Has anyone ever driven from vancouver to Peru, South America? How was the trip?

Question

Are the roads easy?

What is border control like?

Are there dangers to driving in sth america

Answer 1

Hey Danielle,

impossible to drive from North America to Peru. There is the Darien gap in the carretera trasamericana. That means there is no way from Panama to Colombia except you take the ship from Colon, Panama to Cartagena, Colombia.

Greetings from Hamburg, Germany

Heinz

Answer 2

Please DONT do this. It isnt safe.From Mexico on down, youll be a target of harrassment, theft and perhaps, worse. The roads the go through Colombia to peru are Full of Las Farc and others. Youd be wise to fly.. but if you are h**l bent on getting killed or kidnapped.. take a bus.

Answer 3

Hi, we drove from Houston, Texas through all of Central Americas countries (except Belize) and then shipped everything from Panama to Colombia. Colombia was our most pleasant surprise of the whole trip. Yes, it is different but we sticked to the high ways and met lovely people. It is correct that the Darien Cap is preventing a whole the way drive down and that the jungle forest between Panama and Colombia is better not visited but you can from Panama to Colombia. We have shipped our Dodge and 31ft Fifth Wheel over. Yes that was expensive because of the length, but you can also ship your vehicle in a container (if that fits, in fact with taken of the dually wheels of the dodge and the back fenders even our 3500 fitted in a container, the fifth wheel was put on a flatrack by us).

There is also a possibility, if you want to avoid Colombia, to ship from Costa Rica to Peru and take it from there.

If you want to read some of our adventures: http://www.vlinderen.com/finchroad. We have English stories as from Colombia  and the rest of South America, the others

are in Dutch (as we are Dutch). We traveled with two small children (Fabian now 9 and Mighalle now 5)

Most of the roads are in terrible state, specially in Central America (Costa Rica and Panama especially, even the Pan Americana)

Border control in Central America can take up to 3 or 4 hrs. Nothing is "logical", there are a lot of "guids", you have to go a lot of people for stamps, copies etc.etc.

Border control in South America is a piece of cake. About half an hour out and in again!

Police may find you an easy target to fill up their empty purse, but as we found out, that starts in Mexico already. Here we were stopped the most for the most ridiculous things. We've only paid once and decided never to do that again. We had two  stops by the police in Peru who than had something different in mind as we did, and once in Argentina.

The other times we were stopped by police it was just a normal check. There are a lot of check points in Colombia, but no problem whatsoever, just friendly and for safety.

Like to know more? Check our website. Have some more questions? Shoot!

Finch Family,

Safe Travels and Happy Trails.

Answer 4

I would not do this but if you decide to do that. Drive during the day only. I would fly instead.

Answer 5

I have driven different parts of the Pan-American highway over the years but not all at one time.

The highway, for the most part, is maintained fairly well.You will however see different levels of deferred highway maintenance as you travel from country to country.

Each border crossing is a little different in what paperwork,visas, permits and the fees they require to enter and exit their respective country which, for the traveler can often be frustrating and confusing.The personnel manning the borders of each country range from intelligent,polite and well spoken to arrogant,sullen and demanding which may be a reflection of their own prior experience with travelers from other countries.Quien Sabe?

Personally I didn't find any one country safer or more dangerous than any other along the route despite all of the stories,real or imagined,that not only continue to circulate, but also seem to be embellished with more and more gruesome details by each new story-teller.That said,I personally choose to drive only during daylight hours because I feel that your risk increases exponentially,for "many reasons," after the sun goes down.

Perhaps my biggest disappointment after traveling random portions of the PanAm highway was that it was just another road.I had thought it might be some how magical or visually spectacular in some way but,in spite of a few notable exceptions,it looked just like any other road I have traveled.

Many books have been written by people who have traveled   all or portions of the Pan American Highway from Alaska to Argentina.Sometimes when I think about it, it sounds like such an exciting thing to do. After all,it is "The longest motorable road"in the world according to the Guinness Book of World Records.Then reality sets in and I think about the commitment in time and money it would require and I also remember how long a road it really is.

The Pan American Highway is not really one continuous road,but rather a network of roads linking North ,Central and South America It is just short of 16,000 miles in total length and is complete except for a 54 mile long rainforest gap between Panama in Central America and Colombia in South America known as the Darrien Gap***.

The Pan American highway extends from Fairbanks,Alaska in North America to Ushuaia,Argentina in the lower reaches of South America while passing through fifteen countries.

***The Darrien Gap is thought by many to be impassable but in fact the gap has been crossed not only on foot,but by bicycle,motorcycle and ATV. Although there are people who live there, it remains pimarily thick jungle,swamps,quicksand and insects of every color,shape and size imaginable.

The link below is to just one of the many informative books written about driving on the Pan American Hwy... juan23