On June 4th, Rachel Kelly and Matt Saunders set off on the adventure of a lifetime: driving the Pan American Highway. The couple from a small town in Surrey, England, went to the same school but matched on Tinder during the pandemic lockdowns. On their third date, Saunders planted the idea of driving from Alaska to Argentina, and Kelly was sold. After saving £20,000 each, they flew out to Canmore, Alberta, to pick up a pop-top camper they got for £4,000. It broke down just four days into their trip. Further camper and car mishaps ensued, costing them £15,000 in repairs and replacements.
While they were stuck in a remote part of Alaska for three weeks as they waited for their camper’s engine to be fixed, the pair spent their downtime creating videos for their Instagram account @ramonthepanam. Their 250 followers became 70,000 as their Reels resonated with viewers interested in their journey. “People kept messaging us saying that they wanted to support us and see us succeed,” Kelly says, “so we thought the best way to make that happen is by setting up a crowdfund.”
She created a page on the crowdfunding platform GoFundMe with the hope of raising £5,000, enough to get back on the road. “We know there are far better causes than what we're doing,” Kelly says. “We've set this up because people were trying to give us money.”
Since they have not yet secured the full amount, Kelly and Saunders may have to truncate their trip and miss out on their top bucket list destinations: Utah, Peru, and Patagonia. “We were in such a hole that we had nothing to lose by starting the fund,” says Saunders. The couple has currently received over 45 donations, mostly from people unknown to them. “A random stranger gave us £100 just out of nothing, out of nowhere,” Kelly says.
While Kelly and Saunders found themselves stranded, not every crowdfunded trip starts with a crisis. Many campaigns are simply about enabling people to taste the world. Loved ones and even strangers are paying for would-be travelers' adventures by contributing to appeals on general crowdfunding sites like GoFundMe, Go Get Funding, and Fundrazr as well as dedicated travel crowdfunding platforms like FundMyTravel. These websites help connect people who are big on dreams but short on funds with philanthropists who believe in the right to travel. Browsing their pages reveals fundraisers for anything from birthday holidays and sabbaticals to more serious trips for life-saving surgery or evacuation from conflict zones.
People might be more accustomed to seeing requests to support creative endeavors like podcasts, films shot abroad, or travel products and businesses, but the notion of financing wanderlust itself hasn’t quite caught on to the masses. A South African startup called Trevolta tried to popularize travel crowdfunding with modest success, shutting down in 2015, within two years of launching. Its mission was to let “people, amazed friends, and generous sponsors” help you fund extraordinary trips.