crossed Mission Bay, we’re turning around, I think we are about 12 miles from the border that goes to Mexico. So are you excited? Yeah, let’s see what’s going to happen out here. Do you already know where the Sentri lanes are? I’m going to share a really cool map that shows the directions to it. I didn’t know it existed. I’m going to leave the link below in the description. Planning goes into crossing the border, We’re about to find out how this process goes, and it’ll be really interesting to see it with Napa. Our concern is how we’re going to manage it all with a dog and how the process will work with Border Patrol. And you know what, I think that happens to everyone when they’re new on this. I think the Sentri lane didn’t take so long for us. We got in and out of there, but then that happened. That was a bad mistake. I don’t know how you made that mistake, but you make a bad decision and then we came back again, and there was only one thing after the other, and another little mistake, even worse than the one before. We learned that’s so Mexico. You have to check what you bring with you and not make a bad decision. It was really interesting how our dogs were happy in the car while we were going through the inspection zone. And once we finished up with crossing the border to Mexico, the whole process was a bit quicker, but we were so nervous. And we realized that it’s really important to have the FMM form. And don’t forget about it like us. So last stop and we went to get it for the form. And now we’ve secured it all down and all the other stuff was just fine. A few tips with driving in Mexico, luckily, it was smooth and easy and everything went well. So I hope you like this video, it was a lot of fun. So we’re headed back to the US. Now it’s up to you to click on these links that we’ve shared. Take care now. Bye!
Watch the video by Tourist to Local
Imagine crossing the world’s most crossed border, not once, not twice, but three times in a single day, with a dog. This is the story about how that happened to us. Don’t make our mistakes. This is not good. Am I allowed to grab it from the back? This
Is just a disaster. This is so Mexico, right? Hello, guys! Look who’s in the shot. Oh my gosh, this is Napa’s first YouTube appearance. We’re super excited to have her, taking her on her first trip together. And the first trip is going to be to Baja California. So, we’re going to not only take her for her first trip,
We’re also going to cross the border. Oh yeah, and cross another state off our list. I think we’re on state number 16 in Mexico, Baja California. I’ve been excited for this one, personally. Me too, me too. But before we get there, I can hardly see you, Napa’s in the way.
Before we get there, we have quite the feat ahead of us, to drive down to Baja. That’s right. So, we’re taking our car. I don’t know if you guys know that, but we live in Northern California, so we’re driving all the way to San Diego today, so tomorrow we can cross
The border. Napa, can you let me talk to them? So we can cross the border tomorrow, first thing tomorrow. But the thing is, we haven’t experienced that, uh, that way. I know neither Martin and I
Have crossed the border by car, and we certainly have not done it with a pet, and we certainly haven’t done it with our Global Entry. So, we have a lot of unknowns, which is why we’re making this video. Because we want to share our experience crossing the border and hopefully making it so
That if there’s somebody watching this by chance who’s interested in crossing the border, whether they have a dog or not, or Global Entry or not, we answer a lot of questions that you might have.
That’s right. So, that’s our plan. But what do you think if we just hit the road? Because we need to go over there. We’re going to be getting into San Diego pretty late. Napa is going to probably stay
Up all night ’cause she’s so excited to finally learn about her other half of her culture. Yeah, but she’s being so good so far. Yes. All right, let’s hit the road, boss. Because we have the beautiful Napa, we have to stop every 2 hours. Normally,
I will go and just, uh, drive straight for 8 hours, but it’s good because now we can stretch our legs more. It’s probably better for our backs. That’s right. And, uh, we’re only going for 2 weeks, but it looks like we are about to move to
Tijuana. Uh, maybe we will, Maybe we are nervous first-time dog parents and slightly overpacked, I think Napa has more stuff than we do. So, uh, excuse the mess while we drive down. Let’s talk car insurance. It turns out to be legally covered in Mexico, your insurance policy
Needs to be backed by a Mexican company. Some US insurance providers have negotiations with Mexican insurers. For example, our insurance with USAA has a partnership with Santander, but you’re still required to get a quote from them over the phone, and we have phone anxiety. So,
When our San Diego buddies tipped us off about Baja Bound, we decided to give it a try. You can get a quote online in just a matter of minutes and easily adjust your coverage times based on how long your trip is. You at least need to have liability coverage in Mexico,
As it’s legally required and could get you in trouble if you’re in an accident and you don’t have this. But we opted for full coverage, just to be on the safe side. Baja Bound also has discounts if you’re just visiting Baja California and Sonora. And if you go over the border often,
It may be worth it to sign up for a six-month or yearly plan since the daily rates do add up. Other things to have with you if you’re driving are your car registration and license. It’s possible none of these documents will be asked of you at the border, but you need them just
In case you’re pulled over by authorities. If you plan to venture beyond Baja California, you will need a temporary import permit, which has other requirements we aren’t covering in this video. Regardless if you are taking a car or not, you need your passport to
Enter both the USA and Mexico, and a visa if you’re a foreigner entering the USA. Oh hey, look, we’re in San Diego already. It’s border crossing day. Yeah, we just arrived last night, almost at midnight, and then we have some sleep,
We woke up, we go for coffee, and right now we’re here. Yeah, we decided that we weren’t going to try to cross the border too early because we learned that actually the lines are coming back into the US. Seems like we’ll probably be able to drive straight through,
And we can’t check into our Airbnb till 3:00 p.m. Yeah, so we decided to spend more time over here, on this side of the border first, and figure out a couple of things to do. We’re doing two videos at once right now, filming how to cross the border,
But we’re also putting together a San Diego travel guide, so you guys will see this spot, uh, later. But we wanted to take Napa to visit her first beach, so we went to Fiesta Island. Fiesta Island, there is nothing about fiesta. You cannot have alcohol over here, in this place,
But you can see a lot of beautiful things, like a lot of people on bicycles, and of course, a lot of puppies. Yeah, uh, San Diego was one of the first places to do off-leash dog, uh, beaches in the United States, so they have some good dog beaches here. So, we figured
We’d stop here because we got to let Napa have her energy out. She is a puppy, after all. Crossing the border with dogs. If you’re not going to cross the border with a dog or with any pet,
You can skip this chapter and go to the next one, so you can see how we cross the border. For the ones that they’re going to take their pet with y’all, you need to know a couple of things. Uh,
The first one is, you need to have their vaccines in order, and, uh, we have it printed by our doctor, and, uh, especially the one that is, uh, anti-rabies. Rabies, that’s the one that they’re going to check. It could be that they don’t ask us for this,
But again, it’s better to have it. The second thing that is very important is about the food. You cannot take homemade food for your dog. You need to buy it. It has to be very specific about
Like the ingredients that they have and how much you have to feed them. It has to be in the original package, so make sure you don’t put it just in a plastic bag and just try to
Take it. It has to be the original package. Also, their treats, we’re doing that, so we just bought, um, a new bag, small bag of food, the one that she’s used to, and also her treats,
But we have it closed, just in case. Yeah, we aren’t sure if it can be opened or not. That’s right. Also, make sure you don’t, you don’t know how much time you’re going to spend over there, crossing the border. It could be a day that is packed, and everybody wants to go
To Tijuana to get crazy. So, make sure they can go to the bathroom before, and also, you know, that’s why we’re taking her on a walk, so, so she’s calm, and maybe she’s going to be sleeping whenever we’re crossing the border. Yeah, and another question I imagine we’re going to get
In the comments is, do you have to have a health certificate for the dog? You do not. Ever since, since 2019, they got rid of that. You do for flying, but not for crossing the border by
Car. So, seems to be pretty easy, and from what everybody’s told us, it’s possible that we have put more work in than we’ll even be checked at the border, so let’s see what happens. Oh my gosh, we are 2 miles away. I’m feeling a little nervous. It’s crazy. I think I see Mexico from here. This is just so wild to me. I know people do this all the time, but this is one
Of the few times we’ve crossed a border by car. The only other time was like Malaysia, right? That’s right, from Malaysia to Singapore. You ready to go to Mexico? I know it’s scary, Napa, but don’t worry. Mexico’s nice, and it’s addictive. It’s so good. You’re going to fall in love with this country.
Something to Declare?The dog is not right? I don’t know. Oh, but those ones are also going to the right. I know it’s just like a separation. I don’t know. The border we are crossing at is San Ysidro, right below San Diego, and it just happens to be the busiest border crossing in the world. And there’s one other thing we forgot to tell you.
