Bahia de Kino and Alcatraz Island – Sonora

Budget Travel in Sonora – Mexico

When I planned my travels through Mexico’s far northwestern states of Sonora, Sinaloa and Chihuahua (then into central Mexico) I assumed that travel there would be the same as in the rest of Mexico in terms of plenty of hostels & other inexpensive accommodation options, inexpensive buses and easy, straight forward routes between destinations.

I’d already explored about 2/3 of Mexico over more than 1 ½ years of traveling in the country, so I was very familiar with the budget travel scene and public bus networks. My Lonely Planet guidebook, dated 2007, for Sonora and the whole NW region detailed many hostels, campgrounds and cheap hotels.

So I had no reason to expect otherwise. But, boy was I wrong!

Sonora Desert between Hermosillo and Kino

I’ve just discovered, first hand, that traveling around Sonora is an entirely different thing from travel in most other Mexican regions, at least for a budget traveler. Quite unfortunately for me, neighboring Sinaloa and Chihuahua states are looking to be much the same.

Budget travel in this region is much more difficult and expensive. In fact, if you’re a budget traveler like me, you might want to just skip this region of Mexico. I’d recommend spending your time and energy in Mexico’s many other beautiful, destination-rich, considerably less inexpensive states (which includes most of them).

The main difficulties in Sonora and the NW region for budget travelers include:

* a serious lack of budget accommodations

* expensive buses

* long and complicated travel routes between destinations

* very few worthwhile destinations to visit.

my great private room in Alamos

Lack of Budget Accommodations in Sonora

Most surprising, and bizarre, is that hostels – backpacker lodges – which are plentiful all over the rest of Mexico, simply don’t exist in Sonora, Sinaloa and Chihuahua! Nor are there many Mexican-style budget lodgings like pensiones, casas de huespedes / hospedajes.

Volunteer work, work exchange and house-sitting opportunities don’t seem to exist in this region either. I’ve checked all the sites I know, but nada.

The one budget traveler’s accommodation option I did find to be plentiful in this area is Couch Surfing. There are many Couch Surfing hosts in Sonora’s main cities, such as Nogales, Hermosillo and Obregon, though not in the state’s small towns or coastal areas. There seem to be a lot in the main cities of Sinaloa and Chihuahua as well.

hanging out with my one and only Couch Surfing host in Sonora – Jorge in Nogales

But even with many hosts in the main cities, it can be rather hard to find a host to stay with. They all seem to work extremely long hours during the week (say 7 am – 9 pm), leaving just the weekends for hosting travelers.

But during weekends they often go travel or have plans with family. So while plentiful hosts do exist, they’re often not available to receive visitors.

The only other budget option I came up with was camping, which travelers can do at some beaches. I camped at Bahia de Kino, in an RV/campground on the beach for several nights for 80 ps / $4.50 US per night.

As a result of this serious lack of budget accommodations, I spent hours and hours and hours searching for hostels, inexpensive hotels, Couch Surfing hosts, volunteer work, house sitting and everything else I could think of. And I had to do this search for each destination I intended to visit, including several that I ended up not visiting.

I felt like I was forever searching for somewhere affordable to stay. Not fun. And a huge waste of time that I could otherwise have spent enjoying my travels.

Andares de Kino Hotel in Magdalena de Kino

Poor Value for Money Accommodations

What is available are Sonora’s version of budget hotels, many of them built and serviced like motels and offering very few facilities or perks. The standard rate throughout the state is 600ps / $33.35 US per room. Yikes!

If you look hard enough, you might be able to find rooms for as ‘little’ as 400 ps / $22.25 US for a single person. The same room would cost a bit more for two.

Generally these motel and city hotels are very poor value for money, at least compared to what a budget traveler like me is accustomed to getting at hostels and general budget hotels.

I routinely spend $6-10 US / 150-200 ps per night for a dorm bed, sometimes a private room in a hostel or budget hotel in other parts of Mexico. At a hostel, that rate typically includes use of a kitchen, purified drinking water, common sitting areas, Wifi that functions throughout and often a TV/DVD room and/or garden and/or games room.

Hotel Andares del Kino – motel style hotel in Magdalena del Kino – Sonora

The motel-style hotel I stayed at in Magdalena de Kino for $20 US (the absolute cheapest room I could find in town) had no kitchen, no common sitting areas, no garden, no drinking water, no hot water to make coffee, no tea or coffee service.

Wifi functioned only in the puny reception lobby, not even in my room! The lobby had no table/chair set up. So the only way I could work online was to stand at the reception desk, with people coming in and out, hotel personnel chatting with each other and no where to sit down! No privacy. No comfort.

