Driving Across the Mexico/Belize Border? Here Are My Tips…
Our Mexico road trip took us to Belize and boy oh boy was it an adventure! We stayed in Placencia, which is not as popular as San Pedro when we’re talking about Belize destinations, but I encourage you to check it out if you’re wanting to experience the beautiful country! It is a peninsula just south of San Pedro, about a two hour drive from Belize City. The best way to get there is probably flying into Belize City and then shuttling from there to Placencia. There are also small flights that run from Belize City to Placencia that are an option too, but definitely on the pricier side.
HOWEVER, If you’re in for a wild adventure like us, then you can take a whack at driving across the boarder in a rental car, I’ve got some tips for you! We decided to drive because one way flights for two people from Puerto Escodido, Mexico, which is where we were, to Belize were sitting around $1500 when we looked. Soooo we took the economic route and rented a car for like $60/day. It wasn’t difficult by any means, but there were a few things that created little hiccups for us along the way that we would encourage you to avoid if you follow suit. Here are a few of those things:
Don’t get the stomach flu before the 9 hour drive from Cancun to Placencia. Okay this sounds super personal and thats because it is… ha. But its straight facts. We had to stop our drive about an hour in, after landing in Cancun from Puerto Escondido, because I was uncontrollably sick. (Ugh) Thank goodness for 24 hour emergency clinics!! To make it not so personal, my tip here to the general public is: don’t drink non-bottled water in Mexico. This also means don’t have ice in your drinks, minimize your fruit intake, and even be careful when brushing teeth and showering in the well water. I think this is so commonly known, though, so I don’t want to dwell on it. If you’re driving from Mexico to Belize, being healthy is step one!
Make sure your rental car is legit!!! Okay so this is a tip that applies for anyone renting a car in a foreign country. For the last few months, we’ve been renting cars all over South America, so we didn’t think much of it when we rented our car from Cancun to make the 9 hour drive to Placencia. Our situation was almost comical and I still cannot believe it actually happened. So, how did we end up stranded on the side of an unknown Mexican town with no car, minimal cellular service and low phone battery? To sum it up, our rental car company gave us a car with private plates instead of public, rental car, plates. (Im pretty sure that means we were straight up driving someone’s car straight out of their garage? Lol) We also forgot to double check for the car registration in the glove box…whoops. So, when the road patrolmen came up to us asking for registration and insurance and all that good stuff, we were out of luck. It wouldn’t have been a huge deal if we had the proper plates, but we wouldn’t have had any way to know that. The funniest part about this situation was when the policemen told us they’d have to repossess the car we were driving… I straight up thought they were joking. Buuuuut they sure as hell weren’t. Which is how we ended up stranded on the road waiting for the rental car company to drive us out a new and LEGIT car to finish the trip out to Belize.
Get written documentation from your rental car company with the approval to cross country lines. This was huge! I am so glad someone told us about this because we would have never known. There’s a specific form you need which shows you’re allowed to take a rental car over the boarder. Without this form, you won’t be crossing the border, that’s for sure. When you’re renting your car, just be sure to ask your representative for the approval documentation, its pretty simple but very essential!
Have all your documentation ready when you’re approaching the boarder! Wow, when I say there were so many forms involved in driving across the Mexican/Belize boarder…I’m not even exaggerating. There are the forms for being a human (jus general custom forms), forms for proof of not having COVID (which they do not accept any tests that are taken elsewhere, they need to be taken right there at the boarder), forms for arrival and departure of your party, forms for the car, forms for insurance of the car, and then duplicate forms of many things (or so it felt like). The whole process took us about 80 minutes and there were absolutely no other cars ahead of us. However, the way back, from Belize into Mexico was much smoother and faster.
Expect to split the drive into 2 days. We definitely thought we could manage the drive in 1 day on both ends, but both times it ended up being a two day trip on the way there and back. I would recommend booking your mid point stays ahead of time because we ran into the issue of thinking we could just pull up and get a room at any hotel/hostel and we were proved wrong! On the way there we stopped at 10+ places only to find them all full for the night! Going into it with the expectation that it’ll take you two days will also keep the pressure off to speed and rush. The drive is beautiful so, enjoy it and plan for it! :) We chose to fly into Cancun first because flights were pretty cheap into Cancun, and then rent a car out of Cancun. This also made the drive 9 hours instead of 18 hours, which is what it would have been if we drove from Puerto Escondido.
Overall, the decision to drive was not bad, but would I do it again? Probably not… It was an adventure im glad we had though! Lots of good memories come out of road trips I feel like so if youre on a budget and trying to get to Belize from Mexico, its definitely not a bad idea!
As always, stay safe out there and travel well, my friends!!
