17. How (and Why) to Roam Mexico in an RV or Van
Traveling in Mexico by RV led us to wonderful experiences we could
only have had that way. Camping by a remote ferry landing on the Gulf
of Mexico, deepening our immersion in the ancient ruins of El Tajín
by spending the night in the parking lot, having brunch in our motorhome
with a taxi driver in Xalapa, watching an informal rodeo by a restaurant
in Chihuahua - these are some of our treasured memories. Many other
small moments of beauty or interest came from this way of traveling
too.
There were drawbacks, though. Getting lost, having to maneuver the
motorhome out of tight spots, the ever-present need to find a place
for the RV for the night, the challenge of visiting cities while in
an RV… it was rather like having a third person along with Kelly
and me, one who needed regular meals of gasoline, water, and electricity
and needed to dump the water frequently.
In the U.S., it's easy. You just take off in your motorhome of any
size or shape, and everywhere you go, you can find public or private
campgrounds. There are huge national directories listing them. You can
have a general idea what to expect wherever you go.
Mexico isn't like that. Some parts of the country are more developed,
most notably the Pacific coast beach towns where American and Canadian
RVers have been going for years. But if you get off the beaten path,
RV travel in Mexico is bound to be an adventure. Is it for you? These
pages are written to help you decide that.
Why travel by RV?
We found it enjoyable, flexible, economical, and convenient.
Enjoyable
We greatly enjoyed having a mini-home with us wherever we went. Having
our own bed, kitchen, and bathroom gave the trip a kind of simplicity
and stability that we liked. We were both writing a lot during the trip,
and having a table for our two laptops was another benefit. We liked
cooking most of our meals, only eating out when we wanted to rather
than because it was the only choice other than snacking. It was worth
something not to be living out of a suitcase - and for us, since the
laptops and Kelly's video equipment were necessary parts of our business
reasons for the trip, it would have been several suitcases!
Flexible
We treasured the flexibility too. Without plane tickets, we could
go when and where we wanted spontaneously. And while it's true that
the outstanding bus system in Mexico does go everywhere, I doubt we
would have gone to many of the more remote places we explored if we
had had to do it by bus.
Economical
Our motorhome, nicked-named
Cando, was of this type.
RVing is an economical way of traveling, unless you are going long
distances in a rig that gets poor gasoline mileage. Our Toyota Dolphin
averaged 17 miles per gallon - we kept track. So even though gas prices
were higher in Mexico than in the U.S., our transportation costs were
not bad at all. You do have to buy Mexican car insurance - American
insurance is not honored there - but with an older RV, that cost us
under $200 for a year's coverage, including legal help should it be
needed. (A year's coverage cost about the same as two months' worth.)
Many of our campgrounds were free.
We averaged well under $10 a night for campgrounds, specially since
many nights were free.
With grocery costs maybe 60% of U.S. prices (unless you favor a lot
of processed foods), we ate avocados and mangos galore. I'm not a big
beef-eater at home, but I loved the more flavorful (though generally
tougher) Mexican beef. Fresh bread and bakery goods were inexpensive,
and I was pleased to see whole grain breads from time to time.
Convenient
Taking care of the basics was generally convenient. Bottled water
is sold in even the tiniest villages, and you can buy a large container
full and then exchange the plastic bottle for another one elsewhere
when you're done. (Once in a while, you may not be able to exchange,
but we never had that problem.) I was really pleased to see how widely
available clean water was. It's a terrific step forward in public health
for Mexico. At just over a dollar for roughly five gallons, the cost
was inconsequential for us though still a challenge for poor Mexicans.
Groceries and housewares are easy to come by - all the cities have
chain-store supermarkets which also carry housewares and pharmacy items.
The public markets offer a wide selection of produce and meats. Even
in small towns, there are "mini-supers" (that's what they
call them) of varying sizes.
We remembered that in 1979, gas stations had been few and far between.
We always filled up when we got about half empty. Now there are many
gas stations practically everywhere, so we were comfortable not filling
up till we got down below a quarter of a tank. We did notice that on
the long toll roads in the north of the country, it could be further
between stations. And you can still occasionally drive into a gas station
only to discover that it is out of gas.
Of course, all this cost money, and we were pleased that the Mexican
ATMs accepted both our credit cards and the debit card from our checking
account at home. The receipts often told us how many pesos we had in
the account, which made me feel rich indeed until I remembered the exchange
rate. We did take more than one card with us, as we heard stories of
ATM machines sometimes not giving back people's cards. This was our
first long trip outside the U.S. without travelers' checks, and it worked
fine. We did have a couple hundred dollars, in twenties and smaller
bills, tucked into a secret place in the motor home, just in case.
Staying in touch with family, friends, and our business was easy with
the internet. Everywhere in Mexico, we found nice little internet cafes.
