All Adam Harteau and his wife, Emily, wanted to do was take an epic¹ 23,000-mile, 20-country road trip to the southernmost tip of South America and back. Everything that followed — the blog, the corporate² sponsorships, the cookbook they’re writing, the export business — has been a savvy³ improvisation⁴.

亚当·哈尔托(Adam Harteau)和太太埃米莉(Emily)的初衷就是想踏上一段2.3万英里（约合3.7万公里），横跨20国，最终抵达南美洲的最南端并折返的公路旅程。之后发生的事情——博客、企业赞助、他们正在写的烹饪书，以及代购生意，都是灵机一动的即兴之举。

The Harteaus, who live in Los Angeles, are travelers in the sleep-in-your-VW-van hippie tradition. Before their trip, Mr. Harteau, 35, had pursued various entrepreneurial ventures while trying to become a full-time⁶ fine artist. Mrs. Harteau, 32, worked in the fashion industry and competed on “Project Runway.” Unfulfilled by their jobs and dejected after an opportunity to work on a movie in Nepal fell through, the couple decided⁷ to turn their 1990 Volkswagen Vanagon Westfalia camper, which has a propane stove, an electric refrigerator and a foldout bed, into a rolling micro apartment.

哈尔托一家来自洛杉矶。他们是可以睡在大众房车里，有着嬉皮士传统的旅行者。在此行之前，今年35岁的哈尔托先生在追逐着成为全职艺术家的梦想的同时，已经尝试过各种各样的创业机会。哈尔托太太今年32岁，在时尚界工作，曾参与过《天桥骄子》(Project Runway)节目的选拔。但工作并没有给他们带来足够的满足感，于是在一次去尼泊尔拍摄电影的机会泡汤后，两夫妻决定将他们的露营车变成移动的微型公寓。这辆1990年款的大众凡拉冈威斯法利露营车(Volkswagen Vanagon Westfalia)配有气炉、电冰箱和一张折叠床。

“We loved the idea of bringing our home with us,” Mr. Harteau said. “We could live in our van and drive to South America, and it would be awesome⁸.”

“把家带着走这个点子我们都很喜欢，”哈尔托先生说。“我们住在车里，将车开去南美，这肯定会棒极了。”

If this was the 1960s and the Harteaus were traveling in a VW van, they might have raised gas money by selling handicrafts or hash oil. In the Internet era, they turned to social media, initiating⁹ a Kickstarter campaign.

如果这是在60年代，哈尔托一家也许会卖手工制品或大麻油来赚取汽油钱。在互联网时代的今天，他们转向了社交媒体，通过Kickstarter网站来集资。

Our Open Road, as the couple called the project, would include a blog with travel photos and videos. And because they were bringing their infant daughter, Colette, it would serve as “a modern family portrait.”

两夫妻将旅行项目取名为Our Open Road，其中包括一个展示旅行照片和视频的博客。因为带着他们的小女儿科莱特(Colette)一起上路，这个博客同样充当着“现代版的全家福”。

Kickstarter forbids “fund my life” projects like family vacations. But the couple framed the journey as creative inspiration for Mr. Harteau’s art and promised an exhibition of his photography, collages¹⁰ and other artwork upon their return, thereby¹¹ skirting the rule. Funders embraced their proposal to the tune¹² of more than $16,000, and a year ago the Harteaus set off in their Westfalia.

Kickstarter不允许家庭旅行一类的“生活资助”项目的集资。不过，夫妻俩将旅程包装成哈尔托先生的艺术创意灵感之旅，并承诺归来后展览途中的摄影作品和拼贴画等艺术作品，钻了规定的空子。赞助者们也欣然接受了他们的提案，最终的筹资金额达1.6万美元（约合10万元人民币）。于是，哈尔托一家在一年前开着他们的威斯法利上路了。

In Mexico, they camped on the beach and surfed the big Pacific swells¹³.

在墨西哥，他们在沙滩上露营，在太平洋的大海潮里冲浪。

In Colombia, they spent a week in a fishing village where the wood-frame houses and boats were painted in vibrant¹⁴ primary colors.

他们在哥伦比亚的渔村度过了一个星期，那里的木屋和木船都被涂成明亮的三原色。

P>In the Sacred Valley of the Incas, in Peru, Mrs. Harteau felt moved to climb onto the VW’s roof, strip off her clothes and pose naked. And after a serendipitous¹⁵ encounter with a religious pilgrim, the Harteaus found themselves attending the raucous¹⁶ Catholic festival known as Qoyllur Rit’I, held on a Peruvian glacier¹⁷.

