# Driving from DF to Ixtapa



## crackpothead (Aug 28, 2014)

We want to get away for a long weekend and were thinking of driving to Ixtapa and vegging on the beach for three days with the kids. Driving to Acapulco seems easy enough but a Mexican acquaintance has told us that driving along the coast would not be advisable. That we would be spotted as foreigners and stopped. 

Is this accurate or the result of an overly fearful mind? How long does it take to drive from Acapulco to Ixtapa and what would the tolls be like (from DF to Taxco it was $150 each way). Any recommendations on places to stay (pool and fun for kids). 

Cheers


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## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

You should listen to your Mexican friends and read the news.


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## lhpdiver (Jul 30, 2014)

crackpothead said:


> We want to get away for a long weekend and were thinking of driving to Ixtapa and vegging on the beach for three days with the kids. Driving to Acapulco seems easy enough but a Mexican acquaintance has told us that driving along the coast would not be advisable. That we would be spotted as foreigners and stopped.
> 
> Is this accurate or the result of an overly fearful mind? How long does it take to drive from Acapulco to Ixtapa and what would the tolls be like (from DF to Taxco it was $150 each way). Any recommendations on places to stay (pool and fun for kids).
> 
> Cheers


We have a bad taste in our mouth about Acapulco. Last summer we got shaken down for 3000 pesos by two cops as we were leaving to come back home. IF we ever go back we probably would go by a nice bus. 

What day of the week did you go to Taxco and how was the parking ?


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## Longford (May 25, 2012)

crackpothead said:


> We want to get away for a long weekend and were thinking of driving to Ixtapa and vegging on the beach for three days with the kids. Driving to Acapulco seems easy enough but a Mexican acquaintance has told us that driving along the coast would not be advisable. That we would be spotted as foreigners and stopped.
> 
> Is this accurate or the result of an overly fearful mind? How long does it take to drive from Acapulco to Ixtapa and what would the tolls be like (from DF to Taxco it was $150 each way). Any recommendations on places to stay (pool and fun for kids).
> 
> Cheers


At the present time, I don't think driving to Acapulco from the D.F. is a good idea because the primary route takes you down the Autopista del Sol toll road on which there have been demonstrations/blockages during the past week. There have also been protest marches at Chilpancingo and in Acapulco, both which are along the route. The 'bypass' route, which is Hwy. 95 takes you right through Iguala where there has been unrest, protest, police problems, etc, these past several weeks. Another potential route is Hwy. 134 from Mexico City, through Toluca and down through Edo de Mexico, Guerrero and which skirts Michoacan and which has been a troubled area (Guerrero/Michoacan) and is a road I would not travel. Traveling the long way, Mexico City to Morelia to Ixtapa ... is, indeed, a very long trip for just a few days on the Coast. Making the journey by air is, at the present time, probably the best or most viable option and flying there takes about 7 hours less than driving or going by bus.


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## crackpothead (Aug 28, 2014)

Thanks for the info. 

We went to Taxco on a Monday and it took 3+ hours. Parking was fine in a garage. 

Cheers,


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## sparks (Jun 17, 2007)

The DF to Acapulco quota is extremely expensive and does not pass near Taxco. There is an Acapulco bypass so you don't even see it. I drove from Cuernavaca - Aca - Zihua .... made a few loops in Zihua and it looked too busy .... so continued north to Playa Azul, Michoacan. That was one log day but did it.

I'd be tempted to drive thru Morelia


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## Longford (May 25, 2012)

I'm recalling that the cost of traveling on the Autopista del Sol has been reduced by 50% until sometime next Summer and that the lower price of Chilpancingo > Acapulco trip using the highway is approx. MX$200 (+/- US$15) in each direction.


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## Hound Dog (Jan 18, 2009)

Does anyone actually go to Acapulco anymore? Elvis having his terminal bowel movement in a Memphis Holiday Inn. Liberache playing a harpsicord. The Beatles first tour to North America circa the 1960s. The supposed beach at Santa Monica with Nanette Funicello and Troy Donohue twisting the night away. Doris Day making love with Tony Curtis and Jack Lemon in a threesome orgy. The advent of actual televisión.

We could drop an atom bomb on that autopista del sol and the only people inconvenienced would be BIMBO truck drivers,,


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## Longford (May 25, 2012)

Hound Dog said:


> Does anyone actually go to Acapulco anymore? Elvis having his terminal bowel movement in a Memphis Holiday Inn. Liberache playing a harpsicord. The Beatles first tour to North America circa the 1960s. The supposed beach at Santa Monica with Nanette Funicello and Troy Donohue twisting the night away. Doris Day making love with Tony Curtis and Jack Lemon in a threesome orgy. The advent of actual televisión.
> 
> We could drop an atom bomb on that autopista del sol and the only people inconvenienced would be BIMBO truck drivers,,


Acapulco remains hugely popular with Mexicans, and it still attracts some expats o vacation. Probably more money has been invested in tourism infrastructure - hotels, including high-end - in Acapulco in the past decade than any other beach resort city in Mexico. The Autopista del Sol is a popular roadway with people traveling between Mexico City and Acapulco.


