South of the Border

And, just like that, we’re heading to Mexico.

I should back up. We’ve been holding our breaths, trying to figure out where to go from San Francisco. Back East? Up North into Canada? Not in early February, thank you very much. We have a departure date from the Bay area set on January 30th, and we just weren’t sure where we wanted to go.

Caravanning with other full-time RVers

So, it felt a little fateful last week when we opened an email. Our mail delivery service, Escapees RV Club, also offers a handful of other things we don’t take advantage of – mostly meetups with other RVers. It’s not that we haven’t wanted to, but we’ve never been in the right area to taje advantage of them. At the bottom of the email, there was a short note that said there was an opening to caravan down to Mexico with a bundle of other RVers in mid-February. Two hours later, we’d decided – we’d make our way down to Mexico, and get some sun on our faces.

So, come February 14th, we’ll be sipping margaritas and putting our toes in the sand with people about 20 years older than us. I don’t really care who we’re going with; I’m partially in love with Mexico so it doesn’t matter much. Tacos. Hand-painted sandals. Real vanilla the price of imitation. And cheap asthma medication. What’s not to love?

2020 is the year of taking advantage of what we can, while we can. Gone are the days of extensive planning when it comes to our travels.

The first trip to Mexico

The first time I went to Mexico was about eight, maybe nine, years ago with Jeremiah. It was my first real vacation as an adult, and I planned everything that I could. I saved all my tips for about six months that I didn’t use for bills to pay for my trip, and counted every calorie I could so that I would fit into an old swimsuit and not have to buy a new one. (This weekend I finally replaced that very swimsuit with a new one.) I fretted about every aspect – but in the end, the vacation was exactly what I wanted and very different than what we expected. This was mostly due to the hurricane. On day 3 or 4, we were evacuated off the island of Cozumel to stay on the mainland, where we then had to navigate a new flight home from Cancun. We played in the high waves rare for the Caribbean, all the while warm heavy rains fell on us. While I’m hoping this trip has more sun and less rain, it was a good lesson to know that you just can’t plan everything – like the weather. And in the end, I was in Mexico, on a vacation, and we were happy.

The home on wheels in Mexico

This time around, we’re taking our whole house down there. We even get a police escort to get through the tiny streets we’ll be traveling on! Turns out it’s a LOT cheaper to bring your home on wheels with you when you go to Mexico – we’re paying 300 bucks for a space to stay for 10 days, a few dinners and happy hours, and a really obnoxiously colored lime t-shirt that I’m definitely wearing at least 3 of those days to avoid doing laundry. It’s not a resort – there’s no pool, no all-you-can-eat-and-drink buffet, and no nightly shows.

I have done about zero research, so if you’ve been to Baja – specifically the San Felipe area, what should we do?