We loved our time traveling the Baja peninsula with our family and our homes on wheels. Tacos, beautiful sunsets, the Sea of Cortez, and the most incredible wildlife encounters made this trip a family favorite that we will surely repeat. You can go to Baja in the summer, but we have heard it gets very hot and humid. We chose to escape the winter in the US for milder temperatures and lots of beach time on the Baja peninsula in Mexico in our 43 ft toyhauler.
Below, we have detailed a complete planning guide that will ensure you have an incredible time on your road trip to Baja.
IS BAJA, MX SAFE?
This is the most frequent question we get from people, and we are more than ready to answer it.
We are here to give our experience, and hope that you find it encouraging that we felt safe throughout our trip.
You will come to military check points along your route that are there to keep people safe. We were always met with friendly smiles and people just doing their job.
We camped on beaches and left our kayaks, lawn chairs, SUP, and fire pit out for long periods of time and never had to worry that it would be stolen. In fact, we kept our deck down 24/7 for two weeks straight.
Just like anywhere, you will have creeps, theives, and criminals. We are happy to say that personally we were not victims of any of this while in Baja. We witnessed ZERO cartel violence, nor did anyone we knew.
We felt like the roads will be your biggest safety issue when traveling Baja, but if you take your time they are totally doable.
As for the locals, we love the way Mexicans live their lives. They are friendly, family-oriented, super chill, and they love kids. We didn’t want to leave! We had locals follow us out to the beach to fix our tire, a housekeeper clean our RV, and propane delivered to our public beach campsite. You feel like you are stepping back in time to a place where life is slow and people are willing to go out of their way in creative ways to help you.
We did have friends experience a creepy guy in Mulege named Marcelo who will ask you to go on a horseback riding excursion. DO NOT GO HORSEBACK RIDING WITH MARCELO IN MULEGE. He also goes to the beaches in Bahia Conception to find riders and drink beers and we heard multiple bad stories about him. There are creeps everywhere, but I want to be sure I include this story as it’s something locals might know…but when traveling through just beware.
When you don’t speak the language or know the area, it’s always going to be natural to feel a bit uneasy. But we got over that pretty quick and spent time in our hammocks, enjoying these views with a margarita in hand. One of our favorite things was the locals delivering fresh squeezed OJ and baked goods to your RV on the beach. Be sure to always have pesos on you, or you will miss out on these treats!
The Mexico road borders are not closed
Our border crossing went fairly smooth. Here are our tips for crossing the border at Mexacali East with your RV. We chose to cross at Mexacali East for a couple of reasons. We were coming from Arizona and we read it’s the safest and easiest with a large RV.
Tips for crossing the border here:
🚗Go toward the cars (not semi trucks) lane on right. This will wind around a bit.
🇲🇽You will then have an option of two lanes, we chose to stay to the right. The left lane is for cars crossing without anything to declare. We knew they would want to look inside, and had more room that way.
📝FMM papers should be filed to legally travel in Mexico. You need to go into the building with the stairs in front of it and pay $30 per person. You need to be sure you stop and take care of this step. Take $30 US in cash for each person. Take your passports in for this process. You can do this online, but there are a number of fake websites out there. We chose to do it in person to prevent becoming victims of fraud.
🧾 You don’t need a vehicle TIP form unless you plan to travel mainland Mexico.
🚐They will look through your RV to make sure you aren’t carrying any guns or drugs across. They were respectful and professional.
🌵They need to see current registration for both truck and RV to see if it matches the vin numbers.
We printed off copies of our passports, driver’s licenses, and registrations to keep in one folder for the entire trip. We also scanned copies on our phones. Just in case they were lost or stolen, we have our records.
They didn’t even put our slides out to look through our RV. We stocked up on tons of food before we crossed and they didn’t care that we had it. They didn’t care about our pets or need proof of vaccinations. We were charged a small fee for bringing our uninstalled solar panels across. They considered it building materials. So if you bring packages or supplies just open them and install them
ahead of time.
Pesos or Dollars?
We used our debit card to take out pesos at ATM machines. When we had the opportunity to take out pesos, we just took out the full amount they allowed. We did run into situations where ATMs were out of money or out of service. Some travelers carry a stash of US dollars for an emergency, which is probably a good idea. We didn’t do this, because we knew we had planned to use pesos to get the best value for our purchase.
