Full Time RV Blog

Over the last month or so I have been quite tied up getting some more Personal Development training, and preparing for a trip to Mexico. Hence I have not been able to do much about updating my blog. But now we are comfortably settled in Mexico for a month, and the company that was with us for a week has left. This will allow me to get back into doing some more blogging, and other writing.

We did not take the RV down with us this time since I only had about 6 weeks total to do this trip. Instead we took down our 4 wheel drive Mazda van so we could make some really good time getting here.

We have rented a bungalow in La Cruz which is on the south side of the bay of Banderis, and overlooks all of Bucerais and Puerto Vallarta. We have a million dollar view from here for about $25. per day.

View of Puerto Vallarta From Our Bungalow

The property we are on has about 6 RV spots also available, but they are all empty right now. You can see them in the bottom right of the photo. We also checked a number of the RV parks on the way down, and most of them were either empty, or only had a few RV’s in them.

For an RV’er a holiday in Mexico would be a real bargain right now. To give you a bit of perspective, it cost us $450 in fuel for our 20 mile per gallon vehicle to get here all the way from Vancouver British Columbia. In a 10 mile per gallon RV it would cost less than $1000. But most RV’ers would not have to come near as far.

Mexican Insurance for 6 months cost us $89. and in most cases you can get a rebate from your US or Canadian insurance provider for the time that you were in Mexico, and they were not covering you. The rebate is usually much more than the Mexican insurance cost you in the first place.

The only other real expense will be highway tolls, but that only works out to a couple of hundred dollars total for the round trip.

RV park prices are all over the map, but except for in the big cities are much more reasonable than in the US or Canada. Monthly rates of $300 or less are common away from the big cities. You usually are still more than close enough to go the the big cities to visit the Costco, Sam’s Club, or WalMart.

For the first timer traveling to Mexico in an RV it may be a bit daunting, but rest assured it is very safe. In fact it is statistically much safer than the USA and actually even Canada. Right now the USA is on the list of some of the most dangerous countries in the world to travel in.

If you are a first time RV’er I would recommend crossing at Nogales Arizona and taking the freeway down towards Mazatalan and Puerto Vallarta. Get a good map such as the Guia Roji which is available at amazon, and a copy of Mike and Terry Church’s book “Mexican Camping” which lists all the RV parks in Mexico along with directions to get there.

Cross at the truck crossing at Nogales and proceed south about 12 miles to the customs and immigration center. Here you will have to get a temporary import permit for any vehicles you are bringing into Mexico. You will have to leave a credit card imprint for any vehicle you bring in. Also one person cannot bring in two vehicles. If you are bringing in a Motor Home towing a car, each vehicle has to be in a different name, and the person who’s name is on the registration has to be present, with a credit card with their name on it. The name on the credit card has to match the name on the registration. This rule does not apply to motorcyles and quads that are under 250 cc.

The reason you leave a credit card impression is that if you do not get the vehicle out of Mexico within 6 months your credit card will be charged with import duty for the vehicle. You do not have to worry though since you will be given a receipt when you return out of Mexico to prove that you have taken the vehicle out of the country.

You will also have to have about 250 Mexican Pesos per person with you to pay for your tourist visas at this time. You can buy Mexican pesos in Nogales USA or you can go into Nogales Mexico and get Pesos from almost any bank machine. This is the best way to get money in Mexico since you will be getting the bank rate for that day, and not getting charged a commission by a money exchange. Do not even bother with travelers checks  since they are a real pain to cash in Mexico. Get enough cash to pay for your diesel or gas at gas stations, since most do not take credit cards.

I have gone into quite a bit more detail on what you need to know to enter Mexico in my book “Full Time in an RV“. To try and put down all that information here would make the post too long. There are also other good guides for entering and traveling in Mexico. Among them Mike and Terry’s book Mexican Camping which I have already mentioned, and also the website “On The Road In”

So if you have not done so before, take the plunge. The people are great, the roads are good, there are many good RV parks, and your money is worth a lot here right now.

Enjoy