Kelowna couple drives from the top of North America to the bottom of South America

When I catch up, via FaceTime, with Jeff Gunn, he's lounging in the sunshine at a campground in El Calafate, Argentina.

He's also rocking a COVID-era and overlanding-trip extraordinaire mane of beyond-shoulder-length blond hair.

The retired CIBC banker from Kelowna and his retired City of Kelowna staffer wife, Lois, are elated, having just completed a life mission, a milestone, an incredible journey.

The odyssey was the 30,000-kilometre Pan American Highway from the northernmost point of continental North America to the southernmost point of continental South America in a pop-up truck camper.

"At times we wondered if we would ever be able to do it all, especially with the 18-month interruption of COVID," says Jeff.

"But we made it. We got to the bottom (of South America) and we're feeling great. We love long road journeys and the Pan American is the most famous of them all."

The Gunns have always been fans of long road trips.

For their honeymoon in 1985, they spent five months tooling around Europe in one of those retro Volkswagen Kombi vans.

In 2003, they pulled their two kids out of school to backpack and camp around South America for three months between Rio de Janeiro to Venezuela.

When the couple retired in early 2019, they finally had the time and opportunity to go big and drive the entire Pan American Highway, the network of roads spanning the length of the two continents, which the Guinness Book of World Records declared the longest motorable road on the planet.

While the Pan American is 30,000 kilometres, the Gunns have actually covered 43,000 kilometres on their pilgrimage.

The extra mileage started right off the bat in May 2019 when the couple drove the 5,500 to the Arctic Circle to start the Pan American near Prudhoe Bay, Alaska.

They made some detours, adding more kilometres, by driving the same road as they do in the TV show Ice Road Truckers, following the Dempster Highway in Inuvik and taking the all-weather road to Tuktoyaktuk.

Those following the Pan American are called overlanders, a term inspired by those in Land Rovers with rooftop tents who travel long distances over land.

The Gunns' pop-up truck camper is a little bigger than a Land Rover with rooftop tent, but not by much.

It was custom-made with an extending roof and pop-up queen-size bed, miniscule kitchen with fridge, stove, sink and dinette for two and a tiny bathroom that's little more than a toilet.

"Our vehicle is the perfect combo of size and maneuverability," says Jeff.

"It's big enough to have everything we need, but small enough to navigate narrow South American streets and get on and off ferries."

The Gunns have learned to live with only the essentials, put everything away right after they use it and try not to get on each others' nerves in confined spaces.

"Lois is a trooper. We both love travelling this way," says Jeff.

"We've had the odd disagreement. But when we're not driving or sleeping, we're enjoying the unlimited spaces of the outdoors. And when we want to stretch out or have some luxury we check into a hotel for the night."

From Alaska, the Pan American hugs the Pacific Coast pretty closely all the way through Canada and the US to Land's End at the southern tip of the Baja Peninsula at Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

From there they had to take a ferry to Mazatlan to continue on the Pan American through Mexico and Central America to Panama.

Since there's 106 kilometres with no road connecting North and South America called the Darien Gap, there's another ferry from southeast Panama to northwest Colombia.

The Pan American continues down South America through Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia and Chile before ending in one of two places -- Fin de Camino (which translated means 'end of the road'), just south of Punta Arenas, Chile or Ushuaia, Argentina.

The Gunns detoured several times to visit the Galapagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador, veered off into Brazil and taking the Carretera Austral, a remote 1,250-kilometre dirt road in Chile that traverses rain forests, fjords and glaciers.

The trek was completed in two distinct parts.

From May 2019 to March 2020, pre-pandemic, the couple made it from the Arctic Circle to Santiago, Chile before the world shut down and they had to put their truck in storage and fly home to Kelowna.

In November 2021 when Chile reopened to travellers who are fully vaccinated, the Gunns returned to finish the last bit from Chile into Argentina.

They plan to amble around South and Central America for four or five more months before ending up in Buenos Aires where they'll ship their truck from so they can fly home to Kelowna.

Pre-pandemic, the couple's plan was to ship the truck from Argentina to South Africa, where they would reunite with it for another epic road trip -- 12,000 kilometres on the Trans-Sahara Highway, the entire length of the African continent.

COVID has scuttled that possibility, so the couple is considering Jeff's birthplace of Australia for their next overland adventure.

Jeff and Lois chronicled their Pan American quest at OneEndlessRoad.com.