quote:

Originally posted by arabiancowboy:

quote:

Originally posted by Bigbuck5:
Hi 911 Boss, Guatemala is a beautiful country with mostly kind people. If you are traveling with a group on a bus, you'll be fine. Most of what the State Department says is fear mongering. My wife and I have lived in east central Guatemala for the last 8.5 years. Lots to see. The capital is by far the most dangerous part of the country. Just use your situational awareness, stay with your group etc. It's no more dangerous here than a major city in the U.S. I will also add, you are not the target (usually). If you have any questions, please feel free to send me an email.

Great post, checks with my experience as well.

Based on your amplifying info (911boss) you’ll be fine. I recommend doing the online customs form the night before your flight. It’s a very simple process and won’t take more than a few minutes, but the Wi-Fi and cell connection is not good at the customs line in Guatemala City so you should plan to do it before you leave rather than standing in line.

Here is the link for the Guatemala customs form. This is new and I've been told you need to fill it out one to three days before your arrival. It will generate a QR code which you can print or save to your phone. Everyone in your group will need to complete this.

https://farm2.sat.gob.gt/decla...l.jsf#no-back-button

quote:

Originally posted by Bigbuck5:
Hi 911 Boss, Guatemala is a beautiful country with mostly kind people. If you are traveling with a group on a bus, you'll be fine. Most of what the State Department says is fear mongering. My wife and I have lived in east central Guatemala for the last 8.5 years. Lots to see. The capital is by far the most dangerous part of the country. Just use your situational awareness, stay with your group etc. It's no more dangerous here than a major city in the U.S. I will also add, you are not the target (usually). If you have any questions, please feel free to send me an email.

Thanks for the info! I did send you an email...

I feel pretty safe that a group such as ours is not going to be targeted by either common criminals or cartel bosses given they "type" of folks in the group and our purpose for visiting.

According to Verizon, La Libertad has pretty good 4G LTE coverage, my guess is they are just providing service through a local provider or does Verizon actually operate a network in the area?

What kind of connectivity should I expect for email/texts/calls? Looks like Verizon will do a $10/day "Travel Pass" with unlimited Talk/Text and 2gb/day data. I'm thinking that might be the better way to go the trying to get something there. Thoughts?

My church did a mission trip to central Mexico to work on an orphanage. We figured out that they didn’t need old weak gringos to do labor. They had plenty of local laborers. They needed money for materials. So, after the initial trip, our church supported the orphanage monetarily. The money we had spent traveling down there would have been better spent on materials. We wouldn’t have known that unless we had made a trip to see for ourselves, though.

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I feel pretty safe that a group such as ours is not going to be targeted by either common criminals or cartel bosses given they "type" of folks in the group and our purpose for visiting.

^^^^^^^^^
Wish that were true. Often religious groups are targeted since they often do not fight back. Look at Haiti.

I've had nothing but positive experiences in Guatemala. Beautiful country with generally friendly people. Yes, it's poor and has the crime problems that come with that. But, it has a ton of character, culture, and natural beauty. Be careful in Guatemala City just as you would in a major US city. Other than that, enjoy your trip!

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Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:

quote:

I feel pretty safe that a group such as ours is not going to be targeted by either common criminals or cartel bosses given they "type" of folks in the group and our purpose for visiting.

^^^^^^^^^
Wish that were true. Often religious groups are targeted since they often do not fight back. Look at Haiti.

This isn't Hati

quote:

Originally posted by 911Boss:

quote:

Originally posted by Bigbuck5:
Hi 911 Boss, Guatemala is a beautiful country with mostly kind people. If you are traveling with a group on a bus, you'll be fine. Most of what the State Department says is fear mongering. My wife and I have lived in east central Guatemala for the last 8.5 years. Lots to see. The capital is by far the most dangerous part of the country. Just use your situational awareness, stay with your group etc. It's no more dangerous here than a major city in the U.S. I will also add, you are not the target (usually). If you have any questions, please feel free to send me an email.

Thanks for the info! I did send you an email...

I feel pretty safe that a group such as ours is not going to be targeted by either common criminals or cartel bosses given they "type" of folks in the group and our purpose for visiting.

According to Verizon, La Libertad has pretty good 4G LTE coverage, my guess is they are just providing service through a local provider or does Verizon actually operate a network in the area?

What kind of connectivity should I expect for email/texts/calls? Looks like Verizon will do a $10/day "Travel Pass" with unlimited Talk/Text and 2gb/day data. I'm thinking that might be the better way to go the trying to get something there. Thoughts?

Verizon will contract with one of the local cell companies. From the people who have visited us, the service has been good. As long as there are cell towers in your area, it should work fine for everything you mentioned.

mobile carriers have interoperability agreements. make sure to sign up with an international roaming plan with Verizon before you go; this gets you MUCH better pricing than the casual rates that you'll be billed for.

I think it was like $79/mo for unlimited calls and some fixed amount of data when we did this for my kid on her trip to Ecuador in March.

As someone who used to work in the GSM/mobile networks industry 15yrs ago and specifically roaming interoperability agreements between carriers and in LATAM, be sure to get a plan. The industry is fraught with fraud south of the US and dealing with Verizon on billing issues is not a picnic. My brother lives in Uruguay and moved to Argentina in 1998 to work for Price Waterhouse consulting in mobile networks and spent time as the roaming manager for Argentina at T-Mobile and currently works in the same space with his own company. We hired away the tech SME's who set up the fraud system for the local carriers and used their expertise to help US companies detect the fraud as part of revenue assurance efforts.

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Originally posted by Georgeair:

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I recommend doing the online customs form the night before your flight.

I find the Mobile Passport Control but not Online Customs. Is that unique to each country you travel to?

MPC

Bigbuck5 posted their immigration form. I usually do it before I get on my flight, as long as you have the QR code you’ll be fine. And they only check it half the time anyway. other central & South American countries have similar entry forms (check mig for Colombia, etc.).

I’m hopeful Guatemala will see an increase in visitors and tourism. I think Guatemala and coasta rica are the two most naturally beautiful countries in Central America.

When Haitians say it's dangerous, I'd take notice.

https://lufkindailynews.com/ap...73-fd4a02dd8f87.html

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Originally posted by 220-9er:
When Haitians say it's dangerous, I'd take notice.

https://lufkindailynews.com/ap...73-fd4a02dd8f87.html

Not really sure of the relationship we're making between Hati and Guatemala, but okay, thanks for the article.

quote:

Originally posted by 220-9er:
When Haitians say it's dangerous, I'd take notice.

https://lufkindailynews.com/ap...73-fd4a02dd8f87.html

Can you explain the point of this post? Guatemala is not Haiti. I have been to Haiti, it is 100% gangster. Guatemala is just a country in central America.