A Friend of mine and I are leaving Vancouver October 16th headed for Santiago, Chile for ~8 Months. After much research and discussion with other travellers, we are left more confused than we were when we started on one question in particular: Should we camp or not?

We are looking at this from a cost/benefit point of view. We've heard you're only real opportunity to camp is in the US and maybe a little bit again in South America. Is it worth the cost and hassle of gearing up and then packing it around, to get the authentic 'roughing it' experience? or should we just scrap the whole idea and start investigating other accommodations?

And then there is weather.... Not sure how nice Washington or Oregon are gonna be in late October.

Also, if anyone has any good links for San Blas cruises that do take bikes that would be awesome. I found one, but haven't heard back from them.

Cheers,

B

Camping or sleeping in a tent , which are you thinking of?.
The first involves the full load of accessories," the kitchen sink" , water food , utensils ... and much time spent "roughing it "and living out of the tent in a single location with little concern for moving along. The latter is just that, finding a clear safe spot to pitch the tent for a night and then to buzz off again as quickly as possible in the morning and for this you need only a simple tent and sleeping bag.Long nights to while away.
If you are wanting to travel along it would make more sense for use of time and money to stay in the most economical hotels you can find. This is particularly true for Mexico and Central America . Hotels are very affordable and often cost less than you would spend for a campground in Canada and the USA.
Finding actual pay-campgrounds at the time and place where you decide you need one will be a chore.You may spend a lot of time deviating your route to catch a known campground. Wild camping or stealth camping while possible has its risks too . The countryside is often overpopulated so you cant find any "secret" spot and much of the unoccupied land will be too rocky, steep or covered with thorny scrub and cactus. If you are going to ask locals if you may camp on their property it will be best to do that in daylight too
The division of daylight and dark will be half and half so every day be prepared to spend many hours huddled at your campsite swapping tales with your buddy. Boooring when the repeats start .Since you will not be riding at night ,and you must have day light to find a suitable and safe campsite you will spend a good part of an afternoon scouting for those .
My opinion , you would be better off budgeting for cheap hotels which can be found in pretty well any town .You will have a secure place to park the bikes at night, a handy toilet and a shower to wash away the daily sweat and grime so you don't look and stink like homeless vagrants, and you have shelter from any storms. You will be free to relax in the evenings to experience some of the local cultural life around the town plaza, eat at a local restaurant or taco stand ,fruit seller or .??? ... freed of the drudgery of shopping and hauling the meal fixings and cooking gear .
If in South America beyond the tropics the urge to tent it becomes too strong I think you could still buy a cheap Chinese tent in a country down there and give it a go.

__________________
http://advrider.com/index.php?thread....207964/page-5 then scroll down to post #93

Hi,

I was very happy to have a tent when I did the trip you are planning to do.

If you have no budget constraints for your trip, you can do it without a tent but you may miss nice unplanned opportunities on the road (like been invited by locals in small villages [ no hotel there] to celebrate carnival with their traditions), sleeping in the favelas in Rio, by the rivers in the amazons...

With a tent you always know that you have a shelter if an issue arise and you need to spend the night where you are at the moment.

if money is limited for your trip, it makes a lot of sense to bring one. The tent will pay for itself quickly if you camp only a few days in USA and Mexico. List of campgrounds for both countries are available and it is easy to plan where is the next one ahead of you. Other people camp too. No worries about not having company at night. Some offer you a nice dinner/breakfest too.

Also, you don't have to camp in a dedicated campground. To camp in a city, you can always ask to camp on the lawn in front of the hotel. You'll get more creative as your confidence rise while traveling.

I did not camp much in Central America. Hotels were cheap.

In South America I camped a lot. I did enjoy mixing hotels and sleeping outside.

If nothing is waiting for you after your trip and you want to extend your time down south, you can reduce your lodging expenses a lot by camping a few days and then taking an hotel in cities when they are alive (from Thursday to Saturday).

If you decide to take a tent, I would recommend a small, light weight, free standing tent with a lot of mesh for ventilation (without spending lots of money, less than 200$). The tent will serve as a mosquito net too. Bring also a compact floor mat and small sleeping bag.

As for cooking gears, they are nice to have. But if you don't need to have a hot meal every night you can easily do without them.

Have a good trip,
Patrick

I do not recognize the distinction between "camping" and "sleeping in a tent."

I camped only rarely in Central and South America. On the other hand, when I did camp, it was entirely the right thing to do. I'd not have missed it just for the sake of saving a couple of kilos worth of baggage.

For starters, motels/hotels are expensive in certain places, notably Canada, the USA, and the southern tier of South America. In some of those places, wild camping is free and plentiful. It's also more scenic, relaxing, and enriching than the budget end of the motel/hotel scene. It's nice, although not essential, to have the option.

Even paid campgrounds are definitely cheaper than budget motel/hotels in the USA, Canada and the southern tier areas of South America--I'm not sure why Sjoerd has not found this to be the case. During high season in southern Chile and Argentina, it is not unusual to roll into town and find all lodging full, with the only realistic option being the local campgrounds (or pitching at tent on the grounds of local hostels). Bear in mind that hotels in that area of the world are approximately equivalent in price to those in Canada or the USA. There were also a couple of times in the more expensive countries (e.g., Brazil, French Guiana) where hotels would have cost up to a hundred dollars, but camping was quite cheap, with full access to the same facilities.

There's also the issue of lodging opportunities that fall somewhere in between hotels and campgrounds, like when local people offer a place to tent out or to unroll a sleeping bag in a spare room, patio, carport, un-used van. This was not the norm for me, but it did happen. Once or twice I slept in my tent within a mosquito-filled cabana of one sort or another--the mere fact that you've paid for an "indoor" accommodation doesn't necessarily eliminate the need for protection from the elements, especially when these might carry malaria, dengue or zika.

Lastly, there are places you might, if so inclined, want to leave the bike behind and set off on foot for a couple of days or a week. Torres del Paine is the obvious choice, but there are others.

All the other stuff you'll certainly hear is true: that in many areas you can't safely wild camp; that in many more areas there is no local concept of camping culture, and therefore no campgrounds; that in a lot of places it's neither safe, nor private; that you can buy what you need (and when you need it) cheaply in Argentina or Chile. Still....

Hope that's helpful.

Mark

Mark , the reason I did not mention the expensive hotels in southern SA is that I have never been that far yet , have no experience there , but have heard of that . I did suggest buying a tent and sleeping bag there partly for that reason .
I've only spent a month in Venezuela where things were similar to Mexico and Central America which are my main travel region .
The OP posed it as an either/ or question so I went the hotel route . However I agree , if the packing of a light small tent and sleeping bag is feasible then do take them and use them when hotel prices get silly .
. Actually on my bike trips I always do carry my tent and bag , but use them rarely in Mexico and CA but use them much in Canada and USA and Europe . Saves a bundle .

__________________
http://advrider.com/index.php?thread....207964/page-5 then scroll down to post #93

Stahlratte is the boat for bikes from San Blas to Cartagena. We took our camping gear on the same trip last year and had the same question before we left. The convincing argument was, what happens when something goes really upside down out in the middle of nowhere. At least you have shelter, and possibly something to eat. Turns out that the only time we almost needed it was at a road block in the middle of Columbia that was closed until after dark. We don't ride at night in South America, so we were getting out our camping gear when the flag man decided to let us through since we were the only ones stopped.
Accommodation was so cheap everywhere that we didn't camp until Argentina, however the camping in Argentina and chile was excellent! They have really great facilities and it was worth carrying the stuff just for those 2 countries.
If we were doing the trip again, I would take our camping gear.

Thank you guys all very much for the posts. Super helpful. I suppose I am leaning toward bringing minimal camping gear, no cookware. As I delve further into my fincances its feeling skinnier and skinnier.

B

I allways camped for many years in more then 80 countrys around the world. Just working a few weeks and travelling the rest of the year would not be possible when wasting 50 Dollars for a hotel every day.
While sleeping my eyes are closed so i dont see the difference between a tent or hotel room anyway and during the day im riding so i cant enjoy the hotel pool anyway. In third world countrys you can buy nice food everywere so i just carry cooking stuff in expensive countrys such as swiss:

Adventure experience - motorcycle trip riding across Africa

Hey there Cenji! I'll be crossing into baja first week of november and heading south on my klr-650, ill message you, lets chat! Plan on camping quite a bit!

Have a look at ioverlander.com and that will give you an idea of what other travellers do, especially if you go by the "tent friendly" classification.

__________________
Tony
Click here for Travel Photos & Travel Map

Two trips, CA, then CA + SA, total between trips 13 months on the road, ~43,000 miles...times I used my tent and/or hammock...wait for it...6 times.

1. Hotel roof top in Belize (all rooms were taken)
2. Beach in Nicaragua (to see turtles come in and lay eggs under moonlight)
3. Police check point in Guyana (coming out of jungle, no cash to pay for a hotel)
4. Crossing the Amazon on a barge (hammock)
5. In the dessert of Argentina (staged to watch the Dakar 2013)
6. Sleeping in an urban campground in Argentina (hammock)

Cooking while "camping" -- zero times.

That said, my bags are packed and I fly to Peru in the morning. I have a 250 cc bike waiting for me there. I'm taking a sleeping bag, hammock, a plastic sheet and tie downs to support the hammock. Chances that I leave this stuff with friends in the Peru before hitting the road, 50/50.

I can't say it too strongly hotels/hostels are really cheap, usually have hot showers, safe storage for your bike and sometimes they throw breakfast after a fashion. I am dragging the above stuff case it fits on my light bike and so I can possibly sleep under the stars one night in Parque Nacional Huascarán... Again, its not to save money, its to sleep near a high mountain lake in the Andes.

__________________
Peter B
2008/09 - NJ to Costa Rica and back to NJ
2012/13 - NJ to Northern Argentina, Jamaica, Cuba and back to NJ
2023 - Peru, Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia...back to Peru.

Blogs: Peter's Ride