Caravans

Caravanes Soliel does not cover their long stay in PV. Neither does Horizon Lussier in Lo de Marcos, or DPL in Melaque or Amigos Rodantes in the Yucatan. I know, we sell their customers bus tours in French while they are there to keep them busy. It is a captive market for the company I wagon master for, who also operate in French. The Quebec caravan model is a relatively fast trip down and back, and a long stay at a destination at the customers expense. This makes the trips seem cheaper, and they can avoid paying the wagon master for long periods of time. This works well with most French Canadians. Being from Quebec, I am sure you know Quebecers like to stick together in tight groups where they can communicate in French. If you only speak French you are automatically isolated in Mexico. To each, their own. My boss wanted to try this formula with English Canadians & Americans and it was an abysmal failure, as I told him it would be. They get bored after a couple of weeks in one location, so teh current formula, while still long term trips, is to keep stays at 10-14 days maximum in any one spot. This is the formula used by most companies, and like all other caravan companies serving Americans & Anglophone Canadians, we include RV Park fees. Those can vary from $10 US a night for dry camping to $35 US a night for full hookups. We figure an average of $24 a night US over a long trip. There are lots of other expenses, like wagon master pay, paying a mechanic tailgunner or Green Angels, hiring buses for tours, tour guides, etc. Most companies provide excellent meals with tours, I know in our case you are looking at $20 pp with drinks on average on a tour, I know, because as Wagon Master I pay them. I don't think other high quality companies like Adventure or Fantasy are any different. An experienced wagon master is paid $100-$125 US a day and they deserve it. It's a tough job. They get paid for knowledge, how to handle breakdowns and other unexpected situations, do minor RV repairs for customers (I have fixed a convertor board, an oxygen genetator and a fridge so far this trip) and arrange social activities, and deal with the odd pain in the butt customer. I had one of those on a past a caravan and I had to pretend i liked him. If it was survivor, he woudl have been the first voted off. I was lucky, the other customers said things to him I could not say. Dan Goy of Baja Amigos had one last year and he told me if it had happened his first trip he would have thrown in the towel.

As with most things in life, you get what you pay for.

Anyway you should by now have a pretty good idea of whether or not to use a caraavn or go forth on your own. Ther are plus & minus's to both.

Some people should never take a caravan and they probably already know who they are. Trouble is that people take mexican craavans for the wronng reasons. How many poeple have you heard tell you they are taking an Alaskan caravan for safety? Probably none, and yet its probably the primary reason people take a Mexican one. It happens to be the wrong reason.