I love to travel south of the border/ to Central & South America.

[gggplaya]

Originally Posted by Tony Lee

Errr, no. First you need mandatory Mexican liability and legals insurance.
Then you need to temporarily import the vehicle into Mexico and get a tourist visa. All available on-line or near the border.

Open Roads forum has a Mexico forum that has all the info you need for Mexico. Every country in S America has its own entry and exit procedures and most have insurance requirements and most have mandatory equipment requirements as well.

Most require international driving permits.

Travel insurance would be smart.

Strongly suggest you start reading blogs on the internet because it really isn't a good idea to just head off and hope for the best.

WikiOverland.org would be one place to start looking for info and then you can go from there.

Well i wasn't planning on leaving tomorrow or anything like that. It would probably be a few years from now. I haven't started any research yet.

Seems like south america is much more hassle than driving in europe.

[Tony Lee]

Seems like south america is much more hassle than driving in europe.

As long as you stay entirely within the Schengen Treaty area there are no hassles changing countries because there are effectively no borders and no border posts (although there can still be quarantine posts).
Travelling into other areas does involve formalities. Into the UK from the continent is easy like going from US into Canada. Into Morocco about the same as into Mexico. Eastern European countries also pretty easy with visas available at the border.

My limited experience makes me think that a lot of border hassles are self inflicted and you only have to read the occasional post on border crossings on forums like this to see that there has got to be a reason why some people have endless problems and the majority have smooth experiences.

Come September, I will have personal experience to back up all I have read about border crossings in southern S America because we will probably cross borders about 20 times during the 6 months.
One good thing is that there are a lot of long-term travellers roaming around S America and some of them are seriously anal about keeping records and publishing every little detail of every border crossing so you can roll up to the border and know what colour door to open to do the paperwork.

[SoAmerRVer]

Mexican Insurance is NOT required, but is a very good idea and cheap for the tourist policy. We got the info from Trekoftheamericas at adventuretrek.com. They also do the small Trekoftheamericas from USA to Panagonia....every year, so feel free to ask for the info!

[Tony Lee]

Mandatory third party death and injury insurance is required and the limits were recently raised.
However, you are correct that no-one in authority is going to ask you whether you actually have it EXCEPT the policeman who attends your accident (and in Mexico it is apparently an offence to move your vehicle until directed by police).
If you have no insurance and have no legals insurance and are involved in an accident resulting in injury or death, you might spend a long time inside a Mexican prison.