The Route

roadtopuravida

Moving to Costa Rica can be easy. It would be easier if you took the traditional route and bought a flight ticket and shipped the rest of your stuff there. Instead, I decide that I wanted to see the rest of my country and unseen parts of the neighboring country below. Having my heart set on making this road trip across both countries, I knew I couldn’t go back no matter how costly, long, tedious or frustrating the research process to make this happen was and indeed, it was damn frustrating. So I thought I’d share my research notes with you.

The Problem: Getting from Toronto to Costa Rica.

Why I want to do this: Toronto is all I’ve ever known & lived. When will I ever get a chance to spend each day without the thought of deadlines, need to check emails, no urgencies, no consequences while appreciating the beauties of this world that is out there?

My Options (from lowest cost to highest cost):

    Hitchhiking

  • Pro: No money involved
  • Con: Uncertainty where & how I’ll end up
      • Drive Contracting (people pay you to drive their car instead of shipping)

    • Pro: Decent vehicle, get paid to drive it
    • Con: Don’t get to choose routes, inflexible
        • Drive My Own Car (2001 Toyota Corolla)

      • Pro: Don’t have to pay, except in depreciation
      • Con: Not sure it will make it as far as Florida in extreme heads, well over 200K in mileage
          • Car Rental

        • Pro: Not my car, unlimited mileage
        • Con: High rental fees, one way fees, liability insurance, protection fees, first born child fees, ridiculous fees
            • Have also considered:

          • Renting a car in Toronto and returning it in US – not allowed
          • Renting a car in Buffalo, driving it through Canada, return into US – not allowed
          • Renting a car in Toronto, returning it in Vancouver, bussing over to Seattle, renting a car and returning it in Florida – very costly and tedious process
              • Renting an RV/Camper Van

            • Pro: No need for camping (not sure if this is a pro)
            • Con: Ridiculously expensive, no one way rentals from Toronto
                • Flight

              • Pro: Saves a lot of time & cheaper than car rental and gas
              • Con: Don’t get to see anything 30,000 feet up in the air
                  • Train

                • Pro: Saves a lot of time while being able to see the sights
                • Con: Costs more than a flight and car rental for high speed scenery
                    • Buying My Ideal Car – 1978 Volkswagen Westfalia

                  • Pro: I sleep in the van & am the coolest thing around
                  • Con: I will run into more problems with this car then I can afford
                      • Buying Any Car

                    • Pro: Flexibility, payment leads to ownership and hopefully some salvage value
                    • Con: Extremely hard to sell a Canadian car on US territory – even if I bought a US car I’d have to import into Canada only to sell it again in the States (waste of import fees). Ditching the car provided just the same amount of dilemma

The Final Plan

So I’ve exhausted almost every option I could think of and I promise, for the purposes of this trip – this was the best and only viable option. Might not be applicable to everyone looking for a road trip adventure, but hey – with every road trip comes road blocks that require great problem solving skill.

Here it is:

I found a friend who is looking to move to Vancouver while spending his summer on an adventure. Then convinced him to take his 2008 Honda Civic with less than 100K on mileage on the drive to Vancouver, store it for a month or so in a garage & rent a car in the states when we get across (likely by bus). As soon as we get to the Miami International Airport, we drop the car off and grab the next flight to Costa Rica while he takes a flight back to Vancouver.

start date: july 7, 2010
end date: aug 20, 2010
approx distance: 8800 km

And now the journey begins….

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