 once again - facts
OK, give it some thought for your quick trip to Mexico for your 3 week
vacation, "on the cheap".
Forget Panama, after reviewing this, that is even farther.
It took me 10 minutes to do this.
St Louis, MO to Cancun, Mex = 2622 miles = 104 gals gas @ average $2/gal =
$208.
That is one way.
Now it is 1173 miles from St Louis to Brownsville, your quickest route. You wil
be almost two days doing that, what with getting insurance at the border and
considering you don't want to drive at night in Mex.
Now you have 1443 miles left.
Let's say you are a good, fast, driver, willing to stay up ALL DAY (short
winter days) and barrel through Mex without stopping on you first trip ever
into Mex. So you cover 500 miles a day. (Yeah, and good luck on that). You are
in Cancun in 3 more days.
Of course you had to buy insurance at the border based on below from a web
site.
Value of car.
$15,000-$19,999 $456.06
$20,000-$24,999 $564.55
OK, so you aren't going to need a year of the insurance, so you maybe get the
one month policy. I'd figure on maybe $100.
Now you are $208 gas
$100 insurance
Maybe 5 days - minimum - on the road. Of course, perhaps you spent some of that
5 days eating something or staying somewhere. Let's say you sleep in your car
and only eat two small meals in a mercado food stand and you never drink much
during the day, except water - oops, you have to buy that too. You spend
$10/day. That is pretty cheap. Don't think I could do that, but more power to
you. That is $50 total, including the portion of the trip in the US.
Now you are up to $358, and on day 6 you arrive in Cancun if all above goes as
planned.
You do have to get back, so add in the same in reverse.
Up to $716. That is 10 days (ideally) and now you have 11 more days to spend
along the Cancun coast area, and you have $284 of your $1000, or $25/day to
spend.
You could do it.
You could camp out. Oh, maybe a fee for that. Drink a bit of water. Go to the
mercado for your food. Cook it yourself.
You might note that Mexico (especially that area) is not as cheap as people are
led to believe. SE Asia as noted on othe posts is a lot cheaper.
So go ahead and figure on the above as a rough starting point and then figure
if your plan to drive down to Mex is worth your effort.
Right off, I'd say that your 10 day RT and $716 cost - NO food/drink/lodging -
is easily beat by almost any airfare, maybe even to Thailand.
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