September/October 2023 – Just across the border in Rosarito

As always, why?

Gunner on Rosarito Beach

For the next 7 months, our 13-year-old black Lab, Gunner, will be setting the pace for our travels through Mexico. When we started our retirement journey, we considered Gunner fairly abstractly – mostly just that he would be travelling with us, so we would travel by car and ensure that all of our lodging was pet-friendly. Now that we’re two years into our journey, we’re thinking about the medium-term – what options exist for us while Gunner continues to be healthy and travel with us? Factors that we’re considering include:

• Residency status – Sandy and I currently hold Temporary Residency status in Mexico. Many people travelling through Mexico enter using a tourist visa. Given our longer stays, this is really not the right/best/ethical approach, and also creates a risk of not getting the full 180 days allowable for a tourist permit. Instead, we have made visits to consulates in the U.S., as well as to immigration offices in Mexico, to obtain Temporary Residency cards, currently valid until January, 2026. At that time, we will have two options – exit Mexico and restart the Temporary Residency process in the U.S., or convert to Permanent Residency, at which point we can come and go as often as we like, with no further visits or payments to immigration required, forever! However, Permanent Residency has a major restriction – Permanent Residents are not allowed to bring a U.S.-plated car into Mexico, except for the “free zone” near the border, and into the entire Baja peninsula. So, presuming that Gunner is still travelling with us in 2026, we would likely only travel within the Baja peninsula so that we could continue to bring our car with us to get around.

• Driving – As I noted, the only place we could bring a U.S-plated car is into the Baja peninsula. Do we need to have a car? It certainly makes things easier with Gunner. Most buses won’t allow dogs (especially large dogs), so that’s really not an option. We could fly, but Gunner has anxiety and would likely not do well beneath an airplane. There are services that will relocate dogs across the border, meeting people who fly to a destination, but we’re also not confident that he would handle that type of travel very well either. We could look at purchasing a Mexican car, but our longer-term plans are to travel globally, so buying a Mexican car would likely only be for a few years, and probably not a good use of our funds.

• Weather – Gunner has never been fond of hot weather. He is wearing a fur coat, after all! But as he’s aged, we’ve had a harder time getting him to go on walks in warmer temps. He did really well in Canada and the Black Hills, where we had daytime highs in the 60s and 70s, but we had to take early-morning or late-evening walks with him in many of our hotter destinations. There are a number of locations with moderate temperatures in Mexico, and of course, this list of locations gets a bit longer in the winter. Places we could consider include the mountains of central Mexico, further south to San Cristobal, or a few locations in the northern Baja peninsula.

• Dog food – Gunner currently gets his food from Costco. It seems to be a good food, doesn’t give him any digestive issues, and is consistently available across Mexico. That said, not all of our destinations are large enough to have Costco, so we often need to plan ahead to make sure that Gunner has enough food as we travel around.

With these items in mind, our best medium-term option with Gunner seems to be settling somewhere in the Baja peninsula. And since we’ve been through the mainland of Mexico during the past two winters, we thought we would use this winter to explore the entire peninsula, gathering ideas about our options, and looking for any red flags. We will slowly work our way south, staying in temperate weather and avoiding the heat. We’ll take the same approach in the spring, heading north before the weather gets too hot. Ideally, by next spring, we will confirm whether or not Baja is a good medium-term option, and hopefully we’ll have some destinations picked out for a 2025/2026 return trip.

To prep for our travels, I spend a fair amount of time researching destinations, including looking at monthly weather in each spot. For anyone curious, the table for the Baja peninsula looks like this:

Weather by month in Baja

There are a lot of good destinations in the winter and spring, and the entire peninsula would be considered dry, with no real concerns for extended rain. Yes, there is a hurricane season that will continue through the end of November, but no general risks of being trapped inside due to days-long rain. And based on this chart, only one spot in the Baja peninsula has moderate weather in September – Rosarito! So that answers our “why” for Rosarito – Baja exploration + nice weather.

Our impressions of Rosarito

Rosarito is a small city, less than 20 miles from the border, just south of Tijuana. It took us about 5 hours to travel down from Yorba Linda, California, including a stop in San Diego for gas and lunch. The San Ysidro border crossing was much busier than we’re used to in Texas, but the line of cars moved continuously, taking about an hour, and we had no issues with our crossing. I had learned online that we need to “stay right” after the crossing, and Google maps navigated us easily onto a highway that looped west from Tijuana to the ocean, avoiding the city and the worst traffic. From there, it was a quick, easy drive south to Rosarito.

Ours was the middle and right

Our condo was a small, manufactured home, right on Rosarito Beach. This was our first time staying in a manufactured home (commonly referred to as a “double-wide trailer”) and we were actually a little surprised to find them in Baja. Most homes in Mexico are constructed with concrete block, but in Baja, trailers and RVs are very popular. We have only seen one or two RV parks in all of mainland Mexico, but in Baja, there are communities everywhere. The condo was nicely furnished, had good internet, and our AirBNB hosts stocked our fridge with eggs, bread, fruit, jam, juice, and even some beer! It was the most fully-stocked stay that we’ve had so far. Our hosts lived across the street, and were very hospitable with recommendations for our time in Rosarito. Our unit had good water pressure and plenty of hot water. The only thing lacking at our rental was a washer and dryer, but we found a good laundromat nearby and spent one afternoon doing a few loads of laundry at what felt like U.S. prices - $3 per load to wash, and $2 to dry.

