Road Trip Destinations – Travel to Latin America from USA

chicama peru road tripSo have you ever wanted to go on the trip of your lifetime? Are you worried that your budget won’t reach? Well with only a few thousand dollars and a good car you can travel from Chile all the way back to USA including gas, food, & lodging.

As an international car shipping company, many of our customers are travelers and ship their cars from USA to Europe, Africa and Latin America. Some people are shipping cars to their families while others are going for work purposes (like a move). And then sometimes we have customers who go on these awesome adventures for a couple months. Today we will be talking about how these particular customers take the cars overseas and how much it costs. Your American dollars will go a lot further in Latin America than in Europe. As always we will use an example with fictitious names.

Two close friends, Dean and Santiago, want to go on a surfing trip and drive up the coast of Latin America all the way back to USA. They have saved for this surfing trip of a lifetime. What adds more excitement is that there won’t be crowded beaches like there are in Southern California. Basically they don’t want to drive from USA all the way to some country and then have to turn around and come all the way back. They want to ship their car to Chile from USA and do a 1-way road trip all the way back to USA. Since they are both splitting the cost, it means this trip is going to be much cheaper as individuals.
Chicama Surf Trip From USA
Dean owns a Ford Explorer (SUV) and opts to ship it from Long Beach, CA to Chile. They can ship a sedan for much cheaper, but they want to take their surfboards on the road with them. From Chile the two friends will drive all the way back to USA and stay as close as they can to the coast to catch some nice waves.
They filled out the quote form on Ship Overseas and got a rate of 2, 100.00 from Long Beach, CA to Chile. They got an arrival date of April 1st for the truck in Chile and decided to arrive a couple days early just in case. Once they pick up their car at the arrival port, they begin their adventure back to the US.

To make this story short and more relevant to you, we will end by giving these tips.

  • You will need to pay a fee for every country you enter. Here’s how it works. We’ll just use Mexico as an example because I personally did this 1 month ago. When you cross a border and you are going to cross to the next country, you will have to get a certificate from the Customs Department. In my case it was from the Mexican Aduana (Mexican Customs). There were 2 fees. One was for $48 for permission to enter the country. The other fee was a temporary import fee which was refunded once I left the country. Most likely there will be a bank that issues the refund so make sure you don’t leave on a Sunday otherwise you’ll will have to wait until normal business hours of the bank.
  • There is a road that goes all the way from South America to USA, but in Colombia the road is unpaved. While it’s okay for an F150, don’t be taking a Honda Civic.
  • Take a real GPS that is satellite driven. Download the maps from the GPS manufacturer. Don’t rely on cell phone GPS because it will only work with cell phone towers. Also buy a regular map, one that you can hold in your hands.
  • Take an English to Spanish dictionary. Use your Google Translate App in your Android phone if you don’t speak Spanish. This app allows you to say something in English and it will translate it “verbally” into whatever language you want, even Chinese
  • Use Wavecation to book hotels in South America or AirBnB to reduce costs. Also for people who don’t mind hitting the road extra hard, buy a tent and sleeping bag.
  • Take your debit card to pull cash from ATMs. There are different currencies. Also, don’t forgot to tell your bank that you will be traveling so they don’t put a freeze on your CC.

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