To figure out pesos to dollar you cut the pesos in half and move the decimal point to the left one. Example: 10 pesos, you cut it in half and you have 5, then you move the decimal point to the left one and you have .50 cents US. My 12 year old was better at this than I was, but we all got pretty good at figuring it out by the time we left.
Going out for meals is much cheaper here. We ate out a ton more due to the low price of tacos! Local grocery stores in Baja Norte are very affordable. As you get south into more populated tourist areas, your grocery prices may go up unless you shop where the locals do. We recommend taking food items like good peanut, pork sausage, and favorite foods with you as you will pay premium for that.
Finding Clean Water in Mexico
Everyone hopes they can steer clear of stomach issues when traveling abroad, so we thought we would give our tips on finding clean water while RVing in Baja.
Mexico provides access to clean water in every town. To find these locations, look for the Spanish words “Agua purificada” on the side of buildings. Also, you can utilize the app iOverlander to preplan these stops. You can fill up and pay a small fee for this and have it pumped directly into your tanks.
If you are traveling in a large RV, we recommend you get a water bladder because it will be impossible to pull into the clean water stations. We use the bladder to fill up when we go to town and it worked great. We paid $6 US for our $60 gallon bladder to be filled.
We have a water filter on our hose before the fresh water goes into the tank. This way we can fill up the city water at RV parks and not worry, but only for washing dishes, showering and doing laundry. These are two inline filters. The first is 10 micron and the second is a 5 micron carbon filter. We don’t recommend using a 1 micron due to the low water pressure in Baja.
We added a reverse osmosis system before coming down and it’s been so helpful. We have fresh, clean drinking water and we don’t have to worry about buying it. Our friends were clever and routed the wasted RO water straight back into their fresh tanks for use in showers or dishes. Now we are doing the same.
This system has been perfect for our trip and insuring we always have safe drinking water for our family.
Driving in Baja
I’m not going to lie, driving in Baja is not for those who get nervous on difficult roads. In the US, these tight roads with switchbacks would not be recommended for RV driving. You will have narrow stretches with steep drop offs and missing guardrails and trucks will fly by within inches on tight turns. You will find speed bumps (“topes”) that seem to come out of nowhere and a lack of good warnings for steep grades. Cows and goats graze near the roadside and the main highway down is very narrow.
With all that said, we made it down and back in our dually, hauling a 43 foot toyhauler without any driving issues.
Tips for driving in Baja:
1. Don’t drive at night because there are zero lights on the main highway.
2. Hug the white line on the outside. Make sure your side mirrors are positioned to see it. The lack of shoulder makes this a tricky line to hug, but it’s necessary when cars are oncoming.
3. Slow down when you see a semi. We nearly stopped when passing a wide load.
4. Travel with friends in case you have issues.
5. Make sure to bring spare tires, extra gas, and anything you need to make repairs. There are huge swaths of driving without civilization.
6. You will cross military checkpoints. These are for your safety. Roll down all windows and take your sunglasses off. They are asking where you are coming from and where you are going and may want to inspect your vehicle/rv. They were all very professional.
7. We were pulled over three times without a reason. We had been told that if the police ask for a bribe or fee for a ticket, you ask to follow them to local station to pay it. If they are being dishonest, they will drop it & if not…go pay your ticket at the station. This worked all three times and they let us go.
8. The gas stations are all big enough for semis- you won’t have a problem filling up with a big rig off the main highways.
Route planning is pretty straight forward. We took highway 5 down, and went south when we hit highway 1. You really only have two choices of roads in Baja Norte (5 & 1) and then you only have the 1 in Baja Sur. It’s a narrow peninsula with only these main highways. The 5 is almost better than driving in the states, so your first couple days of driving is going to be easy. But highway 1 is when your drive gets sketchy at times. Even with our dually and large fifth wheel, it got much easier and was totally doable once we got used to it.
Luke had the idea to buy a “Baja Rig” just for traveling Mexico next year! Maybe a Class C or an old airstream. Although it was doable with a big rig, it would be much easier with a smaller RV and a little jeep to our around in.
We hope this is helpful & you find yourself driving south to Baja soon.
Campsites in Baja with a big RV
You don’t need reservations, which works beautifully for our family because we like to travel without a schedule. We found spots everywhere we went, but that could be because of COVID. If you are traveling in a group, you may want to try and call ahead. Also, always have a backup plan in case the campsites are full.
We have a 43 ft toy hauler and dually truck and had heard it would be a challenge to travel Baja this way. Lots of people downsize for this very reason. We found Baja to be a challenge for sure, but totally doable and most definitely worth it.
SAN FELIPE
Residence Betel -Difficult for large RVs, especially if more than one. Rustic, apocalyptic, and beautiful. No hookups, nice views, $15. Good cell signal.
Victors- $35 a night for full hookups or $25 for no hookups. Charge extra per kid. Loud music playing all night, difficult to pull in and out of, but doable. Good cell signal.
***we recommend driving down to Gonzaga Bay and skipping San Felipe.
GUERRERO NEGRO
Ojo De Liebre- this is the gray whale lagoon. $5, no hookups, zero cell, pretty views. 45 min to town for cell signal
Mario’s restaurant- great cell signal, full hookups, great for a quick stopover.
SAN IGNACIO:
Rice and Beans- easy to pull in and out. Cute pool and full hookups. No cell or reliable WiFi
MULEGE:
Hotel serinidad- pool, restaurant, cell signal, full hookups but no view. Easy to pull in.
Playa Santispac- no hookups, zero cell, $10 and stunning views. Great for SUP, fishing, snorkeling. Easy to pull in. 15 min to Mulege for cell signal. Mulege Brewery has good WiFi.
***El Coyote and Playa requeson also looked big enough for large RVs to pull in and out of from both directions.
LORETO
Loreto Shores- full hookups, WiFi good for streaming, warm pool, and views from pool! We did graze some power lines on the way in, otherwise no issues.
LA VENTANA and EL SARGENTO
Playa Agua Caliente- Beautiful views, hot springs, snorkeling, fishing, SUP, kite surfing, FREE, no hookup. Challenging drive onto beach. Washboard road/ sandy/steep/windy hill. 2022 update: We believe this free campsite might have been privately purchased.
Playa central- $15, kite surfers hotspot, restaurant, SUP/snorkeling good, water hookups. No problem pulling in.
✨Baja Experience Bucket List✨
Sit in a hot spring at the beach- San Felipe and El Sargento
Encounter Gray Whales up close
Go fishing in the world’s aquarium
Swim with whale sharks in La Paz
Kite surf on the east cape
Sup and Snorkeling in Bahia Conception
Sea turtle release in Todos Santos
Mexican Food- Everywhere 🌮
Resources and Apps for Baja
📖Travelers Guide to Camping Mexico’s Baja by Mike Church
This resource lived on our dashboard the entire trip. It was filled with information on every town and road in between. We didn’t read much of this book before we left, but it was great to have to look ahead on our road trip to the next stop. We recommend you have this, especially if you are traveling in a large RV.
iOverlander App
This will be your go-to app for finding free beach campsites and propane fill stations.
🗣Google Translate App
You need to download this app before you go so that you have it when you don’t have cell service in Baja. This app even has settings to use your phone’s camera to take photos of menus or any signs and translate them for you. It also can utilize your phones speaker to translate conversations! Its awesome.
📚Duolingo App
This is a great app for practicing your Spanish before you go. We didn’t plan this trip ahead, so we didn’t have time to practice, but the more practice the easier your trip will be. It will help if you continue to practice while you are there to reinforce what you are learning. Even if you don’t speak Spanish, you will find traveling in your RV to Baja is totally doable!
Connectivity and Internet
Update 2022: Our Starlink worked throughout the peninsula. We worked from our RV the entire time.
Luke worked fulltime remote when we traveled in 2021. He was on a schedule of working from 5am-2pm every weekday. We had to travel on weekends and camp during the week in spots with T-Mobile coverage. Sometimes we camped on remote beaches, and Luke would go to town to work at a cafe with WiFi. We used our T-Mobile Cell phones and added 50gb a month international plan for his work. This means the kids could only use devices with downloaded content. We did not allow them to use the internet. We ended up at some campsites with great WiFi and they had Netflix nights, but for the most part the kids were disconnected from screens.
Making Friends in Baja
We met lots of families on the road in Baja and made numerous other friends. You can travel together or separate, but either way you will probably cross paths is there is only the main route in and out of the peninsula. We gathered with friends and traveled with others throughout our trip. You can find others traveling Baja through social media or introduce yourself when you see other people with kids! We did drive back up the peninsula alone as a family as we felt confident by then to do it alone.
Overall, we loved our time in Baja and hope to go back again very soon. The world class beaches, the Mexican culture and the once in a lifetime experiences all captured our hearts forever.
