RV Tourism in Mexico

When you are in a business it is profitable to make your customer find that it is as easy as falling off a log to work with you.

Mexico doesn't want RV'ers.
Either that or they have a problem with their thinking process.

It's the same with their pilots union - they don't want an "open skies" agreement with the US because they FEAR the the US will swamp and dominate their airlines.

These are but two reason for NOT going to Mexico.

Very poetic! At least you think something could happen to you.....

We pull a fifth wheel down for a month every year to Puerto Penasco. I don't worry about some one killing me, as I never intended to live forever

Hey Mexico isn't for everyone like iguana07 says. But RVing and travel is for adventure. It's nice and comforting to be with familiar things and people around you, but where is the adventure, people culture and the different Mexico regions visited. We alternate between RVing in Mexico and renting. Last year we stayed for three months in Las Jaibas RV Park in Mazatlan and this year and this year we are driving down in a car and renting an apartment in Olas Altas in old town Mazatlan for four months as we have done before. We travel around on the way to Mazatlan, while we are there and on the way back home. Ninety percent of what we do will be with Mexican culture and the people and adventure.

Hey Mexico isn't for everyone! I understand why lots of people do not want to go there. I now live in Cali central valley where I would guess the Mexican population is about 60%. I have more Mexican friends here than I can count. Legals and illegals. I only know one family that makes the yearly trip to their homeland still, but they fly. All the others insist that it is just not safe. Now for ourselves I still love the good things Mexico has to offer we have weighed the pros and cons and still find if appealing.

BUT if I could drive to Tahiti, Hawaii or other beach paradises, which we have visited, I might consider switching.

MEXICOWANDERER

That's great. Now blame Mexico's problems on the U.S. You Government is corrupt. It's always been corrupt. Might always be corrupt. Yea - parts of the U.S. are not that great - but at least you can count on a Policeman or the local government helping you. They won't hand you over to drug thugs to be shot and burned and then buried in a mass grave when you stage a protest.

According to your post - you don't need RVers dollars -so you won't miss those that do not travel down there anymore!

Have a nice life!

A loudmouth senador in Cancun shouted it out for a hundred people to hear in 2006:

"(Hiccup) We all know we want gringos to fly in, dump 100,000 pesos in a week, then get the hell out".

SHCP Hacienda and INM are a disconnected from humanity as any entity in Foggy Bottom. Overland tourism ranks very low on their list of priorities and frankly they could care less if it dries up and blows away. One week's worth of tourists in Cancun OR Puerto Vallarta OR Cabo Son Locos, brings in more revenue than a full year's worth of overland tourism. Read the OR's again. Each destination generates more revenue. Fly in tourists to Mexico City generate more revenue than all of overland tourism. Ninety eight percent of revenue on Cuotas comes from Mexicans not tourists.

Take Mazatlan. Economy. Around EIGHTY PERCENT of a year's tourist revenue comes from Mexicans, not Canucks or Gringos. Even in Cancun, a majority of summer revenue is Mexican.

If an individual does not travel around a lot, rents a house instead of a thirty dollar a night RV parking space, outside of tourist areas it can be much less expensive than MANY places in in the USA. But if you want CHEAP it's tough to beat South Texas, or Mississippi. Most gringos refuse to forego the premium lifestyle so they pay through the snotbox to maintain a high standard of living.

I live Mexican. 100%. Food, neighborhood, idioma, recreation, etc. I do this on a 10K/yr income which is paltry even by Mexican standards.

Crime? PETTY THEFT has been a problem in Mexico since my first trip 50 years ago. Americans worry themselves to death about the CAUSE. Mexicans relax and deal with the effects - how to prevent it.

The treasure of this country is the PEOPLE. The land, the beaches, the pyramids, the quaint villages are a definite SECOND. Without the wonderful culture, Mexico ranks behind Tahiti, Bali, Roratonga, and a hundred other palm tree, turquoise sea beach paradises.

Instead of haranguing about violence, remember, it's USA dollars and USA firearms SUBSIDIZING the mayhem. Maybe it would be less stressing to send billions in subsidies and tons of armaments to Al Qaeda.

I haven't read this entire thread yet, but am presently camped in the midst of quite a few friends who absolutely love Mexico, me included, who do not go back after having done the winter trips for years, myself for seven winters. From Canada, we escape from various weather related realities (we on BC's southern coast, from the dreaded November fog and December's notorious rains) and we have found life quite fine in Southern California and Arizona. We're having a reunion and Christmas Dinner here that serves to replicate what we did on a beach in Mexico the last time four or five years ago. We've done this for four years. Nearly all to attend have arrived here in southern California already, and this year's is the largest contingent we've had.
After Mexico, when we first came camping RV style to the American southwest we visited Senators Wash, 30 miles out of Yuma, where we were told that at one time 4,500 rigs came in a season to camp there. That was years ago and the numbers for our first visit and the next year we visited, were nowhere near that. With some of the older RV'ers there then, the CB Radio was still very much in vogue.
Nowadays we find several other places to go, and other things to do. They include Cactus League Spring Baseball Training, NHL Hockey in Phoenix or L.A., car racing, maybe some desert golf, rock hounding, and populating several desert BLM lands, some to be kept secret from "the masses." There is much to do.
So why are we here, and not in Mexico?
We're happier here in USA. The expense of quotas and fuel has risen too fast. The paperwork to satisfy Mexico has always been onerous, maybe more so now that deposits must be made for a vehicle; the understanding that the laws are so different and considered unreliably enforced; escalating RV fees, often because electric rates are so high; a general perception that personal security can be too easily compromised - that there is a lack of policing, and too many weapons now in the wrong hands. We have heard, first hand sometimes, of dangerous incidents, stolen vehicles and items.
To be honest, in a year and a half being in Mexico, 20 K driving a motorhome there, we have been very uncomfortable with our situation only two or three times. We love the people. But we know the Mexican society is not always the easy going one of the north, many people are too desperate to get ahead. (Please, just not mine!) My DW would never drive there again. We've read the stories. Mexico is no longer the bargain it once was.

bighatnohorse wrote:

CKNSLS wrote:
I have an old high school buddy that has family in Mexico - he travels down to Baja all the time. He said a few years ago he wouldn't dream of going to visit his family without making hotel reservations. Now, he says the hotels are so empty he doesn't bother.

The US consumer still hasn't fully recovered from the 2008 recession crash.
Jobs are coming back and the stock market has raced out ahead of the real economy.

These are different times. . .many baby boomers, instead of spend, spend and spend are now looking at a rather bleak future.

And the "now" generation sees the economy, owning a home and the stock market as "dangerous" places to be - let alone buy and RV and head to Mexico.

It ain't like the old days.

Couple that with the media's propensity to jump on ANY police news and it's a recipe for fear.

To always tell it like it is, is simply that!
If the news media did it,.......think of all the anchors who would be out of a job....:B

So, how much are the tolls? Haven't drive MX roads in awhile. Not afraid of it.