秘鲁的印加圣谷让哈尔托太太为之动容，于是她爬到车顶脱掉衣服赤身留影。当不期而遇宗教朝圣者后，他们一家又机缘巧合地参加了在秘鲁冰川举行的喧闹的天主教Qoyllur Rit’l庆典。

“That’s the thrill and beauty and dance of having time on the road,” Mrs. Harteau said, sounding like a Kerouac character.

“这就是旅途中的兴奋、美好和雀跃，”说这句话时，哈尔托太太像是凯鲁亚克书中的人物。

Along the way, the couple have relayed their adventures using their blog and Instagram feed. And it turns out that watching someone else take the trip of a lifetime has a certain appeal for the home- or deskbound.

他们夫妻俩用博客和Instagram分享他们沿途的见闻和探险经历。事实证明，旁观别人一辈子只有一次的旅程，对于埋头家庭事务和伏案工作的人来说，有着相当的吸引力。

Mr. Harteau’s color-saturated photos showcase lush Andean hillsides, his daughter embraced by villagers, the organic meals his wife whips up with fresh local ingredients and the Westfalia lit by the glow of a beachside campfire. Snowcapped mountains and rainbows seem to follow the family wherever they go.

哈尔托先生色彩鲜艳的照片展现了郁郁葱葱的安第斯山脉、被村民拥抱的女儿、妻子利用当地新鲜食材匆匆制作的有机餐，以及沙滩旁的篝火映照下的威斯法利。似乎他们去的每一处都不乏彩虹和白雪皑皑的山峦。

To accompany the images, Mrs. Harteau writes journal-like entries in a tone that is equal parts National Geographic¹⁸ (“The Otavaleño women are easily recognizable by their gold necklaces”), Carlos Castaneda-esque musings on the transcendence of travel (“We walk, we breath, we listen to the magical pitch of our toddlers laugh”) and advertorial (“Adam made this board with the help from our friends at Foam-EZ”).

为了配合图片，哈尔托太太写下日记形式的条目，一部分用《国家地理》(National Geographic)的语调（“奥塔瓦洛的女人们很容易通过她们的金项链认出来”），或者带有卡洛斯·卡斯塔尼达(Carlos Castaneda)般的超越旅行本身的沉思(“我们走路，我们呼吸，我们听着小朋友大笑时的魔音”)，亦或广告式的文体（“亚当在Foam-EZ的朋友帮助下做成了这块冲浪板。）

Joni Sternbach, a photographer and professor at the International Center of Photography, is one of the 59,000 traveling vicariously through the Harteaus’ Instagram feed. For her, they embody¹⁹ a free-spirited vision of family life. “I raise two kids in New York City, and my travel was fairly limited,” she said. “They travel around, are able to be creative, have a kid and do all of these things at the same time. I think it’s pretty miraculous²⁰.”

约妮·施特恩巴赫(Joni Sternbach)是一位摄影师，也是国际摄影中心(International Center of Photography) 的教授。她和其他5.9万人一起跟随哈尔托夫妇的Instagram感受着他们一家的旅程。对她来说，他们代表的是自由自在家庭生活的景象。“我在纽约抚养两个小孩，很少有机会出去旅游，”她说。“他们四处旅行，有创造性，带着孩子的同时还能做所有的这一切。我觉得非常的不可思议。”

Bailey Richardson, community manager for Instagram, spotlights²¹ users she finds interesting; she discovered Our Open Road through a group of van travelers. “I thought it was a cool story of these people from L.A., these surfers, who are deciding to raise their kid on the road,” Ms. Richardson said. “That they are a family makes it especially compelling.”

贝利·理查森(Bailey Richardson)是Instagram的社区经理，负责捕捉她认为有意思的用户。她通过一个野营车旅行者的群发现了Our Open Road。“我觉得来自洛杉矶的冲浪者决定让他们的小孩在旅程中长大的故事很酷，”理查森说。“而他们这个家庭尤为令人着迷。”

The Harteaus initially²² planned to be gone for a year. But somewhere around Month 4, the couple decided to “slow our roll,” as they told their blog readers. They returned to California to take a break last summer and then, earlier this month, flew back to Lima, Peru, where they had stowed their Westfalia, to begin Year 2.

哈尔托一家原本计划出走一年。但在出发后大约4个月的某一天，他们在博客上告诉读者，决定“慢慢来”。去年夏天回到加州休整后，他们在本月初飞回秘鲁的利马开始第二年的旅程。他们之前将威斯法利暂留在此地。

In photos, the Harteaus are the picture of outdoorsy California-style good health: he is bearded, muscled and surf-tumbled; she is sun-freckled and yoga-lean; and baby Colette is smiling and engaged. Their temperament²³, too, reflects a West Coast chill that one imagines is necessary if a couple is going to travel together for months, living in a van the size of a small walk-in closet, without freaking out or filing for divorce.

