Long before YOLA became our home on wheels, Ernesto and Taisa of Overlanding the Americas were already showing us what life on the road could look like.
We first discovered them through YouTube, following their incredible four-year journey along the Pan-American Highway.
Like so many of the overlanders who inspired us in those early days, their adventures allowed us to experience a little of this lifestyle before we had ever lived it ourselves.
We watched the roads they traveled, the places they explored and the challenges they encountered along the way. But more importantly, we watched two people who had been willing to dream big enough to begin.
Later, we had the opportunity to attend one of their presentations at Overland Expo in Oregon. Suddenly, the people and adventures we had been watching on a screen were real.
And then our connection became even more personal.
We found ourselves sitting around a campsite sharing a casual burger dinner with Ernesto, listening as he generously shared stories from the road, lessons from years of international travel and experiences building and living out of an overland vehicle.
We couldn’t have known then just how intertwined Ernesto would eventually become with our own adventure.
When it came time to prepare our 2008 Toyota 4Runner for an around-the-world journey, Ernesto and Garrett at Evergreen Off-Road became an important part of transforming YOLA into the vehicle and home that would carry us forward.
This wasn’t simply another vehicle build to us. This was our home.
The place where we would sleep, cook, organize our lives and carry nearly everything we needed. The vehicle we were trusting to take us across borders, down unfamiliar roads and, we hope, eventually across seven continents.
Ernesto and Garrett helped take our ideas, our needs and probably more than a few of our crazy requests and turn them into something real.
YOLA became a force to be reckoned with – but more importantly, she became our home on wheels.
There is something wonderfully full-circle about that. We began by watching Ernesto and Taisa travel the world and wondering what it might be like to live that way ourselves. Years later, Ernesto would become one of the people helping us prepare to do exactly that.
Ernesto and Taisa, thank you for showing us what was possible.
And Ernesto and Garrett, thank you for putting your knowledge, experience and hard work into the vehicle that is now carrying our dream around the world.
Every time YOLA takes us down another remote road, across another border or into another unexpected adventure, a little piece of what you helped create is traveling right along with us.
YOU ONLY LIVE ADVENTURE
