Five Tips for a Road Trip Through Mexico

April 25, 2018
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Mexico, Sundries
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0 Comments

When we were planning our North American road trip, we knew we wanted to include Mexico on our route. The common belief is that a road trip through Mexico is not advisable: it’s too dangerous, too complicated or the roads are too difficult. Despite these assumptions, with a few minor hiccups (mostly because of our own thirst for adventure), our experience was smooth, comfortable and safe. We did, however, do some research ahead of time so that we’d be fully prepared. Without this preparation, we would have had many more “uh oh” moments, and may have even had to turn around and come back home! That is why I’m sharing what we learned here. The knowledge that we accumulated is listed out below. Hopefully these five tips will help you plan your own exciting Mexican adventure.

1. Insurance

You will need insurance that will cover your car while in Mexico. Most American insurance plans will not, and so a supplemental policy is typically necessary. First, check with your current insurance provider to verify whether your policy will cover you. You should also ask your agent if they are able to provide you a policy that will. In our case, our agent was not able to do so, so we purchased a policy from Baja Bound, which provides auto insurance quotes for Mexico. We completed a short questionnaire, which included information on our car and the length of our desired policy. The policies are offered by day (you can choose the number of days you wish to be covered), or for six months or a year. You can also choose the type and amount of coverage you’d like. We paid for our policy online and it was emailed to us after purchase. I stored the policy as a PDF on my smart phone, which was accepted by the border officials.

2. Permits

Depending on where you plan to drive in Mexico, you may be required to purchase a Temporary Import Permit. To prevent people from purchasing cars in the U.S. and selling them in Mexico, the government will charge customs fees on cars brought into the country, with the exception of cars that stay in the “free zone.” The “free zone” includes all of Baja and portions of Sonora. If you plan to drive beyond these areas, you will need to purchase a temporary permit. You can purchase the temporary import permit online from Banjercito, the government authority responsible for issuing the vehicle permits, which will then be mailed to your home. We were already on the road when we figured all this out, so we chose to purchase the permit in person once we reached Mexico. Since we drove into Mexico through Baja, we were told to purchase our permit at the ferry terminal in La Paz, as this was when our car would be leaving the “free zone” for mainland Mexico.

Required Documents

To purchase the permit you must show the originals of and also supply copies of the following:

A valid driver’s license
A valid passport
Current visa or residency permit
Vehicle registration
If the registration is in a child, parent, or spouse’s name, you must also present a notarized letter from the owner authorizing you to drive their car
A birth certificate or marriage certificate proving the driver’s relationship to the owner
If the car is leased or financed: provide a notarized letter from the lending company stating you have permission to drive the car
Proof of Mexican auto insurance (see above)

Fees

Working with the Banjercito official:

We completed our application and paid a $44 processing fee (plus tax).
We signed a document stating we would follow the rules of the permit (the car must be returned to the U.S. within 180 days).
We paid a deposit for the car of around $300. The deposit amount depends on the age of the car, and may vary slightly depending on the current exchange rate. We paid for the deposit with our credit card.

Since we had come prepared with all of the necessary documents, the process went smoothly and we completed the necessary paper work in no time. We were then given a permit sticker, which we were told to place on the inside of our windshield just under our rear-view mirror.

Returning to the U.S.

When we purchased our permit, we confirmed that there was a Banjercito office at the border crossing we planned to use to return to the U.S., and its hours of operation. We would need to return the permit there to get our deposit refunded. When we returned our permit at the border, they simply scraped the sticker off of our windshield and provided us with a receipt showing the $300 deposit had been refunded to our credit card.

3. GPS and Maps

Although we had our smart phones, we did not want to purchase an international data plan for our time in Mexico. The plans on our carrier were expensive and unnecessary since we really only needed to use maps. We relied on the MAPS.ME app, which allowed us to use GPS data free. Once the app is downloaded to a smart phone or tablet, you then have to download the specific map that you need. For example, Baja is a separate map package than Sonora. You will need wifi to download these maps, so make sure you do this ahead of time. The maps will have major locations, as well as points of interest uploaded by other users. You can also pre-load locations of your choice. For example, while in Baja, there were specific surf spots that we planed to visit that were off of the main road. Arie was able to add and save each of these locations within the app.

One of the reasons we like MAPS.ME is that it includes all “roads,” not just main roads. We needed to take several dirt roads and paths to reach some of the less visited surf spots, and MAPS.ME was able to direct us. Although, the app is not necessarily updated for current road conditions, so if a road happens to be washed out, the app may not be aware and you may have to turn around and find a new route. These are the little adventures that make travel fun through – right?

4. Gas & Road Conditions

Gas is an important consideration while planning a road trip through Mexico, and especially Baja. The Mexican government runs the majority of the gas stations (Pemex), and the prices are consistent across the country. They are also full service, which means the attendant will pump the gas for you. There are several scams that can happen at these gas stations that you should be aware of. The most common scams involve the pump meter: (1) the meter is not set at zero when the attendant begins to pump (2) the attendant uses a pump from the opposite side so you are unable to see the correct meter (3) you ask for 500 pesos of gas, the attendant fills the tank until 400 pesos but still charges 500 pesos. In our experience, the attendants would specifically point out that the meter was at zero assuring us that no scam was occurring.

Other common scams involve payment: (1) you hand the attendant 500 pesos and he quickly swaps it for a 50 peso bill, acting as though you underpaid. If you aren’t paying close attention, you may believe that you did accidentally hand him 50 pesos (2) you pay one attendant who walks away and a second attendant claims you never paid. You are unable to identify the first attendant and are caught in a troubling situation. Again, we did not experience any of these scams and everyone that we dealt with was helpful and honest. We also paid with a credit card the majority of the time, and were able to get receipts, which minimized some of the risk. But it is nevertheless helpful to be aware of these issues, as even some of the gas station attendants warned us about the tricks of some of their less scrupulous brethren.

Gas & Road Conditions (continued…)

Another important aspect regarding gas is the frequency of gas stations. You can drive a hundred miles without seeing a gas station! We were told to always fill our tank once it reached the halfway mark because we could never be sure when there would next be a gas station. Sometimes this seemed to be a bit extreme, and we definitely pushed it on occasion. In fact, there was a time in Baja that we were getting too close to empty, and according to the map there were no major towns coming up. We ended up purchasing gas from a man selling it out of a few jerrycans in the back of his pick up tuck. It was more expensive, and probably diluted with something, but we did not want to get stuck on the side of a desert road in the summer! Lesson almost learned. We nearly did the same thing while driving through Chihuahua. We had thought there would be a gas station somewhere along a major highway, but there wasn’t! We made it to the next town just in time; we had about half a gallon of gas left in the tank. Funnily enough, we had made sure to buy a spare gas canister before heading into Baja, but we never felt that we needed it, so we didn’t fill it up. If we were to do it again we would probably just fill up the spare canister at the start of the trip for peace of mind.

Which brings me to my next point. For any road trip, you’ll want to have a general road safety kit (flares or reflective cones, a luminescent vest, basic tools, a flash light, etc). However, you should also consider the weather conditions and climate while preparing for your trip. There were several days where we were driving for hours through desert. We made sure that we always had extra water and snacks in case our car broke down. We had purchased two five-gallon containers of water, which we kept in our car for emergencies. I also carried electrolyte tablets (since I tend to get dehydrated easily, I always have a pack of these Nuun hydration tablets handy) and some fruit bars (I brought these).

Lastly, be aware of current road conditions. Although we primarily drove on paved roads, their maintenance is not as frequent as a road in the U.S. or Europe. On our drive to Creel, we were driving on windy, mountain roads that were covered in rocks and boulders that had fallen from the cliffs above. We would have to maneuver around them, sometimes driving on the wrong side of the road. We did take a few dirt roads, and we had an SUV with four-wheel drive, which made them a bit more feasible, but the terrain was still challenging at times. If you plan to leave the pavement, make sure your car is capable of completing the drive, and that you have a back-up plan in case you break down.

5. Safety

Obviously safety was a big concern while planning our drive through Mexico. There is no shortage of terrible news stories about cartel crimes impacting locals and tourists alike, and there were times where we questioned whether this trip was a smart idea, but we considered the following: (1) Arie and I have both traveled and lived abroad in countries that are considered dangerous by the U.S. State Department. In our experience, life in the country is much tamer than the images on the news (2) we were tourists, and although tourists can get caught in the “crossfire” or be the victims of petty crime, we weren’t the main targets of the cartels. We weren’t interfering with business and we weren’t worth much money, so as long as we kept respectfully to ourselves, we thought we’d be fine.

I am not saying throw all caution to the wind; the level of risk that each person is willing to take is very personal. Be smart and do your research, and decide if this trip is right for you. The beauty of the Internet is that other travelers share their stories, providing real time updates on the otherwise unknown. For example, we were planning to visit Batopilas in Copper Canyon. Batopilas is known to be a cartel-controlled town. As we traveled, we continued to “monitor” the situation in Batopilas via other travelers’ posts. I felt that as long as other tourists were safely visiting these spots, we could too.

We also continued to monitor the routes we planned to take while we were on the road, mostly looking for road condition updates. Adventure travel message boards ,such as Adventure Rider, are a good place to find this info, but even TripAdvisor will do in a pinch. For instance, we had originally planned to take the back road to Batopilas, but after reading updates from other travelers, we decided that our car might not be able to handle the steep, dirt road during the rainy season. We changed our route and took the paved highway instead.

Safety (continued…)

We also tried to avoid driving at night. We had read stories of nighttime robberies or muggings, and timing our drives to occur during the day was an easy way to avoid those potentially dangerous situations (however overhyped they may be). Other, more mundane reasons not to drive at night are the cattle and donkeys that are known to roam the roadsides, occasionally stopping to take naps on the warm asphalt. Hitting livestock at 70 MPH would make for a rude awakening for all parties involved. There are also hard to see and very steep speed bumps that greet you at the entrance to most Mexican towns; they are very hard to spot at night and can wreak havoc on your suspension if you drive over them too fast.

We took other precautions as well, like hiding money in several different locations in the car as a backup in case something were to happen. We also had expired IDs and credit cards in a second wallet, with a few dollars in it, which we could easily hand over if coerced. Lastly, we had photocopies of our passports and other important documents in our email, which we could have accessed from anywhere. By the way, I think it is a smart idea to save copies of your documents online no matter where you travel!

Now, after having said all that, I also have to reiterate that while we were driving and traveling through Mexico we never felt unsafe! Everyone we met was so kind and hospitable… and chatty! We were never in a situation where we felt seriously nervous about our personal safety. In fact, we had two bikes on the back of our car, which we would lock at the start of our trip. By the time we reached Mexico we had stopped locking them, we’d leave them unattended for hours. They were fine, we were fine, everything was fine. We felt more nervous about leaving our stuff unattended in most cities in the U.S. than we did in most towns in Mexico. The layers of dust and mud covering our car, and all of our stuff—as well as the ridiculously complex method by which we tied our bikes to the car—provided better protection than most locks would.

I hope our experience encourages others to consider a road trip through Mexico. It was such an amazing experience. We drove through so many unique types of environments; each day was so different. We drove through green plains, golden canyons, and stark desert; beach side towns, lively cities and mountain ranches. Everyone we met a long the way was helpful and welcoming. Plus, the food was delicious! Our only regret was not having a few more weeks to see more of this amazing country!

Check out our Baja road trip story: Baja or Bust: a Road Trip Through Mexico

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