Mainland Mexico Bicycle Touring Costs

This section covers from Mazatlán (Sinaloa) to Palenque (Chiapas). You can check the route we followed here. The rest of mainland México will be considered part of the Yucatán Peninsula and analyzed separately. The costs are PER PERSON, although we travel as a couple, which makes bicycle touring less expensive.

The beginning of our tour in mainland Mexico was boring in terms of cycling. The Pacific coast in Sinaloa and Nayarit has lots of traffic and becomes monotonous after a couple of days on the saddle. Once we got to Guadalajara the situation improved heaps. The colonial cities of Guanajuato and San Miguel de Allende are a must see, and the Huasteca Potosina ranks among our favourite places to cycle in the country. Further south, the state of Oaxaca is also a pleasure to cycle, although we found some serious climbs and lots of mosquitoes whenever we were close to the coast. Finally, Chiapas met our expectations of an inexpensive and beautiful place to visit.

About the traffic… well, Mexico is a bit complicated for cyclist sometimes. The road along the Pacific coast in Sinaloa and Nayarit can be quite dangerous for cycling as well as getting in/out of the big cities such as Guadalajara or Mexico City. In Souther region of Chiapas, near the border of Guatemala we didn’t feel very safe cycling near the Lacandon jungle, so we jumped on a bus. On the good side, we loved cycling in the Huasteca Potosina, Sierra Grande of Oaxaca, and Chiapas. 

* Costs in american dollars (USD)

ON THE BIKE

Total Spent: 826 USD

Average spent per day: 9.83 USD

We realized that mainland Mexico was cheaper than cycling in Baja California, so our travel budget let us check into a hostel and/or eating out more often than before. Even though, we cooked most of our meals and camped a lot.

LODGING

We camped as much as we could but being in Mexico during the rainy season, we sometimes had to check into a hostel when the rain was heavy. We also slept in new places like churches, Russell’s boat, a couple of night buses, a parking lot and even in jail one night! On top of that, we were very lucky to be hosted in Casa de Ciclistas in Guadalajara, by Xan and Marlene in Mexico DF and by Jochas in Huatulco.