Mexico

Places to stay:

Check out our route map for the location of places we stayed. Most of the locations are approximate, but many of the places we stayed can be found in the book “Camping Mexico”

Travel tips/info:

1. How to obtain new tourist cards and a temporary vehicle permit 

If you plan on staying in Mexico longer than the 180 days that are permitted on your tourist card, you will need to cross the border and obtain a new tourist card. The same goes for you temporary vehicle permit.

We crossed from Chiapas to Guatemala at the small border crossing town of Cuahtemoc.  At the border the first thing you need to do is cancel your current temporary vehicle import permit at Aduana. The cancelling process is relatively quick. Aduana will need to see your vehicle and you need to provide copies of your passport and the temporary vehicle import permit. After the vehicle permit is cancelled, head to immigration to exit Mexico. Be sure to show them the receipt for the tourist fee you paid upon entrance or they will try to charge you again. Obtain an exit stamp and then head across the border by taxi. The good news is that you do not have to take your vehicle across the border. We were able to leave our vehicle parked in a secure lot behind the bus station for $50 pesos until we returned to Mexico. Normally you are required to leave the country for 3 days before you can legally re-enter, but we were able to cross into Guatemala and back into Mexico in one day. When we arrived at immigration in Guatemala, we asked them if we could enter and leave Guatemala on the same day so we could return to Mexico. They said it would not be a problem and charged us $200 pesos per person. We thought the fee was not too bad especially considering it would have cost us a lot more to stay in Guatemala for three days. The officials stamped our entry and exit on our passports, we paid the fee, and we were on our way back to Mexico.

Back on the Mexico side of things, stop at immigration first and obtain a new tourist card. After immigration head back to aduana and get a new temporary vehicle permit. The process and requirements to obtain a vehicle permit are spelled out in detail at Liferemotely.com. One important thing to remember…before you apply the temporary vehicle permit to your windshield be sure to make at least one, but preferably two copies of the permit.

 

The entire process took us about 4 hours, which was not too bad at all and everything was pretty straightforward.