Welcome to GoBigEmma.com! Follow a vintage VW Bus, “Big Emma”, and her companions as we travel across the Americas along the Panamerican Highway.
The plan is to head from central Illinois to Alaska before making an 180-degree turn and heading down the coast towards Central and South America. A road as long as the Panamericana will take some time, so we have freed our schedules to simply set out and see what the road has to offer us.
Driving the Panamerican Highway with Big Emma has been our dream for a number of years. So when Emma was done with school, Sven quit his job and we set out towards Illinois to prepare Big Emma and make our dream into a reality.
To us, living like this goes much deeper than just a hunger for the open road. Traveling is a way to get to know ourselves better as we strive to encounter new scenery and new scenarios that force us to exercise our creativity and wits to not only overcome the challenges we face along the road, but also explore the unfamiliar territory we will wake up to every day – in a car that does not always want to play by our rules.
We want to expand our perspective, step out of our comfort zone, and travel both within and beyond the cultural boundaries that we are familiar with. So come with us as we explore the Panamerican Highway through photography, text, and film.
See you on the road!
Emma and Sven
Big Emma is a red and yellow 1975 VW Bus. Since 2011 she has been living in central Illinois and has been across the United States enough to have seen both the Atlantic and the Pacific. She has a custom interior that sleeps four, and an air-cooled engine that acts up at times but is generally reliable. Despite common misconception, “Big Emma” was not named after regular-sized Emma, but was the result of complete coincidence. The “Big” was added to avoid confusion. She is also vain and likes getting her picture taken.
The Bus: Big Emma
Yes, it only takes a second to realize that Emma’s favorite thing besides travel are colors! No matter what country she is in, she is often the most colorful thing in the room. Although purely from Illinois and someone who always remembers to celebrate Casimir Pulaski Day, she has spent most of her adult life living outside the United States. She sends a hearty high-five to all you foreign-language enthusiasts out there.
Emma, the colorful and creative
With a background in German engineering, Sven likes to figure things out, and with that said is the mastermind behind fixing Big Emma when she’s not feeling so hot. That is not to ignore his creative side, which helps to bring this blog to life. Social to the bone with a passion for travel, he has spent lots of time in the United States and South America.
Tech-savvy Sven
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The plan is to head from central Illinois to Alaska before making an 180-degree turn and heading down the coast towards Central and South America. A road as long as the Panamericana will take some time, so we have freed our schedules to simply set out and see what the road has to offer us.
