# Driving from P Vallarta to P Escondido



## kkindopp (Feb 20, 2014)

Hello All,

I have been lurking and I know some of you are very knowledgeable about the roadways in Mexico. My wife and I and our 3 large dogs are moving to Puerto Escondido from Canada but we have to fly into PV because of the dogs.... it's a long story.

My question is, what is the best route to drive... I only want to be driving in the day and no more than 8 hours max.

I was planning PV to Morelia day 1

Morelia to Acapulco or Ixtapa? Which would be safer. Safety is more important than speed of trip to me.

If ixtapa is a better place to over night is there another place 1/2 way to Puerto Escondido that would be a decent safe stop?


I am thinking it can be done in 3 days.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

ty
Kelly


----------



## ojosazules11 (Nov 3, 2013)

Is there a reason you aren't considering continuing from Morelia towards Mexico City, and on to Puebla? Then from Puebla down to Puerto Escondido. 

Others may have different opinions and experiences but my Mexican husband has become very leery of the coastal highways these days. More so with what is happening in Guerrero recently.


----------



## kkindopp (Feb 20, 2014)

ojosazules11 said:


> Is there a reason you aren't considering continuing from Morelia towards Mexico City, and on to Puebla? Then from Puebla down to Puerto Escondido.
> 
> Others may have different opinions and experiences but my Mexican husband has become very leery of the coastal highways these days. More so with what is happening in Guerrero recently.


No, I more or less was just following what google maps brings up as the fastest route. That is why I came here for help and advice, so you think this way is safer?

Some things I read make me think, no big deal driving during the day, and others have me think we could get killed or kidnapped. I have read a ton about it and I will be as smart and safe as possible but we will be driving a fairly nice 2010 Honda Pilot with luggage on the roof and will look like tourists from miles away.

Thanks for replying I appreciate any feedback I get, we leave in a week.


----------



## kkindopp (Feb 20, 2014)

I was looking at this route and trying to plan out day trips.

PV to Morelia about 7 or 8 hours I think, google says 6:46
Then from Morelia to puebla it says only 4:30 so it would be nice to go another couple hours would staying in Techuacan be an option?


----------



## ojosazules11 (Nov 3, 2013)

kkindopp said:


> I was looking at this route and trying to plan out day trips.
> 
> PV to Morelia about 7 or 8 hours I think, google says 6:46
> Then from Morelia to puebla it says only 4:30 so it would be nice to go another couple hours would staying in Techuacan be an option?


I haven't stayed in Tehuacan, but my husband has and he says it's _tranquilo_. I know there are others on this forum who have way more experience than I do in terms of driving these routes, so hopefully you'll get their opinions.

According to my Maps app, the route fron PV to PE via Puebla came up as the fastest (18 hrs 46 mins).


----------



## Hound Dog (Jan 18, 2009)

We have lived in Mexico since 2001 - both in the Lake Chapala área and in Highland Chiapas. We drive at least four times a year between Ajijic, Jalisco and San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas. As we have friends near Oaxaca City, we sometimes drive through Oaxaca to get to San Cristóbal and, at times, in the past, we have driven the longer route from Lake Chapala to San Cristóbal via the Guerrero Coast to the Oaxaca Coast and into the Chiapas Highlands via Tehuantepec, Oaxaca, Arriaga, Chiapas and Tuxtla Gutiérrez. Just recently we decided to visit Taxco, a famous tourist destination by driving up the Guerrero Coast to Acapulco and taking the Autopisto del Sol toward Mexico City exiting at the Iguala exit and on to Taxco. I tell you all of this because when traveling this área we were naive about the criminal elements in charge of many parts of unsettled Guerrero. We experienced no problems in Guerrero either on the coast or heading up through Guerrero to Taxco but that was just the luck of the draw. At the present time, we would avoid the Michoacan and Guerrero coastal roads like the plague. Both are, in our opinions, infested with bandits and semi-lawless which means that if you are attacked by thieves who just might take your car and all your posessions and leave you stranded in the wilderness, the local cops will take whatever you have left in your possession so you have no one to turn to if you are assaulted along the way on those lonely roads and can kiss whatever you lose goodbye remaning grateful just to be still alive. 

Forget the fastest route. Drive the autopista from Puerto Vallarta to Puerto Escondida through Puebla and Oaxaca City and then the Oaxaca City-Puerto Escondido highway down to the coast. 