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## Hound Dog (Jan 18, 2009)

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Longford said:



Acapulco remains hugely popular with Mexicans, and it still attracts some expats o vacation. Probably more money has been invested in tourism infrastructure - hotels, including high-end - in Acapulco in the past decade than any other beach resort city in Mexico. The Autopista del Sol is a popular roadway with people traveling between Mexico City and Acapulco.

Click to expand...

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You needn´t take offense at my having compared the Autopista del Sol and Acapulco with Elvis, Longford. That was all meant in jest. Dawg has driven the Autopista del Sol on occasion a number of times and recently drove the autopista part of the way from Acapulco just to exit at Iguala on my way to Taxco for a visit before driviing back to Lake Chapala. 

Everyone with any experience knows that the Autopisto del Sol is the main transit artery berween the capital and Accapulco and, way back when Acapulco was *THE *beach resort in Mexico when Cancun and Huatulco were off the map. I was making fun of Acapulco as a town that is a "has been" and that was the reason for the reference to Elvis. Time to fall off the commode.


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## Longford (May 25, 2012)

Take offense to a comment about Autopista del Sol? No. Just tried to point out that your knowledge of Acapulco seems to me to be that of someone who has never visited.


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## Hound Dog (Jan 18, 2009)

Longford said:


> Take offense to a comment about Autopista del Sol? No. Just tried to point out that your knowledge of Acapulco seems to me to be that of someone who has never visited.


I don´t know to whom your comment is addressed but I, the Dawg, first visited
Acapulco in about 1966 having driven there down the then autopista del sol having started in Mobile through Laredo,Monterrey, Mexico City and Taxco. Back then, Acapulco was *THE* coastal resort in Mexico. Cancun was a swampy backwater crocodile haven; Huatulco was at the end of a dusty back road and totally inconceived of by anyone. You couldn´t even drive to Highland Chiapas where I live now in less than a week. As I understand it, one had to take a boat to get from Chapala to Ajijic. 

I was driving with this really cute Jewish broad from New Yotk City who flew down to Mobile to join me on this drive in my 1972 Oldsmobile Cutlass. I liked to drink copious amounts of beer whiile driving in those days and, somewhere around Taxco, she informed me that, did I not stop drinking, she would exit the car. I let her off at the next bus stop and haven´t seen her since. I hope she got back to New York OK but here,, 40 plus years later. who really gives a damn anymore.

Even in 1966 Acapulco struck me as a dreadful place. Beachfront opulence surrounded by dreadful hillside favelas. The perfect example of Latin American corruption. I have avoided that turd basin ever since.


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## lhpdiver (Jul 30, 2014)

We have visited Acapulco once - last May/June time-frame I think. We were actually house-hunting, and spent a couple days with a realtor. I believe there are three distinct regions of Acapulco; diamonte (the newest), the old section (which felt old) and another I don't know about. We only visited the old section and it was pretty decrepit. The cruise ships no longer stop at Acapulco. As Americans we felt extremely obvious - not another in sight. The restaurants were deserted (but we eat early). And it was HOT (and we are from South Florida - and love heat/humidity). I can think of over a dozen Mexican beach towns I would rather visit than Acapulco.


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## Hound Dog (Jan 18, 2009)

Well said, Ihpdiver. Let me try to put it another way. Acapulco is a Cadillac with one wheel in the ditch and one wheel on the track. I recently drove through there and found the place to be attractive in a 1950s sense. A big city on nice beaches and a big hotel beach zone needing only Pat Boone to round itself out. That pretty beach zone is surrounded by some of the worst hillside slums imaginable but, somehow, tha seems appropriate for that town so popular in the 1950s. I had this sudden uncontrollable urge to listen to Dean Martin tapes.


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## Isla Verde (Oct 19, 2011)

One reason that Acapulco is still very popular among Mexicans is that it's the closest beach resort to Mexico City, which is where I'll bet that a large proportion of its Mexican visitors come from.


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## Hound Dog (Jan 18, 2009)

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Isla Verde said:



One reason that Acapulco is still very popular among Mexicans is that it's the closest beach resort to Mexico City, which is where I'll bet that a large proportion of its Mexican visitors come from.

Click to expand...

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Acapulco is Mexico City´s beach. No question 

When I was a kid, the city of Birmingham, a city of some 1,000,000 people in the metroploitan área, emptied out in the summer and averybody moved to Northwest Florida for three months. They used to call Northwest Florida L.A. (Lower Alabama). Much in the same fashion, Acapulco is Mexico City on the Pacific duing the holiday season. It´s been this way since people had cars and that autopista was built..


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