Once in a while the connect speed was prehistoric, but usually it was
okay and sometimes very good. It tended to cost between one and two
dollars an hour. We were online about twice a week. A couple of times,
we left idyllic spots because they didn't have connections there, but
we never had far to go to find them. Mexicans are embracing the internet,
and few of them can afford computers at home - and many of them have
cellphones because the regular phone service can be hard to get and
expensive - so the cafes meet a real need and are far more numerous
than in the U.S.
Other Ways of Traveling in Mexico
RV travel is far from the most popular choice.
You can hop a plane from home and be at your destination in
Mexico quickly. This is especially appealing if you are heading to the
Yucatan or some other location quite far south. Package rates to Cancun,
for example, can be good bargains.
You can drive a car, which gives you many of the benefits of
an RV along with greater ease of navigating. Throw a tent and some bedding
in the trunk, and you will be camping like the Mexicans do.
You can catch a bus. It's hard to imagine the Mexican bus system
until you see numerous luxury and first-class buses frequently going
between the cities, with second-class buses going to every hamlet and
wide spot in the road. The better buses have movies (not necessarily
an advantage if you don't care for violence) and bathrooms. Intercity
bus travel is so common that you have your choice of time of day on
most routes. If you decide to have a longer lunch, there will be more
buses leaving soon. The prices are very reasonable. In a country that
doesn't have all that many passenger cars or minor airline routes, and
that has essentially ended its passenger train service, the buses are
at the heart of the Mexican travel system. It's a great way to meet
people, too.
How much Spanish should you know?
The further off the beaten tourist path you go, the fewer Mexicans
who speak English will you meet - though we did notice that in the northern
state of Chihuahua, far more people spoke English than further south.
However, we found that even when Mexicans spoke English, we often relied
on our Spanish to verify that we had understood them correctly. In many
cases, their accents are quite thick (which I find charming). Like us
with Spanish, they had learned more in school about reading and writing
than about speaking clearly.
It's really a personal thing. If your Spanish is minimal or nonexistent,
are you comfortable communicating with gestures and a few words, even
if you should have some health or vehicle problems? Despite being able
to handle daily chores with ease, Kelly and I found ourselves constantly
challenged by the limits of our Spanish. With my chatty personality,
I found it frustrating to think of some little thing I wanted to say
to someone and not quite know how to do it. If we end up spending a
considerable amount of time south of the border, I will probably take
an immersion Spanish course somewhere, to move to a higher level.
What's it like to drive in Mexico?
Kelly did all the Mexican driving on our trip, as I tend to be a klutz
with motorhomes. He realized immediately, and I did a bit later, that
even though Mexicans drive quite differently from Americans, they are
no less interested in staying alive. We noticed that just as Mexicans
make more eye contact and relate to each other more in public places
than Americans do, so too in their driving habits, they expect each
other to be alert to what they are doing. Someone may pass in a situation
that would be madness in the U.S., knowing that both the people that
they are passing and any oncoming traffic will be alert if things get
tight.
Once, after a hair-raising taxi ride in Guadalajara, I came to the
conclusion that our driver had mastered the underlying principle of
the universe, that matter and energy are the same. I decided he had
changed our taxi into energy at several crucial moments!
Mexican accident rates are reported to be somewhat higher than American.
The evidence of my eyes bore this out. In about 3000 miles in Mexico,
we saw one totaled small car, two different places where accidents had
happened and huge trucks were burning, and one flipped pickup where
the ambulances were on their way. That seemed like a lot to me - I am
grateful that we didn't see any accidents occur. These were all daytime
events; the standard advice for traveling at night is DON'T. Livestock
like to sleep on the warm pavements, all the busyness that you see during
the day is still going on but you can't see it so well, and there is
probably a higher risk of being robbed. (Though not as high as most
Americans seem to imagine.) In my reading on Mexico, I did take comfort
that Carl Franz and John Howell - who have both traveled extensively
in Mexico and written a lot about the country - have gone many thousands
of miles. Each can tell some hair-raising tales, but neither has ever
suffered a serious accident.
Another feature of driving in Mexico is getting lost. Kelly and I don't
get lost at home, but we frequently found ourselves missing poorly marked
turnoffs or having to guess at intersections. We had the best maps available,
but they were not always correct either. It seems to me that since relatively
few Mexicans travel long distances by car to unfamiliar destinations,
putting up good road signs for travelers hasn't been a governmental
priority. We found that when we were on the main touristic routes, the
road signs were better. For example, the northbound bypass road around
the city of Chihuahua could not have been better. Well, except for that
one corner where we did guess right!
Throughout Mexico, especially at state lines, you will come up to army
checkpoints. They are looking for drugs and guns. We were pulled over
and checked several times, and it was never a problem. The young men
were unfailingly courteous, and the searches were minimal. One soldier
did find some white powder among our nutritional supplements, but he
had no problem believing us that it was vitamin C. We did not crack
inappropriate jokes that might have triggered more searching, nor were
we transporting anything questionable. We did think that we were pulled
over more often than other vehicles, but chalked it up to their being
curious about us and our rig.
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