We spent 105 days in Mainland, Mexico and spent a total of $7,135.  That means that we spent on average about $68 per day. This is quite a bit more expensive than our Baja budget of about $34 per day, so let’s break it down.

Our largest expense was food ($2,600), followed by transportation ($1,996), and then living expenses ($1,832 – mostly camping). We didn’t include insurance, which we got from bajabound.com — this insurance was good for 6 months and our entire trip in Mexico. It will undoubtedly vary for everyone based on their vehicle. Bundled into these costs (if you click on the transportation section below you’ll see it), is the costs of the ferry from La Paz to Mazatlan (about $500).

We camped the entire way through Mexico except for two exceptions–we got a hotel in Mexico City for about 3 nights and we also stayed in a hotel in Oaxaca for a week while Erica’s mother visited us. Staying in hotels was more expensive than camping for many reasons: hotels nightly costs were more than camping, and in addition we had to eat all our meals out during these periods. If you eliminate our time spent in Oaxaca and Mexico City in hotels, you could easily knock $1,000 off the budget, which would drop average daily cost to about $58.

In contrast to Baja, we found ourselves eating out in restaurants quite a bit more. We love the food in Mexico, and found that it was so cheap that often times it made more sense to eat out rather than buy groceries and eat in.

The charts below should break everything down.  The chart on the left shows the primary categories.  The chart on the right will break down whatever primary category you select (just click on a wedge slice in the pie chart on the left).  This is all a bit untested, so I’m not sure how these charts will work/act on mobile devices.  Let me know if they aren’t working for you!

On to the charts: