The ULTIMATE Central America Backpacking Guide. What I wish I knew & What 4 months COST me!

hi guys and welcome to my backpacking Central America recap in this video I will talk you through everything you need to know before backpacking Central America I traveled from Panama to Mexico for four months passing through every single country I will talk about my itinerary my cause breakdown and so much more but let's get started with some general information about the region Central America consists of seven countries and this does not include Mexico technically I've already spent eight months in Mexico so I've made a completely separate guide about Mexico and I've also already made a separate guide about Panama and Costa Rica if you want to see a more in-depth guide of those countries the majority of the population in this region is mestizo which means that they are a mix of European and Indigenous people in almost all of these countries Spanish is the official language except for Belize in Belize English is actually the official language the region has a rich cultural history because it has been the home turf of the Mayans and the Aztecs one of the biggest Mayan indigenous populations still lives in Guatemala today they also have their own Mayan languages that have about 26 different dialects it is also a very volcanic region which is nicknamed the Central America volcanic Arc there is a high amount of seismic activity in this region such as volcanic eruptions and earthquakes I did experience an earthquake I've experienced two in Mexico before but this time around it was in Puerto Viejo in Costa Rica and usually they are harmless I have visited some active volcanoes and a popular activity is to hike up these volcanoes and even sliding down active volcanoes on a sandboard this was definitely one of my favorite days on my trip also you are never further away from the ocean than 125 miles or 200 kilometers the beach is always pretty close because the the region is so narrow and sandwiched between the Pacific and the Caribbean coast along the Pacific Coastline the beaches are actually black from the volcanic eruptions and they are also very popular with Surfers Central America is part of the Mesoamerican biodiversity hotspots it contains up to seven percent of the world's biodiversity the southern countries Costa Rica and Panama contain the most biodiversity followed by Guatemala and Belize with the central countries having the least biodiversity but this makes Central America a popular destination for nature lovers and people wanting to hike and spot Wildlife the second largest Coral Reef in the world extends from Mexico all the way to Honduras it is called the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef system the Belize Barrier Reef is part of this it is unlike anything I've ever experienced and I think back to it every single day so far they say that only about 10 percent of the species here have been discovered snorkeling or scuba diving in Central America is a must I brought my own snorkel and I did not regret it when visiting this part of the world keep in mind that the drug trade is responsible for thousands of deaths in Central and South America I don't want to make you feel bad but I do want to make you think about where you are spending your money and in my personal opinion I do not want to be promoting or supporting any of those activities when I am traveling this region or any region Central America is not very well known for its food however I loved it some of my favorites were the baryadas from Honduras the pubusas from El Salvador rice and beans along the Caribbean coast and a lot of it also in Belize the Gallo Pinto in Costa Rica and obviously also a lot of mine influence Cuisine can be found in Guatemala and Mexico I'm going to leave it at that for the general information now let's talk about actually traveling there when should you go well December to April is the dry season or the Central American Summer even though there aren't really Four Seasons there it is close to the equator which means that it will be warm throughout the entire year and the temperatures don't really vary that much throughout the months of the year it is a tropical climate and I legit experience the hottest month of my life as soon as I arrived in Nicaragua all the way up to Belize I was sweating so much I don't think I've ever sweat that much in my life up to the point where sometimes it was unbearable and we would avoid even doing anything during the hottest time of the day also in hustles you could find almost only cold showers there simply were no hot showers because it was so hot outside mostly in Guatemala and Mexico you could find warm showers but in general a warm shower was really an exception with this information in mind let's have a look at your itinerary this was my route and it is commonly known as the Gringo Trail I started in March in Panama and made my way North to Mexico that way I could keep the rainy season behind me which was also slowly making its way from the south to the north if you want to do the trip the opposite way from Mexico to Panama I would recommend starting closer to December to avoid getting stuck in the rainy season at the end of your trip definitely try to avoid September and October which are the wettest months of the year also you might be in for a hurricane on your itinerary you will be Crossing many borders no Visa applications were needed in advance but I would recommend paying the Costa Rica exit fee beforehand with this QR code so that you save two dollars but you could easily do it at the border itself also Nicaragua will require a 14 entry fee Mexico I