Bad times in parts of Mexico. However, once you get where you are going, you should be both safe and pleased to be there. Just remember to distrust any pólice or local authorities along your route and stay on the autopistas when possible. Never even think of driving at night or even dusk for that matter. Start early and stop early at about mid-afternoon. The locals lock their doors and stay at home during the witching hours. During the day you will probably be OK but those coastal roads are lonely, sparsely patrolled (if patrolled at all by probably crooked cops) places and once you sense danger, it´s too late to turn back.


----------



## kkindopp (Feb 20, 2014)

Hi Hound,

Thanks for the advice, I will be very happy to get down to Puerto Escondido, we are actually building on the beach in a small surfing town called Zipolite which is very safe, we are staying in PE while we build for a year. We love Mexico and the people but I know it is a different world up north. I need to be able to plan exactly where we will be stopping each day so we make sure we are not driving at dusk. I appreciate you taking the time to message me with your info, I know you know what you are talking about I read the forums all the time


----------



## Hound Dog (Jan 18, 2009)

kkindopp said:


> Hi Hound,
> 
> Thanks for the advice, I will be very happy to get down to Puerto Escondido, we are actually building on the beach in a small surfing town called Zipolite which is very safe, we are staying in PE while we build for a year. We love Mexico and the people but I know it is a different world up north. I need to be able to plan exactly where we will be stopping each day so we make sure we are not driving at dusk. I appreciate you taking the time to message me with your info, I know you know what you are talking about I read the forums all the time


OK, kkindopp:

Now I get it. You are not moving to the dreaded, overcrowded, touristy Puerto Escondido but one of my favorite places, Zipolite. A fine beach colony and about as safe as one can get. Everyone drives at different velocities but if it were I doing doing this journey and I was leaving from Puerto Vallarta, I´d leave about 7:00AM and plan to stop in Puebla City where one can stay at one of several large hotels on the freeway that skirts the city at, say, the Holiday Inn or Fiesta Inn or head into the city and stay in one of the fabulous old colonial hotels in centro where walking about and dining are top notch fun and then start early again toward Oaxaca City and either stay there (about five hours distant from Puebla City and a marvelous old colonial town worth staying for the night and exploring) or drive on over the, at present, winding coastal road to Puerto Escondido. They´re building a new autopista from Oaxaca City to Puerto Escondiddo but I don´t know if it is of yet completed so the old, winding mountain road to the coast can be a bit daunting - especially at night. I would stay in Oaxaca City if I were you. The city is an architectural treasure worth a prolonged stop. Some pretty good food as well if you avoid the tourist joints that proliferate about the city center.

That Oaxaca Coast is wonderful and your leaving Puerto Vallata to that área is, in my opinon, a wise decisión. Building a personal dwelling on the beach at Zipolite is even wiser. I think it´s a clothing option beach so I hope you are not a staunch Presbyterian. Don´t worry however, if you are you will soon get over it at Zipolite.


----------



## kkindopp (Feb 20, 2014)

lol, I never mention Zipo because most people have no clue where it is, we LOVE ZIPO, we have been going there every winter for 4 years now. We own property on the hill just out of town, well we have a fido comiso with the Scotiabank. We are building a 4 room B&B along with out house and pool area. 

Zipo is safer than the city I live in here in Canada.

We are about as far from religious as you can get, we're not full on nudists but my wife likes to be naked lol

I have heard about the drive from Oaxaca City to Zipo and it is not much fun, very slow and winding road.

If you are ever coming down you will have to look me up, here is a link to our friends 8 room B&B we own property right beside him.
[cut]
My only concern with your route is it looks like at least 10 hours from PV to Puebla and I don't know if that is possible with the 3 dogs and stopping to pee.