I consider that incredibly poor value for money. And it was rather a slap in the face to have to pay 2-3 times more than I normally do in Mexico yet getting almost nothing for it besides my lovely private room.

If you travel through Sonora and the NW region, expect to pay 400-600 ps per night anywhere in the area. If you search really hard and get lucky, you might find a couple of Couch Surfing hosts or a campground here and there, to break up the costs.

Alamos

Lack of Great Destinations in Sonora

Great worthwhile destinations are far and few between in Sonora. In fact, I’d really only recommend two – Magdalena de Kino and Alamos. Both are gorgeous colonial towns with stunning architecture and interesting history, both surrounded by beautiful mountains. Both are also ‘pueblo magicos’ aka ‘magic villages’.

Sonora does have a very long coastline along the Sea of Cortez, opposite Baja Peninsula. And most of that coast is lined with little-developed beaches. It seems like the perfect place to do some wild beach-hopping. Wrong.

Turns out that it’s quite difficult to access most of the coast and its wild, undeveloped beaches. And even if you did get out there, there’s no place to stay and no place to eat!

The only way to easily, comfortably access most of Sonora’s coast is by driving your own vehicle and carrying your own food & water and preferably, your own place to sleep.

Kino beach at the village

On the other hand, there are a few accessible beaches in Sonora, namely, Puerto Penasco at the far northern end of the Sea of Cortez, plus Bahia de Kino and San Carlos, both situated west of Hermosillo, about halfway down the coast.

But all three of those destinations are very developed, rather expensive places to stay. Their beaches are primarily backed by condos, hotels, restaurants and bars.

Sonora’s main cities – Nogales, Hermosillo, Guaymas, Ciudad Obregon – are not historic colonial cities like the gorgeous cities in central Mexico. Instead, the big, dry, hot modern cities in Sonora offer little of interest and are the kind of cities most travelers would rather avoid than spend any time in.

So that leaves Sonora with the two attractive colonial towns of Magdalena de Kino and Alamos, along with – possibly – the beaches of Bahia del Kino and/or San Carlos, if you’re into semi-developed beach settings.

beautiful building in central Alamos

Difficult to Access Destinations

Aside from Magdalena de Kino, all of Sonora’s aforementioned worthwhile destinations are well off to the east or west of Sonora’s main central north-south highway. That means travelers have to take at least two or three buses to get between any given places, passing through various large central cities.

In addition, bus stations in Sonora’s cities are scattered all over, with each bus line having its own station. Most likely, when switching buses en route to your next destination, you’ll have to change bus lines, which means changing stations. And that probably means you’ll have to take a taxi between stations.

With all that transferring, your travel time and costs keep escalating. In the end, you’ll probably have to spend half to full day traveling between any given destinations and spend a small fortune on the combination of buses and taxis.

For instance, from Magdalena to Bahia de Kino requires two buses, with a taxi transfer in Hermosillo. Magdalena to Alamos will take two or three buses, with at least one transfer in the town of Navojoa. Bahia de Kino to San Carlos (for beach hopping, for instance) requires three buses with one or two taxi transfers.

This public transportation situation is very different from the rest of Mexico where there are so many fantastic destinations packed into small areas, that visitors rarely need to take more than one bus to reach their next destination, and generally need less than 1-2 hours.

In Sonora, travel time between destinations ends up being an exhausting, time-consuming ordeal rather than an easy, breezy quick trip like elsewhere in the country.

small courtyard garden at the main plaza – Magdalena de Kino – Sonora – Mexico

Expensive Bus Travel in Sonora

Unlike the rest of Mexico, overland buses in Sonora are fairly expensive. And by the time you take 2-3 buses and one or two taxi transfers en route to your destination, it tallies up to a big chunk of change rather than a cheap trip.

In my first two weeks in Sonora, I spent a whopping $70 US on transportation to reach just three destinations. Specifically, I traveled from Nogales to Magdalena de Kino. From there to Bahia de Kino a few days later. And from there to Alamos.

During my 1 ½ years of travels around the rest of Mexico, my weekly transportation budget, even when visiting a new destination every week, was about $5-20 US. Huge difference in travel costs!

riverbed of Rio Magdalena – completely dry in August

Conclusions

Considering that there are only a few worthwhile destinations in the entire huge state of Sonora; and considering that it’s expensive, time-consuming and tiring to travel between them; and further considering that there’s no budget accommodation options in those places once you do reach them, Sonora state is not the best choice for budget travelers.

This Mexican state is better left to travelers with their own vehicle and with a higher budget.

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You might also like to read:

My Route Through Central Mexico

Costs of Budget Travel in Mexico

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