I am trying to figure out how to move to caye caulker!!! I bartend so I was hoping to find a bar to make money!! Have you heard of benders beach bar? I chatted with the owner but she said I needed a work permit. I’m looking into either renting or buying property to get residence !! I would love to chat sometime if you have any insights!! Thanks for sharing your journey!!! I’m from Toronto too!!!
Good question! So we bought a used (2012) minivan to drive down because it’s 74% duties on the kelly blue book value of the van and over 46% for the truck to bring into Belize so it could have cost $7400 on my $10k minivan (depending on the blue book and yes, could have probably gotten it appraised for 5-6k with a broker) versus $25-30kk duties for the truck. Our van wasn’t seeming to be super reliable in the first few months we’ve owned it.. so dealing with that through MX was an experience I didn’t want to deal with if something went wrong. That said, it just seemed easier to rent a van so ours currently for sale in Trenton and we rented a 2023 van from Watertown, NY (across 1000 islands) and drove it down here to San Antonio, TX.. All went well and it drove like a dream. … then Luis’ crew picked us up in a van to take us through MX which has been zero stress and we can now relax and enjoy the scenery, food, maybe even a cerveza or 2…. And record some content /video for youtube, etc. It’s more $$ to do it this way, but way less stress- no bribes, no corrupt police or language barrier to deal with. No TIP. The border crossing took 10 minutes.. and No hablo español.. 🙂
Thank you for the info. Will you purchase a vehicle when you are there? Also interested to here about where you will be renting with a large dog. We have a 95 pound retriever. We want to drive down next year for 5 months to decide if we will move there.
I am trying to figure out how to move to caye caulker!!! I bartend so I was hoping to find a bar to make money!! Have you heard of benders beach bar? I chatted with the owner but she said I needed a work permit. I’m looking into either renting or buying property to get residence !! I would love to chat sometime if you have any insights!! Thanks for sharing your journey!!! I’m from Toronto too!!!
Where do you hire the quide for Mexico?
Luis Martinez will take care of you!
Email: Reservations@sharecar.com.mx
Whatsapp: +523221480466
Website: sharecar.com.mx
These people drove you through Mexico?
Why did you hire a guide?
Good question! So we bought a used (2012) minivan to drive down because it’s 74% duties on the kelly blue book value of the van and over 46% for the truck to bring into Belize so it could have cost $7400 on my $10k minivan (depending on the blue book and yes, could have probably gotten it appraised for 5-6k with a broker) versus $25-30kk duties for the truck. Our van wasn’t seeming to be super reliable in the first few months we’ve owned it.. so dealing with that through MX was an experience I didn’t want to deal with if something went wrong.
That said, it just seemed easier to rent a van so ours currently for sale in Trenton and we rented a 2023 van from Watertown, NY (across 1000 islands) and drove it down here to San Antonio, TX..
All went well and it drove like a dream.
… then Luis’ crew picked us up in a van to take us through MX which has been zero stress and we can now relax and enjoy the scenery, food, maybe even a cerveza or 2…. And record some content /video for youtube, etc.
It’s more $$ to do it this way, but way less stress- no bribes, no corrupt police or language barrier to deal with. No TIP. The border crossing took 10 minutes.. and No hablo español.. 🙂
Thank you for the info. Will you purchase a vehicle when you are there? Also interested to here about where you will be renting with a large dog. We have a 95 pound retriever. We want to drive down next year for 5 months to decide if we will move there.
We moved to Caye Caulker (no cars on the island).. :)
If you join the larger facebook groups you can ask in there about dog-friendly rentals. That’s what we did 👍🏽
@LetsGetShipwrecked, How do I find out what the duties will be on a 2019 Ford F150? Or can it be for less?