believe a 35 entry fee if you are coming over land and please a 20 exit fee an exit or entry fee is a very common thing and they usually don't cost the world I'm actually thinking about making a separate video with all my tips about border crossings so definitely let me know if you would be interested in seeing that video I have a lot of tips and tricks to enter any of the countries your passport must be valid for at least 6 months and you must obviously have enough blank pages in your passport for the stamps in Belize you get a stamp that allows you to stay up to 30 days in the ca4 group which is a collection of four countries being Guatemala Nicaragua El Salvador and Honduras they permit free travel in between these countries for 90 days so you can divide those 90 days between those four countries and travel in between them freely in Costa Rica they allow you to stay up to 90 days at a time and in Panama that number is even 180 days half a year however after that 180 days you need to wait at least 30 days before re-entering the country leaving the country in order to re-enter it and obtain a new Visa is called a Visa Run so in case you want to stay longer than the amount of days that is allowed you will need to do a Visa Run so for example if you spent the 90 days in Costa Rica you should pop over the border of Panama and then re-enter to acquire a new Visa stamp within the ca4 group you have to be careful because for example Crossing from Honduras into Guatemala does not count as a Visa Run because both countries are part of this group so from this group you can do a Visa Run to Belize Costa Rica Mexico but not within the group itself I hope that makes sense to enter a lot of these countries you need an onward ticket which proves that you will leave the country in time but if I'm gonna be honest nobody asked me at none of the borders if I had an onward ticket I did have my ticket flying out of Mexico already but I was never asked for it however when you go to Costa Rica for example by plane they might not allow you on the plane if you do not have an onward ticket and I believe you can go to honoraryticket.com and for 10 euros you get an honor ticket that's legit but it gets canceled automatically another important thing is that you cannot take drones into Nicaragua and also for big camera lenses you will need a very good explanation I don't know what they think you'll be spying on but yeah they are very strict on those things no drones at all how you will get around in the country will depend on you the most common options are public transportation which will probably require a few connections and it doesn't really go direct the buses can be very full they also use chicken buses which are old American high school buses it is definitely an adventure to travel with public transportation another option which will take you from place a to place B directly is a shuttle this option is a bit more expensive but it's also just simply more comfortable and less of a hassle the downside of traveling over land in Central America is that there are barely no night buses so you will be in a bus for hours on hours mainly because the borders are only open from 6am am so they can't really cross the border during the night and this time the transportation really weighed on me especially in Guatemala where it is so mountainous and it just seems to take ages so yeah I did not enjoy the transportation as much as often as I usually do I have also been in a fair share of tuk-tuks fairies and even these very strange bike taxis so yeah there are a lot of ways of getting around Central America if you want to see how I get from place a to place B I actually included at the start of each video I make so if you're wondering how do I get to La Fortuna then check out my video about La Fortuna same goes for every single place that I have been it's right at the start of the video when arriving in a new country I want to keep using my phone and data especially when you're just arriving you need to figure things out find your way so for me it is very important as a solo female traveler who literally depends on her phone so as soon as I arrive I go to a local shop and I get a SIM card in Guatemala Honduras and Nicaragua Tigo is a very popular one in Belize and Panama Digi or Digicel are the best options and in El Salvador and Costa Rica this will be claro I believe I also had a collateral SIM card in Guatemala in Mexico it's Telsa by the way if you don't want to buy a new SIM card and data plan each time you arrive in a new destination which was a lot on this itinerary then you can opt for an esim and an esim does not require a physical SIM card but it requires you to buy an esim in the app I personally used eralo I Did It For My police SIM card because the card itself costs 10 and by using the e-sim I didn't have to pay that cost for the physical SIM card so that made it more affordable for police specifically if you just don't want the hassle of getting a new one every time you arrive in a new country you can get one that is for the Latin American region so it works across borders you can use it in all the countries of Central America it is more expensive but it definitely makes your life easier there are a few other useful apps that I use and the main one is going to be hostel world I use it to book my accommodation in hostels and it gives me a perfect overview of the best rated hostels and it makes it easy for me to choose the best value for money option and I can easily see if it fits my needs I also use maps.me especially when I'm arriving in a new country and I don't have the new SIM card yet I won't be able to use Google