Dollar-Thrifty, one of the biggest rental car companies in the world, supported our film project! At the airport of Cancún, Mexico, we got a practically new car to continue our trip through beautiful Mexico! We traveled by the car for 16 days and visited many amazing places on the Yucatán Peninsula! It was a big and reliable SUV Jeep vehicle. Suddenly our trip became so comfortable – no need to pack backpacks every day and to carry them on our fragile backs. We loaded the huge trunk with food reserves for every possible life situation and started our drive with a loud song – we were happy and felt like Nomads Deluxe!
From Cancun we drove along the Caribbean coast to the south of the country; we visited Playa del Carmen, Tulum, Bacalar, Chetumal (on the border to Belize), the Kohunlich region and reached the wild and untouched jungle of the Calakmul National Park (border with Guatemala). It was such a wonderful route, full of action and impressions!
The majority of internet articles call for extreme caution while travelling in Mexico or even do not recommend renting a car or even make your own independent trips. But since we have met only good people in Mexico so far and never had any problems with traveling on our own, I decided not to believe in all the scary stories from the Internet, so I took a car and went to the regions not easy to reach by public transport. I respected three simple safety rules: we did not drive in darkness, I tried to respect speed limits and parked the car in safe places for nights. And we did not have any problems! Trevellers are often frightened by the stories about Mexican police which stops tourists and requires money without any reason. I cannot say anything, we did not have this experience. We have seen a large number of police posts, but we have never been stopped. My personal conclusion: Mexico is not as scary as many people think! We have travelled in this country together with my daughter (of our own, by public transport or a car) for almost two months. And we are totally ecstatic about the people we’ve met, the diversity of cultures, natural and other miracles!
Therefore, for those who would like to see authentic Mexico away from the main tourist attractions and want to wander through the ruins of the Mayan cities being almost alone, it is worth organizing your own transport. The jungle of Calakmul, for example, cannot be reached by public transport and, fortunately, the guided tours do not go there yet! If you follow some basic safety rules and take care of good insurance for the car, then the trip will be smooth and fun. We got full coverage car insurance from Dollar-Thrifty Mexico, so we drove without any worries.
I do not even want to think that we could have missed this part of Mexico, if I would allow to scare myself by all the negativity of mass media, Internet articles or by the stories of life-frightened people. Many thanks to our partner Dollar-Thrifty Mexico for supporting our project, for the excellent service and the great car!