Financial

How Much Will It Cost?

Trips like tis can be done cheaper but you should expect to spend 50$ per day on avarage to be safe. This includes gas, various fees on borders, food, hotel accomodation, misc. expenses and maybe even a few drinks at night. Shipping the bike back to LA from Panama costs around $900. A plane ticket for yourself will be around $600. To sum it up, right before the departure, you will need to have 3500 +-250 and a credit card.

In rural Mexico, hotels with a private bathroom are $11-25 U.S. A good restaurant meal with chicken, vegetables, rice, tortillas is around $3.50, but if you eat off a street vendor or in the markets it will be a bit less. The Mexicans really know how to grille chicken, when you see a smoking grille, it's time to stop and eat! Unleaded premium gasoline was $2.65 gallon earlier this year, it has probably gone up a bit.

In Guatemala (except major tourist areas), hotels are $5-9 with a private bathroom, and about $3 with a communal bathroom. Hardly worth camping. Restaurant meals are $2-4, less in the markets. Most fruits and vegetables are 12 to 25 cents per pound. The Maya women sell awesome bean & cornmeal breakfast patties wrapped in palm leaves, high in complex carbos and good for a snack later in the day, too. Lunches are often served as large soups with chicken and vegetables in the soup. Unleaded premium is a tad less than in Mexico. Guatemala and Costa Rica are the best countries for motorcycle parts availability, there is very little in Mexico.

In Belize prices are generally somewhere between Mexico and Guatemala.

Honduras, hotels with a private bathroom are $8-14. Food is priced about the same as Guatemala, the comedors (small restaurants, usually in people's homes)are excellent with lots of fresh veggies.

Nicaragua, hotels are a bit more expensive than Honduras, but lunch at a restaurant costs 65 cents.

El Salvador, there is very little food, mainly papusas which cost about 12-15 cents each.

Costa Rica has awesome meals at the "sodas" (small roadside restaurants), usually about $2.50. Costa Rica and Panama are the most Americanized countries in Central America, with American chain restaurants and hotels. But you lose much of the culture and wildness of the more northern Central American countries.

Flying a bike is expensive. I hope to find a more recent example but in December 2003, a biker paid $879 to fly a KLR from Panama to Miami. He used Girag cargo in Tocumen International Airport freight terminal.

Finding Money For The Trip

The most immediate solution is for everybody to pay from their pockets. However, if we can find a sponsor or maybe sell some of the media afterwards, we can equally minimize the economical effect of this trip on ourselves. This is an option to consider and decide together. It's not by any means a motivation for this journey.