Traveling + others?

on driving in Baja California: details

Prior to my trip to Baja California I've never driven in any country other than the U.S. and China, both of which are relatively safer for driving. I was nervous about it at first, too.

We rented a car with Hertz in Tijuana, because on the website it was 500 bucks cheaper than Enterprise. But when we got to the counter we were charged young driver fees, and in the end it was only 200 bucks cheaper. We got an old Renault that had worn out brakes and terrible acceleration, and we hated it at first, but we later grew to love it.

The route we took (and the trip) was described here. I've been told that this is already one of the best maintained roads in Mexico.

We arranged the trip such that we never had to drive more than 8 hours a day, apart from one day where we had to do 9. On this day we were from driving to Loreto, a city known to be relatively safer, and admittedly we felt safe most times. We even made a stop next to the highway for a brief ten minutes, to admire the stars. The last time I saw stars like those was in Tibet.

Driving at night was difficult not just due to the potential danger. At night, roads and the holes are harder to see, the lights from the trucks coming from the opposite side are even more blinding, and sometimes there are cows walking or laying in the middle of the road (this is what the cows signs are for). Thankfully we didn't see any lights, but the holes were there for sure.

Thankfully we had a rental car, so we did not have to be extremely careful. I've seen many cars on the side of the highway changing tires, and we got a flat tire once. Do try to dodge them.

Holes typically are on the sides of the road, so when there are no cars around, I try to drive in the center (half of the car on my lane, and half of the car on the opposite lane). It's also useful to look at what other cars are doing, especially the trucks in front. Sometimes when there are large holes, I put on emergency lights to warn the cars behind me to slow down (I learned this from some other cars here, and I think it's great etiquette).

On the 1, the road from Tijuana to San Quintín was mostly okay. There were some holes, but none that would cause trouble. There were three sections of the 1 that I remember as having lots of holes: between Valle de los Cirlos and Guerrero Negro, between Mulegé and Loreto, and between Ciudad Constitucíon and La Paz (we saw a tipped-over truck on the side, and the holes were giant).

The 12 was terrible: we got a flat tire here. Although most sections of the road are well-paved, there are some giant holes at places.

The 19 was the best road to take. It was double-lane and there were basically no holes, because it's a newer road. This is the best road to take to go from La Paz to Los Cabos, and you also get to see Todos Santos. We took the 1 to get back to La Paz, because I wanted to see it; it definitely took more time since we had to go through mountains, but it was a nice experience also.

The 5 was alright, like most sections of the 1 (maybe even a bit better)

Note that, though, I did this trip in December 2024, and things may have changed since then. They do actually patch holes, but there are just too many.

Personally I think they should use the right-turn signal, which I did at first. Using the left-turn signal might also mean you want to turn left, which would cause troubles if the car behind you tries to overtake you at the same time (this happened once or twice: we tried to overtake but the truck actually turned left, and we had to brake hard). In fact, I think using the left-turn signal should mean DO NOT OVERTAKE. Using the right-turn signal would completely avoid this problem; slowing down, using the right-turn signal, and even driving closer to the side of the road, should be a better sign to the cars behind to overtake. But this is not the case, so I also use the left-turn signal to signal overtake in Mexico.