The beach is popular on Sunday

Most of Rosarito appeared to be working-class neighborhoods. We didn’t see many touristy hotels or large zones of condos, though there was one major hotel about ¾ mile south. Further south from Rosarito, we saw a few condo complexes, but many of them did not have beach access, but rather cliffs or rocks. Our condo was located on the best beach in the area – Playas de Rosarito (Rosarito Beach). We had about two miles of walkable beach, though it was often a little trashy from beach-goers or from items coming in with the tide. What do I mean by “a little trashy”? Even though there are trash cans along the beach, there is also a fair amount of litter, such as Styrofoam, beer cans, scraps of plastic, and even the occasional old tire. Realistically, the litter was usually few and far between, but was frequent enough that we would notice it on our walks. Also, horseback rides are popular on the beach, so we were always mindful of horse droppings on the sand.

One of many great sunsets

On the plus side, we had amazing sunsets right outside our door, almost every night. We loved the view and the ability to wander the beach whenever we felt like it, but admittedly got a little tired of the sand that we would track back inside. We often saw ships on the ocean, which we initially thought were cargo ships, but later decided were fishing trawlers. Gunner also enjoyed the beach and we would try to walk him once or twice each day. Oddly, he generally wouldn’t want to walk south with us, but as soon as we turned around, his pace and excitement would pick up. We also had him retrieve a few bumpers each day, but we can tell that his hips are really starting to hurt him, so we keep the retrieving to a minimum.

Tourist zone / Tinta Negra

Our condo was in a decent location and within walking distance of the Rosarito “tourist zone” and a fair number of restaurants. We often walked about a mile to/from our lunch spots, and we also found a decent brewery (Tinta Negra) in the area that we visited a few times. Most days we would eat typical Mexican fare, like tacos, fajitas, or chicken mole. Our favorite places were Tacos Baja Jr. for seafood tacos (located a bit south of town) and Tacos El Yaqui for carne asada (one block off the main street). I also found a place making chiles en nogada, which is a seasonal Mexican dish that we discovered last year in Puebla. For non-Mexican fare, we found a great Peruvian restaurant (Cancha Peru), an ok Argentinian restaurant, and a reasonable sushi spot (Miyagi) at a local food park. One day, we drove about 30 minutes south of Rosarito to Puerto Nuevo, known for its many lobster restaurants with great prices, where we shared two small lobsters, rice, beans, tortillas, and drinks at Siete Mares for the low-low price of 510 pesos ($28) including tip.

Seafood tacos - Tacos Baja Jr

Molcajete - Tito's Mariscos

Asada tacos - Tacos El Yaqui

We found Rosarito to be lacking in good grocery stores. There were a couple of smaller stores near our condo, but only one large store in town, all of which would occasionally be out of a few items. We did travel to Ensenada twice, which is large enough for both a Sam’s Club and Costco. We had a hard time finding our large 20-liter bottles of water (“garrafones”) at the grocery stores, so we usually picked them up at the local Oxxo convenience store. While we’ve paid 35-45 pesos ($2-$2.50) for the garrafones in the past, in Rosarito, we consistently paid 63 pesos ($3.50) per garrafon. We’re not sure why the price of water has increased so much compared to other food and supplies.

We saw very few expats in Rosarito. We would see occasional visitors wandering the beach, but the majority of the beach-goers appeared to be locals. The beach was especially popular on the weekends, and many people would build a bonfire as the sun went down, then stay at the beach very late, or even overnight. It was not uncommon to see a few tents on the beach in the morning.

Overall, Rosarito is not very touristy, and therefore does not have many attractions or tours. There also did not seem to be many events happening during our time there. Other than a few trips south to Puerto Nuevo or Ensenada, we spent most of our time in the condo or on the beach, enjoying a slower pace compared to the weekly moves we had been making since May. As a result, we didn’t have much spending other than the condo, food, and gas. Our food costs were about 10% higher than planned, but I attribute most of that to the current exchange rate. When we built our 2023 budget, the peso was trading above 20 pesos to 1 dollar, whereas the current rate has been fluctuating between 17.5 and 18 pesos to 1 dollar. So, our meals (for 2 people) continue to range between 250 pesos ($14) for tacos, to 500 pesos ($28) for an average lunch, and up to 900 pesos ($50) for an international meal, or to add craft beers or a margarita to our meal. Where we did go over budget was our condo. Admittedly we didn’t make our booking until 3 weeks before our trip, and we also had a beachfront location, but we spent a bit over $2,100 for the month vs. a budget of $1,200.

For the past two years, we’ve been visiting a dentist and endocrinologist (for Sandy) in San Miguel de Allende. Since we’re not heading there this year, we found a dentist south of Rosarito. He and his team did a fine job at a reasonable price of 765 pesos ($44) each. They even let Gunner sit in the waiting room as we took turns for our cleanings. For Sandy’s endocrinologist, we had some blood work done at a lab in Ensenada for the low-low price of 880 pesos ($49), and then coordinated with her doctor for a virtual appointment through Zoom (still 1000 pesos / $55). We’re fairly sure this was his first virtual appointment, but I think it went well, so we’ll probably try it again in the spring. I also got the opportunity to learn how to make a payment through “Wise”. Similar to Paypal or Venmo, Wise is a banking app, with a much more international focus. In addition to electronic payments, they provide low-cost currency conversions at market rates. There was a bit of a learning curve, but everything seemed to work well.

Overall, Sandy and I have rated our time in Rosarito as just “ok”. We really enjoyed our time at the beach, but we found Rosarito lacking in infrastructure, entertainment, and culture. The weather was ideal, and we were really hoping that Rosarito had more to offer so that it would be a good medium-term option for us as Gunner gets older. Unfortunately, it didn’t really live up to our expectations, so we’ll continue to consider our options as we travel through the Baja peninsula this winter.