Maps so I can download the area that I will be going to or the country offline so that I can use it and orientate myself even without having data it's good to have anyways because I remember arriving in a flooded town in Mexico where all service was gone and I didn't have any way of getting to my hotel that really sucked and luckily the locals helped me out but in that case I would have loved to have my mind maps downloaded offline wow okay we have come a long way already and I know it's been a lot of information so far but I swear we're almost there let's suck money this is what I spent in total for transportation accommodation activities food and in total each time also with an average daily cost it is in Euro however because that's how I calculate my costs and my budget so yeah keep that in mind you can see that El Salvador and Nicaragua are the most affordable with a daily budget of less than forty dollars Belize comes out as being the most expensive but that is simply because I spent about 100 on Extreme activities every single day like very unique activities like diving the Great Blue Hole doing a snorkel Tour on the Blazing Barrier Reef swimming with manatees and sharks and turtles and it was just out of this world so I decided to spend that money twice and I also went to the ATM case which is something you can't experience anywhere else in the world so considering I think this money is completely Justified the cost in Honduras is also quite high but that is because I did my Advanced Open Water scuba certificate there and I was scuba diving pretty much every single day so considering that obviously it's just the activities that made Honduras more expensive than the rest other than that it's actually really affordable Costa Rica and Panama are considered the most expensive countries but actually I didn't spend more than 60 dollars a day if you've watched my Costa Rica travel guide you will have seen all the ways that I tried saving money or budgeting really well and I did do some crazy activities when diving snorkeling so much more so overall I think I did a good job on Panama in Costa Rica even though it was more expensive than what I would usually spend per day in other countries in Mexico I spent most of my time on the Yucatan Peninsula which is the most expensive part of Mexico visited the most remote archaeological sites which makes the daily cost a bit higher compared to the trip that I did two years ago where I spent two and a half months traveling all over Mexico my daily average was only forty dollars or 36 Euros per day so yeah you can't really compare Yucatan this time around with all of Mexico two more things to take into account is that every country has its own currency the US dollar goes a long way especially in Panama Costa Rica El Salvador and Honduras where you can just generally pay with the US dollars in Guatemala they only really take Guatemalan quetzales Mexico the peso is also much more used and in Nicaragua the cordovas were also more used in Belize they have Belizean dollars and also General dollars so yeah you will be switching up currencies quite a lot but definitely make sure you have some US dollars to get going because ATM fees especially in Panama and Costa Rica are quite High tipping is also a common thing in most of these countries but don't worry about it too much in advance as you go you will quite quickly notice how much they expect you to tip in a restaurant and although I hate to end things on a bad note or negative note I feel responsible to share the next thing with you guys Nicaragua has been the country that I have felt the least comfortable in or the most uncomfortable in the entire world of all the countries I've visited that is because the cat calling especially in the cities like Leon and Granada were just so over the top constant and aggressive that it made me even like stay in my hostel if I didn't have to go out to go on tours or something like that um that's the level it was at which says a lot because I am someone who has been so many places I'm used to a certain level of cat calling and I have been traveling solo for the past two years now almost full time it says a lot about Nicaragua and the cities outside of the Cities it's not as bad but it really shocked me anyway if you want to see all the things I did like and love I have made maps of the countries with all my recommendations on it for accommodation restaurants activities Etc everything I've done you can see it both in the videos that I've made separately there is a whole playlist of all the videos I've made in Central America and you can have a look at these travel guides with an interactive map that is it for this video I hope you liked it if you did then definitely give it a like And subscribe if you don't want to miss my next adventure because as you are watching this I am now in Southeast Asia continuing my southeast Asia trip so if you want to join me on that Adventure as well subscribe and I hope to see you in the next video bye foreign [Music]

Channel: Sara Goes Local

Views: 2,900

Keywords: travel guide, budget travel destinations, backpacking central america, budget travel, travel tips, central america travel guide, el salvador, backpacking solo, travel central america, itinerary, cost, budget, recommendations, best time to travel, What to do in Central America, Entry Requirements, costa rica, panama, nicaragua, mexico, belize, guatemala, honduras, solo female travel, travel vlogger, central america countries, central america travel tips, What I spent in Central America

Id: 8d3bG6V5uXs

Length: 17min 17sec (1037 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 08 2023