Driving to Guatemala budget
by Annie
(California)
My boyfriend moved to Guatemala last month. He's living in Zone 10 right now and works at Universidad de Francisco Marroquin. He doesn't speak any Spanish and doesn't have a car or know his way around very well. I will be joining him in a few weeks.
The reason I found your site is because a friend of mine just got a job in the Bahamas and is driving through Mexico, Guatemala, and possibly all the way to Panama and has asked if I want to come with him. I'm trying to decide whether its worth it to save a few hundred dollars to drive and have the hassle of all the borders, customs, corrupt police etc in addition to the trip taking over a week instead of a couple of days.
So I have a few questions:
Could you give me a ballpark figure on, aside from gas, the cost of driving to Guatemala? Also, I was wondering if you'd have advice or something and give him a few tips on where to shop, where to live (he's in a small town right now in an extended stay hotel), what areas are safe, whatever you think would have been helpful for you to know when you first arrived (especially your blog about the policeman trying to hassle you and the mention of a lawyer or whatever that was...sounds like useful info)
Muchas gracias!
Benjamin (submitted in the middle of a hurricane - see what we do for our readers? :))
I'm currently traveling in the USA (just got done driving through Mexico from Guatemala) - I've got a bit of a hectic schedule while I'm here so can't answer too much in detail at the moment. You should be able to do the trip for less than $500 even including gas, depending largely on where you stay. I'd get the latest Lonely Planet guidebook
and plan carefully which cities you want to stop in if you're really on a budget, but this last time up I paid anywhere from $100 for a nice hotel in Monterrey to $25 for a hotel room outside Poza Rica, which was perfectly serviceable with aircon and internet.
A word of warning for this particular trip - the hurricane that just came through (Alex) has just wiped out many of the roads through the Gulf coast - I'm in the middle of adjusting my route. My blog has that coastal route mostly, so you may not be able to depend on it much right now while it's all getting cleaned up.
(This was submitted in August 2010 - if any readers have updated conditions on this section of Mexican highway, please comment)
