Motorcycle to South America – Crossing the Mexico Border

With all the narco-trafficking, warring cartels and general unrest along the Mexican border making a safe crossing is high on my list.   You hear what you’re willing to listen to.  Johnny Cash said it the best:  “Bad news travels like wildfire, good news travels slow.”  Having spent my fair share of time south of border I know from personal experience that come night fall, you could have picked a better place to spend your time.  That’s not to say that all of Mexico is bad, just that one would be well served to make a b-line from the border crossing as far south as possible in one hop finding a cozy place to stay before the sun sets.  In my particular case, I’ll have one good lookin’, blonde haired, blue eyed gal on the back of said motorcycle whose safety I’ll need to be concerned with in addition to my own.  We might as well not take any chances.  The proposed route is as follows.

As we will be starting out from West Virginia South Texas border crossings are our most accessible options.  After some research Laredo and Eagle pass came up the winners based on ease of access, general safety, volume, access to and quality of highways in Northern Mexico.  I chose Laredo / Nuevo Laredo simply because it’s the closer of the two.  The  plan:  Stay the night somewhere comfortable in Laredo, get a good night’s sleep, hit the border crossing at first light and gun it south to San Luis Potosi, about 400 miles.  It’s a heck of a haul the first day but will get us well clear of trouble spots along the border.  An easy 150 miles or so the following day to Queretaro, which is supposed to be a wonderful city nestled about 6,000 feet and laced with a history from Mexico’s silver mining heyday.

After Queretaro we’re going to start making our way to the Gulf coast and out towards the Yucatan dodging Mexico City for the first round.

Three weeks until take off.  I’ll come back to this post at some point with how our route panned out.  I love planning trips like this.  I live for this.