Driving Central America & South America.
All the way from Alaska to Chile
November 16, 2006 - 1:11am
I have been officially bitten by the travel bug and have now got very itchy feet! I have recently been researching the Pan American highway and would love to try and complete it myself. A rather large undertaking I know, for someone with little experience of long road trips but everyone has to start somewhere. Before I get to excited about it I have a couple of questions...how long would such a trip take? I don't want to speed through every country just to get to the bottom, but can't really afford to take more than about 6 to 9 months off work. Would this be realistic? Also, I have no idea of how much money to allow? Any suggestions would be great.
Thanks
November 17, 2006 - 9:05am
#2
what kind of car are you thinking about?
November 20, 2006 - 8:16pm
#3
i read a book about a couple of guys who took a chevy truck (sponsored and new) from the tip of argentina to alaska in 2 weeks... it was a world record and one of them wrote a book.
You can definately make it in your time frame... just don't forget the little white pills and the whiskey
November 21, 2006 - 5:47am
#4
Can you remember what the book was called cause it would be really interesting to read.
I'm still thinking about the car. My parents have got a Land Rover Discovery which they are thinking of selling so I might ask them to keep it but the problem is it's right hand drive (I'm from Scotland...so wouldn't have any problems getting hold of the whisky!). Since I'm still just starting to think about it I haven't looked into the details yet. I don't think it would be a very good idea to take a car with the stearing wheel on the other side (although I would have someone sitting on the other side), but don't really want to have to buy a car when I get there because of the time scale of finding one and I'd want to make some alterations to it. I have thought about buying a car on the continent (which is cheaper than the UK anyway) and shipping it over but really don't have a clue so any advice would be great.
November 21, 2006 - 2:27pm
#5
so you're in scotland now?
Just fly over, rent a car for a couple of days, and buy a car here off a lot.
November 22, 2006 - 4:50am
#6
I'm actually in Germany at the moment but will be back in Scotland from next summer and that's where I think I will be heading off from.
I guess that buying a car once I'm there is the most sensible option. Can you give me a rough idea of how much a car would cost - 4 wheel drive, doesn't have to be new and shiny, but preferably one that won't fall apart half way through, and since there will only be 2 of us, it doesn't need to have a lot of seats! Purely from previous experience I would love to be able to get my hands on a land rover defender, but I'm not sure how easy they would be to find in Alaska.
November 22, 2006 - 9:55am
#7
check out ebay and look at the closed auctions to get an idea of what things sell for.
November 26, 2006 - 8:38am
#8
Parts can be a problem
You need to be careful about which vehicle you choose. Local availability of parts can be a major problem if you breakdown. I met some guys in San Cristóbal de las Casas in Mexico who got stuck for three weeks waiting for a part when their Volkswagen van broke down.
You would not think finding Volkswagen parts would be a problem in Mexico but their van was fuel injection from the states and the Volkswagens in Mexico at least at that time did not have fuel injection.
December 10, 2006 - 12:27pm
#9
Hadn't really thought about that! As I said, this trip is very much still in the planning stage! Do you have any recomendations?
I don't know how long the Alaska to Mexico would take, probably at least a month, but from Mex to Panama we took 3 months, and that was about right. Some times we'd be in one place for a week, other times we'd cover 1000 miles in 36 hours.
As long as you're flexible, you'll be fine.
I don't know how long S America would take -- but i'll need to know soon enough, too.