fuel range because there's no fuel stops,91裸聊视频� he said. 91裸聊视频淵ou're totally by yourself, except for one little town in the middle where you can have a shower 91裸聊视频�. The truck turned off. We're in the middle of a dry salt bed 91裸聊视频� You couldn't be more in the middle of nowhere 91裸聊视频� That was the only system on the truck that was not Toyota."
After leaving Nanaimo, the first stop was to a supplier in Denver for equipment upgrades before turning south to the Baja California peninsula to spend two months navigating trails that taught them 91裸聊视频渁bout the potential of our vehicle91裸聊视频� and led them to 91裸聊视频減ostcard" beaches.
"After Baja we took the ferry across to mainland Mexico, drove all the way across Mexico," Yeomans said. "People told us we were going to die and we had the most amazing time. We spent six months in Mexico. It's awesome."
From Mexico, they drove through seven countries in Central America and shipped the Chinook around the Dari茅n Gap, where dense jungle and terrain ranging from mountains to marshes creates a break in the Pan-American Highway between Yaviza, Panama, and Turbo, Colombia.
Among the journey's memorable experiences was one frightening moment.
"I don't want to put a bad light on Colombia, it's an amazing country, and the reason we had a scary experience is because we made mistakes ... blatantly disregarding advice we got from the hostel where we were staying when we were waiting for our truck to get shipped,91裸聊视频� Yeomans said.
Yeomans and Tourout were told not to walk at night where they were staying, but decided to walk to their hostel after a night out with friends and metres from the hostel doorstep, two teenagers pulled up on a motorcycle and one jumped off brandishing a knife.
"He didn't even really get a chance to ask for anything because 91裸聊视频� I literally started yelling some expletives at him and then Stacey ran up the street,91裸聊视频� Yeomans said. 91裸聊视频淗e chased Stacey. I chased him. We did a little roundabout and then he took off. The whole encounter was probably about 30 seconds from the time he jumped off the bike until he jumped back on, but it was super scary, a guy holding a knife above his head."
Yeomans and Tourout learned to listen to and follow their intuition.
"If I felt unsafe, we leave. If he felt unsafe, we leave, and you just always listen to that and I think that's honestly why we had so much success," Tourout said. "For a trip, like 17 months, and to only have one bad thing happen to us? 91裸聊视频� We speak volumes to how kind everyone was to us."
At one point on the journey, the Chinook navigated the Paraguay River on a cattle barge.
"We met this German couple in Peru who spoke Portuguese and also knew about this cattle barge, so one thing led to another,91裸聊视频� Yeomans said. 91裸聊视频淲e were like, OK, we can go to Machu Picchu in Peru, which every tourist does, or we could drive across the Amazon Basin and get to the Pantanal region of Brazil, which is a big wetland. [We] drove the Transpantaneira, which is a 150km dirt road with 130 wooden bridges and the most amazing wildlife 91裸聊视频� and after that road 91裸聊视频� it just ends 91裸聊视频� we drove our trucks onto a cattle barge and then spent four days going [downriver]."
"There91裸聊视频檚 just moments where you have to pinch yourself," Tourout said. "What am I doing?"
Of the 17 countries travelled, Mexico holds Yeomans91裸聊视频檚 favourite memories.
"One of my all-time favourite camps of the trip was in the state of San Luis Potos铆," he said. "Not a lot of tourists go there.91裸聊视频�
Their campsite 91裸聊视频� $6 a night, expensive for the area 91裸聊视频� was on grass, private with a turquoise lagoon, waterfalls and a giant mango tree with fruit.
91裸聊视频淭here's, like, vines hanging from the trees that you can swing off. It was like Avatar. We planned to stay a night and we stayed a week,91裸聊视频� Yeomans said.
But Cinco de Mayo ended the tranquility.
91裸聊视频淭his one afternoon dozens of tour buses start showing up and we're, like, 91裸聊视频榳hat the heck is going on?91裸聊视频� And hundreds of Mexicans start piling into this campground, setting up barbecues and tents and they're under our awning, hanging up clothes on our truck 91裸聊视频� no barriers,91裸聊视频� he said.
Yeomans found the intrusion frustrating at first, but decided to "let the walls down" and try to make new friends, speaking broken Spanish.
"All of a sudden we're having a full-blown fiesta,91裸聊视频� he said. 91裸聊视频淭hey're making us drinks and cooking us food and teaching us their Mexican dances. It turned into just such a wholesome experience that we just didn't expect at all."
Peru was Tourout91裸聊视频檚 favourite country. The couple didn't see Machu Picchu and avoided "tourist traps," choosing instead the sort of authentic "in-between experiences" that a lot of people don't know about.
"The contrast from the desert to the ocean to the mountains 91裸聊视频� even the people change,91裸聊视频� Tourout said. 91裸聊视频淎s you gain elevation, all of a sudden you see women in their traditional dress, with 100 sheep, waving 91裸聊视频� Two hours later you're at the ocean and we're driving on sand dunes 91裸聊视频� To me it felt the most like we were travelling."
They describe living together in a 48-square foot camper for 17 months as "intimate," but they91裸聊视频檙e accustomed to close quarters, as they lived in a bachelor pad before their travels, and now live in a trailer.
"We've never actually had separate rooms the entire time we've been dating. We went from a bachelor pad, to the Chinook, to a trailer," Tourout said.
The daily tasks of filming for their , filled any down time. They had enough money to get to Mexico, but their YouTube channel would get them to Argentina.
91裸聊视频淭he trip, in itself, was amazing, but I think because we were filming there were so many different things that had to be integrated together, so we never got bored,91裸聊视频� Tourout said. 91裸聊视频淭hat was Toyota World Runners91裸聊视频� purpose. We need this to work so we're going to put all our energy into making the best films we can and then we found a lot of joy in making them better and we turned it into a career just from a trip."
There was a point where they thought they might have to store the truck and fly home to work and earn more money before continuing.
"When we shipped the Chinook from Panama to Colombia, it cost us about five grand and that was most of our savings91裸聊视频�" Yeomans said. "So we made one really long video of all of our Mexico stuff and then that one video paid us a few grand and then we're like, 'we're back.'"
Their next journey is coming up this June, when they leave for Alaska to complete their pan-American tour, and after that they want to drive the Silk Road from Europe to Asia.
Wherever they go, they plan on staying in close proximity to one another.
91裸聊视频淚 proposed to her on the road91裸聊视频�91裸聊视频� Yeomans said. 91裸聊视频淚 filmed it and posted it.91裸聊视频�
