“Newport Beach gets to be a bubble after a while; nothing against Orange County, but we wanted to explore some more of the world in a way that’s environmentally low-impact,” said Paine, 27. “There will be a lot of surfing, a lot of adventure, some wild stories I’m sure, but we will also be doing a lot of good.”
Set to leave next week, Paine, Robbins, Billy Boyd and Kevin Broderick started planning the trip three years ago after graduating from college.
“After UCLA, I got a job sitting in a cubicle that pretty much sucked, and I knew I needed to get out of there,” Robbins, 25, said. “If we don’t do this trip now, we are going to be 65 or 70 years old with wives and children, wishing we had done it.”
Each explorer has budgeted $15,000 for the trip, which will pass through 18 countries and last for six months to a year, depending on what happens along the way.
Much of the funding was used to prepare the vehicle — lovingly dubbed the Green Machine — with a biodiesel engine as well as a camper and trailer with solar panels for powering electronics.
Fortunately, many of the supplies were donated, including clothing from Costa Mesa-based Tavik Industries and the spear gun they plan to use for catching daily meals.
“The car can run off veggie oil, which means you can go into any restaurant that fries their food and pump out the oil from the waste bins,” Robbins said, adding that Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Hummer was being converted to biodiesel when they left the vehicle at Lovecraft Bio-Fuels in Los Angeles.
“Our exhaust will smell like whatever food they cooked, which means we are going to be spreading cheer and good scent all the way down,” Boyd added.
