Tag Archives: RV Travel

Is Mexico Safe For RV’ers?

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Is Mexico Safe for RV’ers is a question that just does not seem to want to go away. People are listening to the stories they hear on the news and they think it applies to everyone traveling south of the Mexican border.

We have now been in Mexico almost continuously for a year, with only about a week out of the country to do our taxes in Canada and get new visas. Before that we have probably put in another year in the form of 1 to 3 month RV visits. We have never had a problem, and have never met a person who had a problem, or even heard about a problem.

The killing that is going on in Mexico is mostly between the drug lords, as they fight for their share of the drug trade. There is also quite a bit of fighting between the drug lords and the government, in the form of the police and military.

There are at any one time approximately one million Americans in Mexico. Many of them living there. There are also at best guess a couple hundred thousand Canadians. You know that if an American or Canadian gets killed in Mexico, it becomes headline news. Be honest, how often do you actually hear of an American or Canadian actually getting killed in Mexico. Consider that for one million drivers in the U.S., 125 will die in a given year. 50,000 thousand total in the U.S. per year. And that is for an activity that the average person only does for about an half an hour per day. If 125 Americans died per year because they were in Mexico, there would be outrage. The number is closer to 5 per year, and those are usually involved in the drug trade in some way.

A Mexican citizen told me the drug lords consider the tourists as customers. In fact a lot of drug money gets laundered by building resorts. This same citizen told me that if a Mexican does something to a tourist, he had better hope that if he gets caught that it is the police that catch him and not the drug lords. With the later he will never be seen again.

True their are places in Mexico that are better avoided such as Ciudad Juarez. But the biggest danger there is getting caught in the cross fire. Consider Canada, it is viewed as one of the safest countries on earth to travel in, yet just a short time ago there was a gun fight between two gangs on a main Vancouver street, where ten gang members where shot. And in the smaller city of Abbotsford where I grew up a recent gang war resulted in over 700 shots getting fired. This happens everywhere. The truth is that if you considered all of North America from Canada to Panama, probably some of the most dangerous places to travel would be American cities like East Oakland California, Chicago, Washington D.C. and even Philadelphia.

The following is an Except from Lectronic Latitude, the blog connected with Latitude 38 Magazine. This is a magazine for boaters out of San Francisco.

“Here’s something you may want to ponder. Juarez has the highest murder rate in Mexico, yet it’s lower than that of tiny St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgins — “America’s Paradise” — where all the cruise ships pull in. Curious that you never see that reported in USA Today, isn’t it?”

At the moment the economy in the U.S. is making it difficult for Americans to spend time in their RV’s. So why not head south of the border to Mexico where the prices are great, there is lots of sunshine, and the people are friendly.

Always remember that the news papers and TV news shows are there to make money. So if they can sensationalize something they will.

George Bernard Shaw said: ~ “Two percent of the people Think. Three percent of the people Think that they Think. And Ninety Five percent would rather die than think”.

The ninety five percent let other people and the media do their thinking for them. If you are really thinking you would be asking “Show me the murdered tourists in Mexico”.

RV Road Safety in Mexico.

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Each year that we have traveled to Mexico and back, we have noticed traffic accidents. Now the first thing the reader will think is that we are talking about in Mexico. But that is not the case. On every trip to Mexico and back we have seen more accidents in the USA than we have in Mexico. In most cases we never saw any accidents in Mexico while we saw a number in the USA. The interesting part of this is the fact that we usually only spend about 3 or 4 days each way traveling through the USA but have spent as much as 3 months in Mexico.

In Mexico we do travel around a lot, it is not as if we are sitting still in one place and never see traffic.

On this last trip, we were only in Mexico for 5 weeks total. But we never saw any accidents at all. But on the trip down, and the trip back we probably saw at least a dozen. About 7 or 8 of these the vehicles being recovered looked so bad that we wondered if the people survived.

Now the reason that I am saying all this is that I have hear the objection a number of times that people are afraid of driving in Mexico due to the way Mexicans drive. But by my personal observations, an RV’er will be safer on a Mexican road than on a US road.

Now I am not saying that the Mexicans are not a bit crazy in their driving habits. The thing seems to be that they are so good at being crazy drivers that they seldom actually get into accidents. Where as we in Canada and the US have so much faith in our roads, and cars that we very seldom really become great drivers. We talk on our cell phones, talk to our passengers, look at the scenery, and just about everything else except keep our full attention on the road. Hence we have a lot more accidents.

In the USA and Canada we loose an estimated 50,ooo people a year to traffic associated accidents, and injure another 2,000,000. This is all for an activity that the average person only spends about 1/2 hour per day at.

Another good point to consider is the fact that people are afraid to travel in Mexico, because of being killed in some kind of violence. But consider this. There are about 5 million tourists that enter Mexico in a given year. About 5 get killed in some kind of Violence. (This number is much lower than tourists to the USA by the way.)

The average tourist spends about 8 days or 200 hours in Mexico.

Now compare this to drivers, where the average driver drives for about 1/2 hour per day, or close to 200 hours per year. About the same amount of time as an average vacation to Mexico.

Out of 5 million drivers about 700 will be killed and 30,000 will be hurt. The part of this I do not understand is that people will jump in their cars, speed, run yellow lights, pass on corners, and many other unsafe practices, many times with their children in their cars. Yet these same people will quake in their boots when travel to Mexico is mentioned.

Personally I would take the activity which is 140 times safer than driving, and that is traveling to Mexico.

For the full time RV’er Mexico is fantastic. The people treat you like gold, the prices are good. The main roads are in fantastic shape, and there does not seem to be near as many accidents. To me this is a no brainer.

See you in Mexico.

Escaping to Mexico in Your RV

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As I was sitting here starting to type this post, a couple walked by in front of my bungalow in La Cruz Mexico. He was wearing shorts, and she was wearing a bikini. I myself am wearing shorts.

Yesterday I talked to a friend in San Francisco, and she told me that they were preparing for a week of storms and rain. Other people have told us about cold temperatures in the Southern USA and Florida.

All this tells me that there will be a lot of people wanting to get their RV some place warm.

If you are a full time RV’er then now is the ideal time to come to Mexico. Many of the RV parks are almost empty this year. The US dollar is at about 13 Pesos. And with the lack of tourists due to the so called recession, there are deals to be had everywhere.

If you are new at this you really do not have to worry. You can cross the border at Nogales and within about 4 hours be ensconced in an RV park in San Carlos. This is the Mexican RV gateway. Here you will find other RV’ers that are either just learning, or experienced Full Time RV’ers that will help you to learn the ropes.

The highway from the border to San Carlos is in excellent shape, with the only hitch being that you have to drive through Hermosillo. But the roads through the city are in great shape and are easily traversed with an RV. About the only thing to be aware of is that you know the names of the upcoming cities so that you will able to recognize the direction signs. There are 2 places in Hermosillo where you have to turn left, so it is prudent to try and stay in the left lane whenever possible.

There is a Costco store in Hermosillo, so if you need a place to stock up on food and liquor you can do it here. There are directions on the Costco website to get to the store.

As you travel south from San Carlos there will be a few more towns that you have to go through, but most of them are easy to navigate. As before just be aware of the names of the town further down the road. This would be exactly the same as driving into San Francisco from the north, and know that you have to watch for signs to Los Angeles and San Diego. Having a good map book like the Guia Roji (Red Guide) available from Amazon is a good idea.

Tolls and Gasoline are both paid cash in Mexico. For the tolls it is a good idea to have money ready, it does not have to be exact change, but you do not want to be sitting there holding up a line of other vehicles. The toll amounts are always marked just before the toll booths, so you know how much you will have to have ready.

Gasoline is always full serve. When buying gas, get out of the rig and watch what is happening at the pump. This is one area in Mexico where you will still find petty theft. Count your money into the attendants hand so they cannot claim that you short changed them. It is also common to tip the attendants. I usually tip 10 pesos (about 80 cents) For a large RV you may want to tip some more.

If you go into any of the large Mexican grocery stores you will find kids and disabled people bagging your groceries. These people are not paid. They are also usually tipped. The going rate is about 1 peso (8 cents) per bag.

Bartering is not commonly found anymore, except for in the village markets and tourist markets. But so many tourists have been paying whatever the vendor asks the first time around that the prices in tourist markets have gone through the roof. A short while ago a vendor tried to sell me 8 blown glass drinking glasses for $100 US. I found them later in the Wal Mart down the street for about $2. US each or a total of $16 dollars. Much later on yet we found a Mexican Restaurant Supply wholesaler who agreed to sell to us. We ended up buying a large box full of the same type of blown glass for about $40 US. So unless you really want to practice your bargaining, stay out of the tourist markets, and buy where the locals shop.

Most of these things are a learning experience. But the other experienced RV’ers that you meet will usually gladly take you by the hand and show you how it is done. They will show you where the American style stores are if you are uncomfortable with the Mexican markets. They will give you directions and suggestions. And in many cases you can find someone to buddy with who is going in the same direction as you.

So take the plunge, Turn south at Tuscon and find the jewel that many other RV’ers have already found.

Mexico for the Full Time RV’er

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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

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