1

Be wary of getting what you wish for. It's a long ride from Mexico City to Puerto Escondido. Most people get off international flights in Mexico City a bit tired. Why not stop somewhere in route for the first night? There are many buses directly from the Mexico City airport to Cuernavaca. That's about a two hour trip, in route towards Acapulco and PE.

2

I've traveled Mexico City > Puerto Escondido. I wouldn't consider doing it after just arriving by air, nor would I do it overnight on the Estrella Blanca route that takes you via Acapulco overnight. I would spend the night in Mexico City, take the ADO route to Oaxaca the next day, stay overnight there, then from Oaxaca travel over the mountains via van, bus, whatever.

LW

3

Why spend your vacation bored out of your gourd on a bus? Fly in to Oaxaca instead and enjoy another day of life on Earth. The bus down to the coast will be challenging enough.

4

www.altamar.com.mx have departures from the Taxqueña (south) terminal at 9.30 pm and 10.15 pm. Journey time is 12 hrs 45 mins. I can't see the cost from the website.

www.etn.com.mx has a luxury 24-seater departure at 9.30 pm from the same terminal and takes 12 hours, cost 945 pesos (around 80 USD).

If you want to fly then you can overnight in a decent hotel near the airport (around 40 USD a night) and then either take Aeromar direct to P.E. (expensive at 160 USD one.way!) or get a Vivaaerobus flight the next afternoon with prices from just 45 USD to Huatulco and then a short bus ride from there. The latter would let you spend a few hours in Mexico City to enjoy the sights and recover from your first flight.

5

@4, when did ETN start offering service to PE? I see mention of a "Turistar" bus but not ETN. I don't think the onboard facilities or services are comparable. But, it is "service" of some sort. ETN or ADO's luxury service, if available, would certainly be the way I'd want to travel that distance in one segment. It looks to me as if the itinerary of that Turistar service is routed through or near Acapulco and along Hwy. 200 to Pinotepa Nacional with connecting or same bus service to PE. That's not an overnight routing/trip I'd want to take, myself.

LW

6

#5: I did not specifically state that the bus was an ETN bus but Turistar buses are booked through the ETN website that I gave (I assume the lines have the same ownership). In terms of the buses themselves I cannot tell any difference in design - they both have two bathrooms and have the same seating configuration (seats 2 and 1 in 8 rows). Having traveled both Turistar and ETN I can't really tell the difference between them except maybe the Turistar ones look a bit older - and they're different colors of course :)

7

Thanks for all the responses.

Can anyone recommend a relatively cheap hotel near the airport that is worth staying at ? Nothing fancy, but nothing too stark either.

Thanks.

8

Personally, I wouldn't stay near the airport, primarily because the airport is inside the city and just a 15-30 minute trip by taxi (and maybe a 40 minute trip by Metro) to many less expensive hotels and more interesting neighborhoods (for example: in the Centro Historico district). There's a "Mexico City Hotels" discussion archived here and you can find it when you enter that phrase/words into the search box in the upper right corner of the page.

LW

9

Don't (if you're en route from Mexico City to Puerto), ever miss Oaxaca City. You can either fly to Oaxaca or take a bus (a pretty long ride of 8-9 hours). My little group and I ran to the bus terminal in Mexico City (looking like complete freaks wearing our backpacks and all our gear) to catch the midnight bus to Oaxaca. That's how I got the most out of my trip, by taking night buses. It's definitely not the greatest for a good night's sleep, but you can cover a lot of ground and save on paying for accommodations, haha. Besides, you're on vacation! Who needs sleep, right? The one regret I have about that night bus is that the scenery in between Mexico City and Oaxaca looked absolutely breathtaking, even in the dark. I kept waking up and gasping at what was outside my windows. On the plus side, seeing all the gazillions of lights from Mexico City get smaller and smaller behind me was definitely one way to wrap my head around just how many people live there. But I digress. Ah, Mexico. Don't miss Oaxaca. You can actually fly to Puerto from Oaxaca in a tiny plane--some Quebecois folks we met down there had done just that (they were the only people on the plane and the pilot did not speak English). They really enjoyed the plane, actually. My boyfriend and I took a second class bus, I guess. A "little bus" as one of the locals called it. I have a strong stomach, thankfully, but I wouldn't recommend the little buses for anyone who suffers from motion sickness: it's a windy road with many changes in altitude; at one point the air becomes quite cold due to how high the road climbs through the Sierra Norte forest. There was also a scare (no joke) about banditos being on the same highway--luckily Mexicans look out for one another--they warned our bus driver and we diverted off the main road for a while. On the plus side, this drive was absolutely STUNNING, though after eight hours of it I was more than ready to get out. Puerto Escondido is a great place; a beach paradise with a laid-back Mexican feel. Pipe bending waves, international and vegetarian cuisine, yoga classes, great nightlife--it sounds like a resort town but it truly isn't, at least, not yet.

10

Paragraphs are your friend.

LW