Thank you so much for taking the time to give me the much needed advice


















Hound Dog said:


> OK, kkindopp:
> 
> Now I get it. You are not moving to the dreaded, overcrowded, touristy Puerto Escondido but one of my favorite places, Zipolite. A fine beach colony and about as safe as one can get. Everyone drives at different velocities but if it were I doing doing this journey and I was leaving from Puerto Vallarta, I´d leave about 7:00AM and plan to stop in Puebla City where one can stay at one of several large hotels on the freeway that skirts the city at, say, the Holiday Inn or Fiesta Inn or head into the city and stay in one of the fabulous old colonial hotels in centro where walking about and dining are top notch fun and then start early again toward Oaxaca City and either stay there (about five hours distant from Puebla City and a marvelous old colonial town worth staying for the night and exploring) or drive on over the, at present, winding coastal road to Puerto Escondido. They´re building a new autopista from Oaxaca City to Puerto Escondiddo but I don´t know if it is of yet completed so the old, winding mountain road to the coast can be a bit daunting - especially at night. I would stay in Oaxaca City if I were you. The city is an architectural treasure worth a prolonged stop. Some pretty good food as well if you avoid the tourist joints that proliferate about the city center.
> 
> That Oaxaca Coast is wonderful and your leaving Puerto Vallata to that área is, in my opinon, a wise decisión. Building a personal dwelling on the beach at Zipolite is even wiser. I think it´s a clothing option beach so I hope you are not a staunch Presbyterian. Don´t worry however, if you are you will soon get over it at Zipolite.


----------



## chicois8 (Aug 8, 2009)

kkindopp, I sent you a private message.........


----------



## Hound Dog (Jan 18, 2009)

[_QUOTE=kkindopp;5636305]lol, I never mention Zipo because most people have no clue where it is, we LOVE ZIPO, we have been going there every winter for 4 years now. We own property on the hill just out of town, well we have a fido comiso with the Scotiabank. We are building a 4 room B&B along with out house and pool area. 

Zipo is safer than the city I live in here in Canada.

We are about as far from religious as you can get, we're not full on nudists but my wife likes to be naked lol

I have heard about the drive from Oaxaca City to Zipo and it is not much fun, very slow and winding road.

If you are ever coming down you will have to look me up, here is a link to our friends 8 room B&B we own property right beside him.

I´m trying to think this journey out. If that drive over the Arco Norte between Atlocomilco and Puebla semes a bit long with those peeing dogs, try Atlocomulco or maybe Tula although I am not that fond of Tula. Sincé the Arco Norte primarily traverses wilderness, of course, dogs have lots of opportunitities to pee and even chase rabbits Otherwise, that Arco Norte has fwe places to stop and relax - in fact - none. It´s hard to even find gas along that route but at least you no longer have to traverse the adventurous and often congested Mexico City. 

I am nalso not that fond of Atlacomulco, a cold and unpleasant town in my judgment but there are lots of lodgings there and some will take dogs so that may be the place to stop just as you enter the Arco Norte freeway. 


My only concern with your route is it looks like at least 10 hours from PV to Puebla and I don't know if that is possible with the 3 dogs and stopping to pee.

Thank you so much for taking the time to give me the much needed advice[/QUOTE]_


----------



## HolyMole (Jan 3, 2009)

Hound Dog will say I'm an idiot.....but we just arrived in Zihuatanejo from the Okanagan. Left home on 19 October, entered Mexico at Nogales on the 24th, overnight at San Carlos, then Mazatlan for 5 nights, then to Tequila, and to Zihua on the 31st. That last stretch from Mex. 15D in Michoacan south to Uruapan was right through areas that common sense says to avoid.....Carapan, Cheran, Paracho, Capicuaro, etc....but, once again, no problems. This time, for a change, we at least restricted ourselves to daylight driving
It's been 8 years since we drove around southern Guerrero, Oaxaca and Chiapas. Then, the concerns (in Chiapas, anyway) were still the Zapatistas, and the teachers in Oaxaca City. Today, it's the increasing lawlessness in Guerrero. 
We drove 2 of the 3 routes between Oaxaca City and the coast: the best was Mex. 190 from Tehuantepec, the worst Mex. 175 from Oaxaca down to Pochutla, which I recall was 8 hours of windy, potholed road. We even punctured a tire on that route, with virtually no shoulder to pull off onto. But we survived.
As for the coastal roads, we recall that Mex. 200 south of Acapulco was in awful condition. We even had an accident near Pinotepa Nacional, (not serious). We've driven most of Mex. 200 over the years, and are actually thinking of going home in April along the Michoacan coast, (which we've done several times before, both north and southbound). I'm not trying to make light of the possible dangers, but at some point, I think, one has to stop letting fear dominate ones plans. If we paid attention to every threat, we probably would never have decided to winter in Mexico at all, let alone drive here.


