My maiden voyage with Javier (for those of you who are new here, that's my van) was a big long road trip from Sacramento to San Jose del Cabo and back!

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This road trip was a whopping 3,000+ miles and provided COUNTLESS opportunities for adventure! I took my friend Diego with me, which felt like cheating because he’s a native Spanish speaker. Diego was a clear choice for a travel partner since he’s an adventurer, a surfer, a photographer, an acroyogi AND speaks Spanish.

WINNER WINNER WINNER!

Diego flew in from Panama and I picked him up in Los Angeles, where we put the final touches on our (very loose) travel plans. We borrowed two surf boards from friends in SoCal, got some cheap groceries from Trader Joe’s and were on our way!

It only took about a half hour to get across the border into Mexico – their border is much more lax! HOWEVER, after about an hour and a half, we realized that we never stopped to get our travel visas and had to go ALL THE WAY BACK to the border in Tijuana and get them. The process was easy enough, since we had all of our paperwork together and I had already insured the van in Mexico.

When driving through Mexico, you’ll need a travel visa, which will allow you to stay up to 180 days. There's some sort of loophole if you're only staying in the northern part of the peninsula, but we wanted to go all the way. If you’re only planning to stay in Baja, your vehicle DOES need to be insured but DOES NOT need a vehicle permit. There was some confusion around this, but we found it to be true.

We spent our first night at an actual campground in Rosarita with views of the Pacific. While we were definitely in a hurry to get farther south, I made sure that we stopped at a winery in Ensenada. Many wine folks don’t know how great the wine is from this area and I wanted to compare it to what I was used to up in Northern California. The winery and wines did not disappoint!

This is what happens when acroyogis get their picture taken at wineries.

I also got pretty distracted following these adorable piglets around for a while!

After that, we continued the drive down through the desert, stopping for the night on some private land, where the owner lets campers stay for free in Punta Blanca. This was a wonderful and secluded place that really gave us that “Baja” feel!

Surprise! I made a friend! https://www.facebook.com/dbarbatophotography/

When driving through Baja, there is a large area in the middle called the “green space.” This area is mostly rural with very few homes and businesses along the way, including gas stations. We didn’t have any trouble with this, but I was VERY adamant that we fill up every chance we got. WATCH OUT FOR POTHOLES!

We got through the green space in a single day and landed ourselves in a magical little town called Mulege. Our campsite cost 200 pesos (around $12 at the time) and it was absolutely stunning. Walking distance from the beach, electricity, a grill, a hammock, fruit trees all around that were POURING fresh, tropical fruits on us. Just magical! We liked it so much that we made sure to stop there again on the way back!

After we talked ourselves into leaving this juicy, fruity wonderland, we made the drive all the way down to meet up and stay with Diego’s beautiful friend, Maria, in San Jose del Cabo. We weren’t so interested in Cabo San Lucas, as it mostly caters to tourists these days. Think of San Jose del Cabo as Cabo San Lucas’ younger, less crowded, equally beautiful, less white and significantly cheaper little Mexican brother.

While in San Jose del Cabo, we got the royal tour of all of the best surf spots (where I managed to find some “bouldering” and took some wonderful yoga classes, led by Maria herself! We also played around with acro and took loooooots of naps in hammocks.

I don't surf, but I play the waiting game pretty well.

On one of our nights there, it happened to be our other friend Rosy’s birthday, so we celebrated with yoga and wine and Diego cooked arepas (a delicious Venezuelan food)! We had a wonderful feast with a very international group!

One American, two Mexicans, one Venezolano, one German and one Argentenian!

We also took a group day-trip down to Todos Santos, where we all piled into the van (with some acro happening back there) and headed to some beautiful white sandy beaches.

They refused to wear seatbelts!

After saying our goodbyes, we drove back up the coast to Playa Tecolete, where we stayed for two nights on the beach (FOR FREE) and went on a great little snorkeling tour. I got to see an octopus walking along the ocean floor, along with lots of other creatures and ocean friends.

While driving up and down Baja, you will run into MANY military stops. These weren’t much of a problem, especially since I had a translator with me. They mostly wanted to make sure that I wasn’t smuggling a van full of drugs into their deserts. They asked a few questions, knocked on the surf boards to make sure they were empty, and let us go on our way. I even did the talking at a few of them and was able to answer all of the questions in perfect, broken-ass Spanish!

We headed back north a bit faster than the trip down because we were in a hurry to get to Yosemite (Diego’s first visit). Our last night in Baja was spent on a wonderful, and very private, little beach (not sure if we were technically allowed to be there) called Ejido Valle Tranquilo, just south of Ensenada. Tanquilo it was!

It’s a good thing that we got our last night of peace in because getting back across the U.S. border at Tijuana took SIX AND A HALF HOURS!!!!

All in all, I’d say our Baja adventure was a wild success. We got a really good picture of what life could be like in the Baja desert, made new friends, ate delicious fresh fruits, saw some beautiful sights and got to relax along the way. I’d highly recommend a road trip to Baja to anyone looking for an adventure!