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How long to shoot through C.America? How long to shoot through C.America?
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Central America and Mexico Topics specific to Central America and Mexico only.
Photo by George Guille, It's going to be a long 300km... Bolivian Amazon

I haven't been everywhere...
but it's on my list!


Photo by George Guille
It's going to be a long 300km...
Bolivian Amazon



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  • 2 Post By markharf
  • 1 Post By mollydog
  • 1 Post By priffe

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  #1  
Old 17 Mar 2016
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How long to shoot through C.America?
Hi all,

Having already travelled central (by bus) I'm wondering if it's worth shipping my XR250 to Panama or just buying anew in MX. Time and cost would be factors (and hassle). Central is cheap I know, no doubt 25USD p/d is manageable. So I'm wondering, if I plod along at a fair pace, given the poor quality roads and difficulty with boarder crossings, would 3-4 weeks to reach southern Mexico be realistic? Including shipping I'm trying to work out if it's even worth it or just the same to buy in MX.

Cheers!
RTW
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Old 17 Mar 2016
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I guess "plod along at a fair pace" means something different to you from what it means to me. You can make it to the border in a week, if you hustle. You can take months, if you don't. 3-4 weeks leaves time for sightseeing and exploring, although it's not extravagant.

To some extent your answer also depends on your means of shipping, since air and boat shipments arrive at different places, with different procedures.

Lastly, the roads are not poor....unless you choose to go where the poor roads are, which you might, given 3-4 weeks. I would.

Hope that's helpful.

Mark
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  #3  
Old 17 Mar 2016
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Thanks mark. I am estimating for the price of another xr250 in MX (with half the mileage) I could do the trip with mine, but well, decisions decisions
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Old 17 Mar 2016
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A bus service ran for years called Tica Bus. It ran from Guat. City to Panama.
It usually took TWO days if all was right. I rode the Tica several times. The buses are expedited at borders (they pay) so less time lost.

As Mark says, borders will slow you down the most. And, as he says, roads are good but I hear traffic has become simply horrendous in places. At an easy pace, not sight seeing, you could make it in a week easy without pushing.

Well worth exploring the Caribbean side, worth whatever time you choose to
allot. Research. Plan.

Can't help with the math on shipping vs. buying new. If your company pays to get your bike to you ... win win. Otherwise, I'm thinking shipping could come close to new bike price.

AND DON"T FORGET ... unless you use air freight (and get lucky with freight forwarders) ... your bike could be trapped in customs ... for weeks! Many stories here on HUBB of such delays.

Certainly simpler to buy in Mexico.
Last edited by mollydog; 22 Mar 2016 at 19:34.
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Old 17 Mar 2016
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With 3 to 4 weeks you should be able to ride all the way to PANAMA from the northern Mexican B O R D E R .
If you mean 3 to 4 weeks in CA.... you could maybe hike that fast ?
I suppose if you took 3to 4 weeks your daily expenses might be kept to below $25, since you would be standing still a lot of the time , or camping under a bridge and not buying as much gasoline in that space . .
You may be mistakenly transferring your expenditure rate from your BUS trip where you might have slept on the overnight run between places .
You have to feed yourself AND the bike now and find a place for the night which has secure parking, buy some oil, chain lube maybe, figure in the cost of liability insurance for the bike.... it will add up to more that $25 / day I bet , but you will be travelling farther each day(.maybe)
More realistic figure would be in the range of $50 to $80 .
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Old 17 Mar 2016
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How long to shoot through C.America?
Hi Sjoerd!

Thanks for the advice - my figure of 25 per day is based on the 30 USD a day which I have averaged over the past five months here in the South.

Of course exuding the cost of the bike, flights and travel insurance (but including everything else). I figured I could get that lower as I worked out 20% of my overall budget was spent on 'luxuries' like and chips. I also thought that Costa Rica excluded, central is cheaper than south.

FYI my three biggest costs were maintenance/parts, accommodation and groceries respectively. Fuel came in at forth! But maybe I'd find that hard as like you say will be doing longer days and possibly less wild camping as not sure central is suited it to, in terms of climate and population. Wild camping saved me a fortune and it was the best part of the trip.

Mollydog;

That's a very a very good point about customs. I had not considered that. Being stuck in Panama City for several weeks has no appeal whatsoever.
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Old 18 Mar 2016
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I rode the Tica bus from Panama City to New York City in 1977 took all of two weeks.
Ouch.
Budget was $10 per day all inclusive, big spender those days. Others got by on $2.
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Old 19 Mar 2016
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I averaged $25 per day through Central America and my bike uses way more gas that a 250. Hostel 6-10 per night, food about the same if I pig out. Gas $20 every other day in Mx, less in the other countries due to cheaper gas. I rode every other day.
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Old 19 Mar 2016
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Playing the averages sometimes gives a skewed picture.
IF you spend $25 PER DAY but only travel every other day it doubles the time length of any trip. So you are spending $ 50 to move along the road the same distance as somebody riding each day and spending $50.
A bicyclist doing guerilla camping might spend an AVERAGE of $5 to $10 per day but take a month or more to complete a trip that a motorcyclist would do in a week.
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Old 22 Mar 2016
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a couple of years ago I did Gautemala to David , Panama in 2 days!
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Old 7 Apr 2016
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I did Panama city to El Paso TX in 8 days once.

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  #12  
Old 7 Apr 2016
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Wow, I'm so used to 500k days and going nowhere here in South America!
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