从照片看来，哈尔托一家有着十足的热爱大自然、加州范儿的健康身体。他留胡子，肌肉发达，喜欢在海里冲浪翻滚；而她有着晒出来的雀斑和瑜伽练就的好身材；小女儿科莱特总在笑，喜爱与人交流。 一对夫妻共同旅行数月，住在步入式衣帽间大小般的露营车里，还能不崩溃不离婚，可想而知他们西海岸人固有的淡定闲适性格尤为关键。

A more sensitive tourist might worry about being kidnapped by FARC rebels, or breaking down in the jungle or car accidents (like the burning wreckage²⁴ of a fatal crash they came upon in Mexico). Or, for that matter, doing any of these things as first-time parents traveling with a toddler. But the Harteaus have managed to stay blissfully optimistic.

更敏感一些的旅行者也许会担心半路被哥伦比亚革命武装力量(FARC)绑架、在丛林里坏车，或是遭遇车祸（他们在墨西哥目睹了致命车祸现场残骸燃烧的场景）。或者换个角度说，第一次做父母的他们在和婴儿同行的时候，做他们正在做的任何事情都足以让人担忧。但哈尔托一家却能一直保持幸福的乐观态度。

It was as they were leaving Colombia and crossing into Ecuador that the Harteaus decided a year was not enough time. To reach Tierra del Fuego at the tip of Argentina by April, as they had planned, they would need to cover four countries in eight weeks. And as Mrs. Harteau said, “We didn’t come on this trip to jam through these countries.”

离开哥伦比亚进入厄瓜多尔的时候，他们认定一年的时间并不够。如果按照原定计划，他们必须要在八周内横穿四个国家，才能在4月前到达阿根廷最南边的火地岛。就像哈尔托太太说的那样，“我们旅行不是为了匆匆瞥一眼这些国家而已。”

They were already on a tight budget — about $40 a day for gas and an extra $20 for everything else (by now, they’ve spent about $20,000 in total). But they knew that extending the trip would require more funding beyond what they had from the Kickstarter campaign, personal savings²⁵ and the yard sales they held before they left.

他们的预算已经很紧张了，40美元一天的汽油钱，外加20美元来囊括所有其他开支（到目前为止，他们一共花费了大约2万美元）。他们也明白，延长行期会需要更多的资金，超出他们之前在Kickmaster上面的集资、存款，以及行前卖旧货的收入总和。

Weeks earlier, the couple had been shocked to see their Instagram followers²⁶ jump from 2,000 to nearly 30,000 after Ms. Richardson featured one of their images on the Instagram blog and account. “Overnight we had all these people watching us,” Mr. Harteau said.

好几周前，理查森将他们的一张图片放到Instagram的官方博客和账户上。之后，他们Instagram的关注者从2000人增长到将近3万人，着实吓到了夫妻俩。“一夜之间多了这么多人关注我们，”哈尔托太太说。

So they came up with a way to marshal that audience and stay on the road. Inspired by local artisan markets, they began holding what they called the “24-Hour Bazaar”: a flash sale of textiles, jewelry²⁷ or other locally made goods, usually sold for double their cost. The couple photographed and sometimes modeled the goods, advertising²⁸ them with a PDF catalog they emailed to followers like Ms. Sternbach, who bought alpaca blankets for about $40 each and a poncho²⁹ for about $100.

于是，他们找到了集结这些关注者的力量，同时继续旅程的方法。由当地手工市场得到的灵感，他们开始了自己命名为“24小时集市”的创意闪购：用高出成本一倍的价格卖出当地的纺织品、首饰和其他物品。两夫妻为这些商品拍照，有时候也充当模特，之后制作成PDF格式的产品名录发邮件给他们的关注者。作为一名关注者，施特恩巴赫购买过40美元一条的羊驼毛毯子，以及大约100美元的披风。

A few weeks ago, when the Harteaus returned to Lima to resume their trip, they brought with them a few things to make the Westfalia even homier: a foldable oven for baking bread; new curtains; and solar panels they received through a sponsorship with Goal Zero, which will reduce their constant need to find a power source for their MacBook Pro⁵. Next on their itinerary³⁰ is Chile and then Argentina (although that is always subject to change). Then they will begin the long, meandering³¹ ride north.

几周前，当哈尔托一家回到利马重新开始旅程的时候，他们带回了几样让威斯法利更有家的感觉的东西：一个烤面包的折叠烤箱、新窗帘，以及Goal Zero赞助的太阳能电池板。这种电池板可以用来给他们的MacBook Pro电脑充电，省去了总是在找电源的烦恼。他们旅程的下一站是智利和阿根廷（虽然总是计划赶不上变化），之后会折返，开始漫长的向北游逛。