Can You Actually Drive to South America? One Man Did.
In the summer of 2007, Darien Cross drove from Charlotte, North Carolina to Ushuaia, Argentina, the southernmost city on Earth, alone, on a tight budget, through 13 countries, across the Darien Gap, and into Patagonia. His engine blew 300 kilometers from the finish line. He rented a car and kept going.
This is the complete record of that trip.
What This Blog Is
Drive South America is the firsthand account of a solo overland drive from the United States to the tip of South America. Over 68 documented entries spanning May to August 2007, Darien Cross logged every border crossing, mechanical failure, robbery, breathtaking landscape, and moment of doubt along the way.
The route covered the Pan-American Highway corridor through Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama, where the car was shipped by sea to Cartagena, Colombia to bypass the impassable Darien Gap. From there, the drive continued through Ecuador, Peru, Chile, and deep into Argentine Patagonia before reaching Ushuaia: the End of the World.
This blog answers the questions thousands of overlanders, road trip planners, and adventure travelers search for every year:
- Can you drive from the US to South America?
- How do you ship a car from Panama to Colombia?
- What is the Darien Gap and how do you cross it?
- How long does it take to drive to Patagonia?
- What does it cost to drive the Pan-American Highway?
- Is it safe to drive solo through Central America and South America?
Darien documented the answers in real time, including specifics on shipping a car via Seaboard Marine through the Darien Gap. That information was nearly impossible to find online at the time and has since brought hundreds of travelers to this site.
Why He Did It
Darien Cross is a Korean-American Army veteran, UC Berkeley graduate, and former IBM financial analyst who had spent years in structured institutions: the military, academia, corporate America. The drive was deliberate. A gap between the end of college and the start of the rest of his life. A goal he had held for years. Something he wanted to do before the window closed.
The destination was always specific: Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina. Not South America broadly. The End of the World. He set three milestones before he left: cross Mexico, ship the car to South America, reach Ushuaia. He tracked his progress against them throughout the trip.
He went alone. Not by preference. He spent much of the journey wishing he had a travel partner, but no one was willing to commit. He drove solo through 13 countries on approximately $13,000, got robbed in Panama on the Fourth of July, watched his car's engine seize in Patagonia with the finish line in sight, and still made it.
He was driven by faith, stubbornness, and a very clear sense of what it would mean to turn back.
Welcome to the Journey
This blog is not a highlight reel. It is a real journal, written in real time, by someone who was lonely on the road, got lost, got ripped off, worried about his brakes on Andean mountain passes, and documented all of it without dramatizing any of it.
If you are planning your own drive to South America, researching the Pan-American Highway, trying to figure out how to ship a car through the Darien Gap, or simply wondering what it looks like when someone actually does this, you are in the right place.
Darien Cross made it to Ushuaia. This is how.