----------



## Hound Dog (Jan 18, 2009)

HolyMole said:


> Hound Dog will say I'm an idiot.....but we just arrived in Zihuatanejo from the Okanagan....


Dawg definitely would not say you are an idiot, HM. 

In fact, we take three principal routes to get between our homes in San Cristóbal de Las Casas and Lake Chapala in the Chapala municipality. Two entirely different places. 

The best route timewise these days is to drive between Chapala and Puebla over the Arco Norte and on to the Orzaba-Cordoba área in Veracruz State and then down Autopista 145 through Minatitlán, Veracruz to the autopista turnoff toward Tuxtla Gutierrez and through Tuxtla up the mountain to San Cristóbal. This is about a 1450 kilometer run and takes, at our speed, over primarily fine roads, about 17 hours. We tend to overnight in Orizaba, Veracruz where there is a fun hotel (Las Cascadas) adjacent to a beautiful park with a good restaurant. Plus they take our five dogs. 

Secondly, one can turn off of the Puebla-Orizaba Autopista toward Oaxaca City on Highway 135 and access Chiapas through Oaxaca City, Tehuantepec and Juchitán, Oaxaca then through Arriaga, Chiapas, Tuxtla Gutiérrez and up the mountain to San Cristóbal. Once they finish the autopista from Oaxaca City over the mountains to Tehuantepec, I believe this route willl be as rapid as the Veracruz alternative but, for now, the road from Oaxaca to Tehuantepec,though beautiful, is a bit of a winding trial. 

Finally, there is the route we just took a few months ago from San Cristóbal to Chapala, we wanted to visit The Guerrero Costa Chica, Taxco and some Guerrero rural but magnifiecnt beach sites directly on the Pacific so we drove fron San Cristóbal through Arriaga, Tehuantepec and then on to Bahías de Huatulco, Puerto Escondido, Santiago Pinotepa Nacional, the Marqelia/Copala/Playa Aventuras, Guerrero área to Acapulco and up the Autopista Del Sol toward Mexico City and then through the now infamous Iguala to Taxco. I´m glad we did that Iguala route to Taxco then because now that town and the surrounding área seem to be on the verge of coming apart and passer-through are taking unecessary risks.

A relatively attractive small city, Iguala, in is an attractive, wooded foothill setting. Who would have thought the place was rotten to the core with countless tortured and burned corpses scattered about in those seemingly pleasant woods. Had we driven through there on September 28th, we might just have inadvertantly become another statistic from having been caught in the crossfire during this Guerrero war purely by chance.

Don´t move into and invest in towns you don´t really understand in Mexico (or Syria or California or Morocco or Peru for that matter) because it is easier to get in than out when things go to hell in a handbasket which can happen without warning at any time.


----------



## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

Chiapas is not dangerous for tourists and was not 8 years ago either, the Zapatistas are not known to go after tourists and neither is Oaxaca , Guerrero I do not know since driging through there a few times does not prove anything. 
We are not afraid of driving anywhere but are not looking forwards to getting stuck in any place on our way to our home. We got stuck 10 km from the place we were trying to reach last year. It was not dangerous but afer driving 5 hours we had to double back spend another night on the road and go 8 hours out of the way . The drives were beautiful but that was not our idea of fun.

The teachers were no danger to tourists wither no matter what Longford says...

None of the violence is directed to tourists or strangers but then it was not directed towards the football team when the coach and one kid was killed or to the van were the German student was, he still got shot..

We also tsay away from the roadsduring fiestas in indigenous areas when the whole village gets drunks and many pass out on the roads. Running over someone in an out of the way place is not particularly safe either.

I think people going to area where bad things can happen should know about it and make their own decisions.

For exemple , right now CFE is having a company change electric meters all over the place in San Crisobal but they are not going to La Hormigas in the northern part of town because they know they are not welcome there and their guy will risk his life if he shows up uninvited. It is always good to know what the risks are..


----------



## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

sorry Las Hormigas . It is an indigenous colonia in the north part of town where it is not good to go if you are not invited. The last thief there was burned alive.Setting people on fire is not that uncommon there. Lynching is a problem , this year ore than one person a month died that way. None of them tourists or foreigners so it does not ake the national news.


----------

