The ultimate road trip-adventure, the trip of trips, the most diverse route of the world – we want to travel this dream road, the Pan-American Highway!
The Pan-American Highway is so much more than just the world’s longest road, connecting the northernmost point of North America and the southernmost point of South America, it offers “more” of everything:
- not only the sea and the ocean, but also the Arctic and the Caribbean sea
- not only mountains and mountain ranges, but also Rainbow Mountains and active volcanoes
- not only rainforest and jungle, but also valleys, lakes and lagoons
- not only bears and penguins, but also lamas and alpacas as well as toucans and parrots
- not only city centers and colonial cities, but also remote villages and pyramids
- not only local food and exotic fruits, but also diverse cultures, people and languages
- …we could go on like this forever! No other road sums up the world’s diversity better than this
The Pan-American Highway is actually not only one road, but a network of roads; approximately 45.000 km (28.000 miles), the longest part includes approximately 25.000 km (16.000 miles). At first, this sounds unbelievable, because the equator is about 40.000 km (24.900 miles) long. So to say, if you travel all of the Pan-American Highway, you circle the world!
The idea of a road connecting North- and South America goes back to the 1920s. Historically and officially, the Pan-American Highway starts at the border town Laredo in Texas (USA) or rather Nuevo Laredo in Mexico and ends in Buenos Aires in Argentina. Unofficially, as we know the Pan-American Highway, it leads from Alaska through North America, the Caribbean and South America all the way to Tierra del Fuego. Only the “Darién Gap” in the Colombian jungle is still unexploited, to pass this approx. 100 km (60 miles) gap you have to take a boat.
On this trip through 2 continents, visiting 14-19 countries depending on the route, you experience pretty much all climate and vegetation zones, weather and seasons. The best travel time is spring – if you are in the northern hemisphere, you start in North America, travelling south. When it is fall in the northern hemisphere, it is spring in the southern hemisphere and this is when you should start if you want to travel from south to north. The further you get to the North or South, the colder it gets so it is best to be there in the spring/summer, because even then the maximum temperature is only about 5°c (40°F).
But there sure are challenges, too (some might call them dangers): Wild animals, poorly developed roads, unpredictable weather conditions, countries that are untapped by tourism, drug dealing, crime and last but not least your car could break down in the middle of nowhere. And it surely is a minor, or major, challenge to travel with your significant other, all day every day – you really have to like each other a lot J
We do not want to be intimidated by prejudices or clichés, neither here in Germany nor anywhere else. We believe in the good in people, the power of a positive mindset and that positive thoughts will help us to reach our goals and make our wishes come true.
We want to stop to only dream about this adventure, we want to feel the sun on our faces and the wind in our hair – we want to be brave. This roadtrip will be the adventure of a lifetime!