The son of my wife’s friend has gone insane. He has this crazy idea of driving through Mexico, on to Guatemala City.
I have attempted to dissuade the young man…the internet is full of horror stories (police corruption, banditos, unsafe roads).
How safe is it for an American registered car to enter Mexico, and attempt to drive the length of the country?
I also assume you need Mexican insurance, and entry visa. Not sure about entering Guatemala-probably several fees are required (or bribes).
Is this something someone should attempt?
PS: I have also heard that should you break down on a Mexican highway, you may well be robbed while waiting for a tow truck-is this true?
Baja is reasonably safe as long as you stay on the main roads. Heading down into Guatemala? No way, José. Besides several entry visas, you’ll need insurance and an armed escort, preferably from the Marines.
Note the first sentence, about bringing the title with you.
He will likely survive the trip, as long as he stays on the main roads, but he should expect to be hassled constantly by the local police and the federales.
He will be forced to pay bribes to get his drivers license back once he is stopped, and if he refuses to ‘cooperate’ they may decide to take him into custody to make him sweat a while.
I don’t think it would be worth the hassle and cost myself, and there’s always the chance he runs into a drug cartel looking to score some cash by kidnapping an American and holding him for ransom (yes, it really happens).
Surely you can convince him that the downside of getting arrested or killed doesn’t make up for the ‘adventure’ of driving on crappy roads for hours on end, and if you can’t, make sure he has the phone number of the US embassy in Mexico City should he ever need it.
Millions of Mexicans manage it daily.
Some good links by postcards … be sure to read them. I’ll add that as well as a pile of rocks, a branch from a tree or bush might be placed on the edge of the pavement to indicate a hazard ahead.
Bribes tend to be very small. For instance, crossing the border into Guatemala you might be told to take your suitcases into the customs building. Once inside, a guy in a shabby mismatched uniform of sorts will poke a suitcase with a machine gun and say “One dollar.” Once you’ve paid up, his menacing appearance will be replaced with the grin of an amigo.
You’ll also encounter a horde of teenage boys at the Guatemala border with huge wads of cash asking if you want to change money. They give a better rate than the official one so go ahead and change a hundred or two so you have pocket money.
Forget the doomsayers; it will be a memorable trip filled with sights and mini-adventures those who fly into tourist hotels can’t even imagine.
Be sure to check the timeliness of the data on which any opinion you receive is based. 13 years ago a friend and I had an excellent driving adventure into Mexico. I would not repeat this today. There were many army checkpoints along the roads, but we were treated courteously and never asked for a “tip”. In one case we had a major hassle (day and a half lost) that a customs official could have made go away if he had been willing to take a bribe. We didn’t come out and wave cash in his face, but we hinted pretty clearly that we would be willing to pay a fee or a fine or “tip” to fix the problem. When Vicente Foxx (sp?) came into office he was serious about fixing corruption and it really showed.
Anyway, the corruption you can deal with just taking along some extra cash. It doesn’t even add up to a lot by American standards. What would stop me today is the narco-violence.
In 1995 I drove with my future wife (albeit, in a rental car) from Mazatlan to Puerto Vallarta, 435 KMs according to Google Maps. This was through mountainous and remote areas, complete with military check points, etc. and we had no problems whatsoever. I never even knew about or considered payola for the police.
But we were young and foolish.
American here. I’ve only had the experience of driving on the other side of the OTHER border, but this advice is probably good. Take a few minutes to study the traffic rules, patterns, and signs before you go. Do be aware of metric conversions.
I’ve driven through Tijuana all the way down to Cabo and back twice in my own vehicle, without incident, within the last decade. On one occasion we were stopped at a checkpoint. The Federales were checking for drugs and searched the vehicle pretty thoroughly. Never once was asked for a bribe or anything like that. In fact the most hassle I had was coming back into the US, where the immigration checkpoint officers actually removed the interior door panels off my truck, searched everything and took away some cool pieces of driftwood I had in the truck bed. I had to pay someone to put the door panels back on properly; pissed me off.
My brother lived in Mexico City and often rented cars and went on trips, he had a friend in Chiapas (about 600 miles away) and never had a problem.
I’ve driven (and travelled) quite a bit in the Middle East, sometimes as a lone female, and all the cautionary tales and horror stories never came to fruition.
The nonsense about being robbed if you break down on the highway sounds like paranoid racist nonsense to me, frankly. I live 75 miles north of Detroit and 15 miles from Flint, Michigan (murder capital USA!) and that’s as likely to happen here as anywhere. And I still fearlessly drive these highways every day. 
postcard’s links are good. Calling the US Consulate in Mexico for updates and guidelines would also be a good idea.
In 2002 I drove from Boise Idaho to Cancun – me, my parents, and their cat. It was quite a road trip, but not dangerous in the least. They have toll highways in Mexico that are very much like our Interstates. They were almost deserted, because no one had money for tolls. We were not hassled at all by police or Federales. The scenery was spectacular and the people are friendly and helpful. As I recall you need a special stamp for your car if you are taking it out of the immediate border area. I don’t know how much more dangerous it is these days with the narcotrafficos, but Gringos have been exaggerating the dangers south of the border for many years.
A few years back, (03 or 04, I forget) a friend of mine was moving to the island of Cozumel. I rode with him in his 1/2 ton Dodge p/u. We started bright and early from Brownsville, Texas and stayed on the main highway that runs kind of parallel to the coast. A little over 1,400 miles and about 27 hours of driving time (according to Google Earth) from Brownsville to Playa Del Carmen, where the vehicle ferry docks.
All of the advice offered so far is spot on and pretty up to date. The only thing that I didn’t see was a description of the ‘topes’. Even on the main highway that we traveled on you would occasionally come upon a sign (A yellow square turned on it’s corner, like the ‘information’ signs here in the states.) that would state, “Topes 100 metres”.
A ‘tope’ is kind of like the ‘speed humps’ that are found on residential streets, though slightly different. It consists of a raised, flat section of concrete that stretches all the way across the road. It’s usually about 4-5 feet long with the front and rear edges being an abrupt 45 degree angle. They vary in height from an inch or two, to a bone rattling and vehicle destroying 6-8 inches.
There didn’t look to be any sort of a pattern to them, they just kind of popped up, seemingly at random. The really low ones were barely noticeable, the high ones looked and felt like they could tear the undercarriage off of a vehicle, at any speed faster than a crawl!
My experience from that trip leads me to offer this advice, ONLY drive during daylight hours!
Night time is NOT a good time to be broke down, in the middle of a tropical jungle! :eek: