Articles that deal with budgeting an RV trip to Mexico are as rare as hen's teeth, so you might want to bookmark this one or save it to disk. Prices were accurate at it's writing (07/02) but may drift upward or downward as inflation and currency re valuations affect the Mexican economy.
Trips That Involve A Lot Of Driving Cost A Lot More
Fuel, highway tolls, and just plain paying more because you haven't extra time to scout around for the best campground and restaurant values, cause driving trips to really hammer a budget. It is not uncommon to have to pay as much as a hundred and fifty dollars per day in fuel and tolls if you're driving a large gasoline powered motorhome.
Divide The Number Of Vacation Days Into Your Budget Total
Let's assume that you have a total (in Mexico) budget of two thousand dollars and you really would like to stay an entire thirty days. Divide thirty into two thousand dollars. This will yield sixty six dollars and change per day and you should have picked up on the note above about the daily cost of driving a large motorhome on toll roads on a full day's journey.
Calculating Daily Travel Cost Or Cost Per Mile
Fuel costs in Mexico today range as follows:
Unleaded regular gasoline $2.37 per gallon (US Dollars)
Unleaded premium gasoline $2.55 per gallon (US Dollars)
Diesel fuel $2.02 per gallon (US Dollars)
Propane motor fuel $1.44 per gallon (US Dollars)
IMPORTANT NOTE: It is common to find fuel dispensing pumps that deliver less than what's shown on the dial. Over the years (and with an expensive calibration can) I have determined that the "average" shortage to be approximately five percent. So, when calculating or totalizing a budget for fuel, multiply your figure by 105 percent.
Satisfactory Road Maps Are Available At AAA Offices
The maps may not show every toll road but for mileage computation they work out very well. I always add ten percent onto basic "destination to destination" mileage to allow for deviation in plans. Sometimes a favored RV park will be closed, or you may overhear someone exuberantly describing a brand-new facility "down that highway a few miles".
Toll Road Charges
The cost of driving an automobile to Mazatlan from Nogales using Mex 15-D is approximately seventy US Dollars. Motorhomes are classified as trucks by some private toll road concessionaires so RVers should add forty dollars onto the one-way price. If towing a motor vehicle, you will pay full fare (automobile) for it as well. Rather than get into a long winded discussion about variable routes and vehicle combinations you might want to figure on paying (one way) a hundred fifty dollars from Texas to Acapulco, and perhaps five hundred dollars (no toad) on an circumnavigation tour that starts in Texas, goes to Yucatan and then back up the West Coast.
Note: It is quite possible to lop off a hefty chunk of these figures by using some "free" roads. It is outside of the scope of this article to discuss specific routes and bypass shortcuts.
RV Park Charges
Parks in resort destinations tend to charge what the traffic will bear, but an all-around average figure will run in the neighborhood of seventeen dollars a night. This may not sound like much but I always like to remember that four month's worth of "average rv park rental" amounts to more than two thousand dollars.
Camping "For The Winter"
Many RVers dream of camping on a remote beach for an entire winter. I know of lots of beaches on Mexico's West Coast where one can camp for a daily fee of three dollars. You'll have to haul your own water and sewage but the savings over several months can be appreciable. A lot of primitive campers will periodically check into a nearby full service RV park to hook up and do "spring cleaning" and reorganization, then return to the good life. Speaking of long-term rentals, most places will deduct a hefty chunk of money from the rent depending on the length of stay. For example rent fell from four dollars a day when I happened to be holding two one hundred dollar bills as I was discussing an (almost) three-month stay at one rural beach camp.
Self-Discipline Is The Key To Success
It's one thing to create and establish a budget and quite another to abide by it's limitations. I've seen many RV'ers who had to bail out of a planned long-stay because they splurged on evening cocktails every day at a bar that they had to drive ten miles to get to. One woman who bragged about her thriftiness threw caution to the wind one winter afternoon and purchased a small fortune's worth of ironwood carvings. The fact that she had a snoot full of gin and tonic probably affected her judgement. She was packed up and headed home barely two weeks into her "one month" vacation.
Another mistake many newcomers make (where have you read this before?) is to haul a bomb shelter's quantity of basic foodstuffs several thousand miles and then to top it off, most of it will follow them all the way back to their driveway.
Homesickness Can Be Expensive
Whenever I lust for something familiar, I'll make a special effort to prepare a favorite dish then budget a few dollars to visit the nearest internet cafe. I would have to say that the appearance of thousands of internet cafes in Mexico has done more to diminish the feeling of isolation than just about anything else I have ever dealt with. A few dollars connects me with friends -- I can send especially enticing JPEG images of me swinging in a hammock while they're shovelling snow. Hard-earned experience has taught me to bring lots of reading material to tide me over when I have to stay inside because of a careless sunburn, or when periodic boredom (yes it can happen, especially when staying in one spot for several months) sets in. Boredom is another formidable foe to an otherwise well-planned budget. Rather than try to psycho-analyze why I get bored every once in a great while even when ensconced on a idyllic tropical beach, I'll drag out my mountain bike and go for a ride.
Lavish Meticulous Maintenance And Tune-Up On Your Rig
A less than perfect tune up and less than properly inflated tires can cost you a bundle on a long trip. I'm not talking about just one or two hundred dollars either. It would pay to search out and find a very meticulous tune-up artist in your area who has the knowledge and patience to check and test every single component in your engine to make sure it is at optimum tune. Not only will a perfect running engine offer optimum economy and power, but it is much less likely to suffer a mechanical breakdown. If I ran into say even a slightly greedy carburetor I wouldn't hesitate to rebuild or even replace it. The cost of fuel these days is not worth being unaggressive about maximum fuel economy. Another potential hidden area is called the "Distributor Advance Curve". You may not understand what it means but a tune-up artist does. Simply request that this specification meet "Original Factory Values" and you may end up saving your engine over the long-haul never mind a wad of cash.
Eating Out
For me resisting the temptation to splurge on a lobster dinner is a heck of a lot harder than turning down a wandering blanket salesman. I use a combination (the lobster is probably frozen and comes from Australia) therapy, that includes staring at a penalty photograph that I purposefully brought along that shows deep snow and freezing temperatures back home. It would be unrealistic and even silly to make eating out "out of bounds" when formulating a budget. Lucky for me, I also happen to love traditional Mexican dishes that do not involve succulent crustaceans or large slabs of Sonoran beef.
Cocktails
Three dollars per cocktail, times perhaps three or four, doubled (for a couple) soon adds up to be a real budget buster. Whenever I get into a "cocktail and socialize" mood I'll invite the neighbors over and pour a lavish quantity of membership warehouse spirits. If the mood strikes me to sit at some palm frond restaurant bar and watch the sunset, I'll first enjoy a couple of cocktails at camp then nurse the last one at the bar (Note: DUI is serious in Mexico, especially when injury (even your own) means a prison sentence and all insurance coverages are nullified). I do not drive after having a cocktail, so if need be I'll ride a bus or catch a ride with a neighbor. I try to time my urges of bar cocktails to coincide with occasional residency during my trip near a bar.