Let me start with this disclaimer: I don’t like driving and I never really have. Even in my native Midwestern United States, where the highways are flat, wide, easy to navigate, and speed bump-free, I still don’t like driving. I guess I have always been a somewhat impatient person. so I never found myself able to just “sit back and enjoy the ride” of a road trip.
Living in Mexico, that hasn’t changed. When my wife and I travel around the country, which we do frequently, we have always taken either a bus or an airplane to our destination. But as I recently hit an important (albeit, slightly depressing) birthday milestone, we were brainstorming how to celebrate and an idea occurred to us: What if we took a road trip to some parts of Mexico we have not yet discovered? It seemed like a good idea; some places are hard to get to by bus or flight, and we thought we needed some downtime to just chat in the car on the road. So we did it.
How did it go? Well, we survived the trip and I am still married … but barely. Here are my top eight observations on taking a Mexican road trip:
1. Planning a road trip in Mexico requires a very different mindset than in the U.S. or Canada. Driving should be done during daylight hours and the distance covered each day will be significantly less. Every spring break, my family would pack up the family van in Wisconsin and drive non-stop through the night for a total of 20 hours to go on a ski trip in Colorado. You are not going to do that in Mexico — neither the all-nighter nor the ski trip!
2. Depending on the type of driver you are, you most likely will not find your time on the road in Mexico very relaxing. There are sudden lane changes, frequent toll booths, extremely sudden lane closures due to construction, speed bumps (of course!), sharp curves, and often double-load semis driving as slow as 10 mph. The result: You likely will not even want the distraction of music, a podcast, a coffee or a talking spouse, and will likely have your hands locked in the “10 and 2” position the entire time.
3. Baños, food stops and gas stations require careful planning. This is a very big difference from a north-of-the-border road trip. In the U.S. or Canada, we are used to multiple gas stations, restaurants of all types, and acceptable bathrooms at literally every single exit. A highway driver north of the border is rarely more than a mile or two away from truck stop hot dogs, trucker caps, decent bathrooms and junk food. In Mexico, we often would go for 30-plus minutes without a gas station and for several hours without encountering food I would want to eat, beyond Oxxo-type provisions or a baño I couldn’t ask my wife to use without fear of a divorce.
4. Highway driving in Mexico is generally safe, if you are smart and take a lot of extra precautions. Not all states and not all areas are safe. Smaller roads can be risky. Night driving is unsafe. Hanging out at truck stops can be unsafe. But if you are smart — drive in daylight hours, use your Google Maps app, and drive carefully at speeds much slower than you would up north — you will very likely be just fine.
5. Frequent comments I have heard from gringos to “beware of the federales” seem to me to be a lot of hyperbole. I do not and would not drive in Mexico City as I have heard many stories of traffic police shakedowns. But on this road trip, we never saw a police car “trying to radar-gun a speeding car.” In fact, we saw very few police cars on the roads the entire drive. In full disclosure, I have been stopped by Mexican police close to a dozen times in my nearly 30 years of driving in the country (always with rental cars driving short distances and most of the time because I did something wrong). However, not one single time — not one — have I been asked to pay a bribe or received a ticket. That being said, I am absolutely certain that my fluent Spanish has helped me get out of such a situation more than a few times.
6. The scenery on your Mexican road trip will likely be varied and quite stunning. Given the country’s many mountains, often rapidly changing climate zones and prevalence of microclimates, we would see incredible changes in trees and vegetation in just a few hours. What makes the actual driving stressful is precisely what makes the scenery so beautiful: Driving in mountains is never easy!
7. Toll roads are the way to go. Yes, they are expensive, very expensive, but they really are the only logical option. Our road trip of approximately 25 hours of total “time on the road” cost over US $200 in tolls. However, toll roads are much faster, much safer, and in case of a breakdown of any type, would be much more conducive to getting help. Note: I have gotten two flat tires in Mexico (actually both in the same 24 hour period) and in both cases got outstanding and affordable help despite not being on toll roads at the time. Another way to look at toll roads in Mexico to help “ease the pain” of the cost is to remember that they are a pretty good model of “those that use them, pay for them” versus charging higher taxes for everyone to help pay for them — regardless of the usage. Does this make for a better model? … I’m not sure.
8. I love my wife and have enjoyed every minute of our 21 year marriage, but that still doesn’t mean we are cut out for road trips. After this one, we found ourselves thinking that perhaps why we still love each other is precisely because we haven’t taken road trips together. We had a great time and will for sure do shorter road trips again, but definitely reconfirmed that we are more of a “bus and airplane” couple!
So where did we go? We started in our hometown of San Miguel de Allende, drove through the state of Guanajuato to Ajijic (Lake Chapala) in Jalisco. Then we drove down through Colima to the beach town of La Manzanilla, up the coast to Puerto Vallarta, over to Guadalajara, and then back home to SMA via León — all in 10 days.
I will write more on some of my non-driving observations of the journey in my next column.
Do you agree with my thoughts on driving in Mexico? Have you had similar good or bad experiences on the highways? Did you test a marriage or friendship with a Mexican road trip? Please share in the comments!
Travis Bembenek is the CEO of Mexico News Daily and has been living, working or playing in Mexico for over 27 years.
