Ely was working as a special education teacher, Dylan in a corporate cubicle job, when they decided they weren't ready to settle down.
"We both were just ready for some sort of long-term travel," Ely said.
The Alaska natives acquired their trusty Volkswagen bus, lovingly dubbed "Rita," in 2014, and spent a year restoring it. They saved up and budgeted $15,000 for the whole trip, but made no itinerary.
"Even in the year and a half that we spent driving down, we felt that it wasn't really enough time to really experience everything we wanted," Vought said. "Time is the biggest resource. There's never enough of it."