Crossing international borders is never easy, especially when you’re driving across in your own vehicle as part of an overland road trip. We hope the information, below, helps you get prepared and get across smoothly with or without a vehicle.

Date: June 8, 2011

From: El Florido, Guatemala

To: Honduras

Lay of the land: This border crossing, referred to as El Florido on both sides and used primarily by big rigs and day-trippers visiting the Copan archaeological site, is dusty and quiet. No touts, no hassles, no services, banks or other facilities. The immigration office on the Guatemala side is well-marked and efficient. A brand new immigration and customs building has been put up on the Honduran side. A charming Honduran customs agent named Fabricio handled our truck importation with an absolute minimum of hassle. He barely inspected the vehicle at all but he was a bit of a Chatty Cathy which ate up some time. Before we drove away Fabricio gave us his cell phone number in case we had any questions or problems in his country and he tipped us off about a German man making excellent small batch beer in the town of Copan Ruinas just a few miles away.

Elapsed time: 1.5 hours (mostly spent talking to Fabricio)

Fees: $3 per person for a Honduran visa; $35 for temporary importation of the truck into Honduras

Number of days they gave us: 90 days for us and for our truck. See warning below regarding CA-4 regulations for overland travelers.

Vehicle insurance requirements: We were not required to show proof of Honduran liability insurance and there was no place to buy insurance.

Where to fill up: Fill your tank before you leave Guatemala. Fuel is much more expensive in Honduras. If you’re headed to the El Florido border from Chiquimula, Guatemala the best place to fill up is the Shell station about a mile and a half before you reach the turn for El Florido. There’s no fuel immediately available on either side of this crossing.

Duty free stores: None

Need to know: Police officers in Honduras are serious about seat belts and you are required to carry reflective emergency triangles and a fire extinguisher in your vehicle (as is the rule in most of Latin America). We were pulled over about three miles into Honduras by cops looking for our front plate (we only have a back plate because a front plate won’t fit underneath our winch). The cops were not hassling us at all nor were they looking for a bribe. Once we showed them the temporary importation papers we’d just been given they explained that all vehicles registered in Honduras are required to have front and back plates then sent us on our way.

CA-4 warning: In 2006, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Honduras joined together to create the so-called CA-4 (Central American 4) group of countries all honoring and enforcing one CA-4 visa which is good for 90 days in any of the four participating countries. Sounds great, but you cannot exceed 90 days in total in any combination of those four countries without severe penalties. The clock starts ticking on your CA-4 visa the moment you step foot in any of the CA-4 countries.To complicate things further, Honduras recently stopped honoring CA-4 regulations and started issuing its own 90 day visa. Theoretically you can now spend 90 days in the other CA-4 countries then enter Honduras and receive a new 90 day visa for that country. However, unless you are flying out of Honduras or taking the boat to Belize this will lead to serious problems. Since Honduras is completely surrounded by other CA-4 countries the only way out overland requires entering a CA-4 country.  Because the other CA-4 countries still abide by the 90 day limit and starting when you first entered Central America which they still define as including Honduras even though Honduras has opted out of CA-4 regulations. That means if you’ve used up your 90 Honduran visa you’re going to have to fly or boat out of Honduras or pay a large fine and get just a few days to transit overland through any of the surrounding countries and get out of the CA-4 region. Overland travelers need to plan stays in Honduras carefully to ensure that there is enough time left on the visa to allow overland travel through other CA-4 countries before the CA-4 visa expires.  We learned this the hard way after we spent almost three months in Guatemala, entered Honduras and got another 90 day visa and then tried to enter El Salvador which denied us entry because we’d (unwittingly) overstayed our allotted 90 days as defined by the CA-4 regulations.

Border rating: Excellent. The El Florido crossing between Guatemala and Honduras was smoothly run, hassle-free and relatively quiet despite the presence of quite a few big rigs.