Mileage and travel time, Mexico to Patagonia
 

Hi everyone,
I am planning to leave the USA around Sept 15 headed south and am trying to imagine a reasonable travel schedule to Ushala. Can anyone help me out with your experiences. Any thoughts,ideas or suggestions would be appreciated. I am not sure of the total mileage involved so this alone makes estimating difficult . I realize we all travel at different speeds but at this point any practical advice would help.
Thanks, Bill.

hello there,

I´m currently in San Cristobal, MX, heading down south. If you want to keep an eye on my blog, It´ll give you a pretty good idea of the time. I´m currently on my fifth week, but I spent a lot of time in the US (leaving from Seattle) and two weeks in Oaxaca not learning Spanish. I plan to do a lot of looking at ruins, so that´ll slow me down a bit, but Í´m also a little bored of driving, sleeping, driving, etc., so I might just end up making a run for it.

anyway, my blog is at www.cainmanor.com/MT my e-mail is greg (at) cain manor (.) com. If you find yourself close, I´d love to hook up and speak some english.

Lastly, I´m planning six months for my journey.

Hi Bill

Christmas/New Year is a great time to be in Ushuaia as there is a gathering of bike travellers and it's also summertime, if a tad windy! Two and a half months isn't enough so why not aim to get there for Dec. 2005?

Unless you're very hardy, winter in the extreme south is best avoided.

Good luck.

Mick

You definitely want to be in Ushuaia at Christmas, great party, as many as 35 travellers will be there.

Ushuaia and very southern Chile is very cold other than at high summer - November to January. Expect snow by March at latest. Even summer is chilly - the snow line is about 1000 feet at Ushuaia in the middle of summer, and you will see pictures of travellers at the Christmas party wearing all their riding gear as normal.

You can ride from USA to Ushuaia in 3 1/2 months if you travel pretty hard and steady.

Total mileage is tough, because it all depends on your route. And you can't travel as fast as you can in the USA. 400 miles is a very long tough day in most of South America.

Read some of the travellers stories for more ideas on how long it takes. Read ours as well, Ushuaia north. We did it far quicker than we would recommend. Link to ours just under the "Home" button on the left menu. We rode from Ushuaia to Peru together, but then Susan had to fly home for a contract, and I rode north from there solo, flying from Bogota to Miami, and rode west to San Diego and north to Vancouver in 3 1/2 months from Ushuaia. Didn't see nearly as much as we could have, and rode every day. (We knew Susan had the contract as of Ushuaia, and had a very limited time, so we rode hard, but it still took longer than expected, especially when we hit El Nino flooding in Peru.)

You might want to think about flying into Quito from the US, then riding from there.

How much time do you HAVE?



------------------
Grant Johnson

Seek, and ye shall find.
------------------------

One world, Two wheels.
www.HorizonsUnlimited.com

Bill:
Take a look at
www.sonora-mexico.net/panamericana.htm
There is a table with distances from northern México to Ushuaia. I´m leaving next year and hope to be at Ushuaia by december.
Write me if you need more info.

Bill,

Last Nov. 4 entered Mexico at Mexicali, and got to Ushuaia Jan. 9. Wish I'd had/taken more time, but I wasn't really in a hurry--took a few side trips. Left Panamericana when I could, and showed mileage of 13,200 miles. Great trip, flew Panama to Bogota, no problems--good people whole way. Good luck!!--Porter

------------------
on the road(almost)
and lovin' it!!
KLR650-A13 'BURRO'

This is an old thread, I know, but the question remains. Many have advocated taking 6-9 months and more (much more!) to get from the USA to Ushuaia, others took much less, and MotoDriver took only two months and said he wasn't in a hurry.

YMMV indeed.

I am hoping to do Alaska in the summer of '08, and after a bit of rest and refit in Colorado, head for Ushuaia with the intention of being there at year's end 2008. I had thought that was plenty of time, and I could fiddle around a bit on the way.

Hearing of some who have used more than a year on that trip (I've searched other threads), I have to wonder what the riding style and ability to sightsee might be.

More research is in order.

So, you're going to spend the summer doing Alaska (what, 2 months?) - starting somewhere in the US. Then you're going to do some time in Colorado - a few weeks probably, maybe a month.

You want to spend as much time going through Mexico, Central America and all of South America (1st time there, I'm guessing) in nearly the same amount of time you spent going to Alaska and resting up in Colorado?

Without putting Alaska down - it is spectacular, it is scenic and definitely worth seeing - it is basically all the same thing. Lots of big, lots of wilderness, lots of mountains and the like. The countries in Central and South America are all different. Take your time, enjoy!

That's the way I did it!
 

I did this trip in about your time frame in 2006! Left Southern California the first of June and rode to Prudhoe Bay. Toured western US on the way back home and was here end of July. Rested and worked a bit (and bike service) till Sept 29th. Crossed into Mexico on Oct 1st. Did Central America in 5 weeks. Flew bike and myself to Bogota on Nov. 9th. Did the usual touring including the Salar de Uyuni, (a week in Cusco) and reached Ushuaia on Dec 21st. Left there on Dec 25th and was in Buenos Aires on Jan 6th. Didn't feel like I was rushed but as you said, YMMV! You can see my travels in the Travelers Stories section.
Rick McDermed

Thanks guys. The time it takes to do the whole thing without rushing around is what I need to research more. Your input helps.

RickMcD, I'll look for your blog, thanks.

I´m in Calafate, S Argentina tonight on my Prudhoe - TDF trip. Looks like mine will be 5-6 months and 28,000 miles all told. I would love to have taken 1-2 years, but I have kids back in the UK who are missing me, and I need to earn some cash sometime soon!

In some ways my trip feels rushed, some ways not. I´m happy with big-mile days, but also would have liked to spend a few weeks in a lot more places than I´ve been able to.

Being from UK, it made more sense for me to do the whole north to south trip in one, whereas I guess for an American it makes more sense to do north and south separately.

This is a great little thread and something of an issue for us at present.

We took our time through the States and Central America (6 months for New York(not Prudhoe, but same sort of mileage) to Quito) and now we're starting to feel it catch up. That said, I wouldn't have changed it for the world. Colorado and Utah were both great places with some fantastic people (good to see you're prepping for the trip Marty).:thumbup1:

Bill, I'm not offering any answers here, just that the 6 months on the road have been slow enough to allow us to see things, stay in towns and get to know people along the way. In addition, we managed to get a few days of big miles and some pretty good off road antics.

IanC, just out of interest, how long has it taken you from Quito to where you are now?

M.

Mark,

I'm in Buenos Aires now (dropping bike to Lufthansa in the morning). I've actually only taken 7 weeks from Quito to here, via. La Paz, Uyuni, Ushuaia, etc. Doesn't feel nearly as rushed as it sounds! I took longer in the US and CA than I'd anticipated (esp. S Utah etc.), and so have been moving fairly quickly through SA, as unfortunately I didn't have limitless time.

My total trip will be 5 1/2 months - as I said before, a year (or two) would have been nice. After all, the HUBB's all about riding motorcycles, not lounging about isn't it?

BTW took me 5 days' riding on Ruta 3 from Ushuaia to here - certainly not the most exciting part of my trip!

Thanks...
 

Ian,

Thanks for the info on times. Much appreciated! Hope the weather back home isn´t to grim.

Mark.