We’re going to be in Baja California for over 7 days, so we need to get an FMM card for myself and have my passport stamped. From what we read online, there would be some sort of immigration office to the right after going through the immigration lanes. We figured it would be obvious,
And that everyone would be going over there, so we wouldn’t miss it. We were just focused on the task at hand, going through the checkpoint. A picture of your car is taken, and you drive past officials that can decide to pull you over for a further inspection.
Crossing the border. I think this is the part where they can pull you over if they want to inspect you further. So I need to go straight, keep going, yeah? Okay, but we don’t have to, we don’t have to get like your…no because it’s after. We’re trying to get out of this area.
What we failed to consider was that the “something to declare” signs before we entered the checkpoint would spit you out into an area where you could easily access that immigration office we mentioned. But we didn’t think we had something to declare, but we did, myself. So we made a big mistake. We were in the wrong lane when we crossed the border, and we were not able to get to the Aduana building for my FMM. Turns out you have to be in the “something to
Declare” line in order to get over there, and we missed it. We thought there was going to be an opportunity to get over there since we’re going to be in Mexico for over 8 days, and I’m a foreigner,
I need to have the FMM card. So we have to go back to the US, which is going to take a while, but we’re going to get to experiment with the Sentri Lane now for you guys, instead of having
To fill you in in a couple of weeks. So we’re just following the global entry Sentri Lane, hopefully we can get back into the US quickly, so that we can try it again and get into the “something to document” Lane, otherwise I’d be illegal here, and we don’t want that. And
This form, by the way, is only necessary if you’re entering Mexico for more than 7 days, which we are, which is why we need to go back. All this is not good. And there we were, right in the thick of it, trying to fix our mistake amidst the chaos
Of local traffic, where it seems like no one follows the rules. We thought we’d figure out how to navigate back later, but suddenly we needed to find the Sentri Lanes without any place to stop and think. Our plan: follow the Sentri signs or use Google Maps. Turns out,
Neither was helpful. The roads here split and merge unpredictably, making it too easy to end up in the wrong lane. We found a really clear map later on. We leave a link it below that explains how to find the Sentri Lanes better than we could.
God, we’re really screwing this up. I don’t even know. We think that this is the Sentri Lane, but we’re not sure. We are not supposed to be cutting in this way. Oh, this is just a disaster… this is so confusing. It’s just so confusing. This is the craziest thing. Bikes, people selling food,
Chilling. Oh, this is Sentri, we’re in the right one, I think so. Oh my God, good. By the way, we have Global Entry, which gives us access to Sentri, so long as you have the physical Global Entry card and the car is registered to your account online. Oh,
And everyone needs to have global entry in the car, and we pull you, but Juliana just so happened to be in the trunk with the rest of all belongings that we didn’t anticipate needing this afternoon. Uh-oh, do you have it? Yep, I do have it. I do have it, mine. Did I,
Did I not take my wallet in the front? I don’t know. Am I allowed to grab it from the back? Yeah, this is just a disaster. Well, I didn’t know we’d be crossing back into the US. I had no idea. Hello there. What you guys do in Mexico?
We just crossed, and we realized I have to go get my FMM, so we’re coming back, like, like 25 minutes ago we crossed, now we need to cross again, so we can go to the right one,
And then go to this, uh, the VISA building. So we didn’t do anything. Make sure you log into your account. You got to activate your Sentri card. Oh shoot, okay, that’s right. Sorry about that. Is it okay for now? Yeah, okay. Make sure you,
Uh, do it the next time. Yeah, yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you. Oh my God. And in our rush, we overlooked a simple fix: just walk across the border to get the stamp. Yep, we kept making mistakes. That was probably the worst experience of my life. It couldn’t have
Gone worse. Well, it could have gone worse, but man, I hate being that person who’s not prepared. And we did not prepare ourselves to have to cross back into Mexico. I was prepared; you were prepared, but I wasn’t. My Global Entry was in the back, and now we’re going
To go back through Mexico. So, you know, we’re going to try it again. Practice makes perfect. And the interesting thing is, going in and out, no one asked about Napa, no one asked for car insurance. So that question is answered. You just need to make sure you’re in the right lane. So you
Want to be in the far right lane; you’re looking for the declare signs. That’s where we’re going. So we missed it again, but then we, there’s like this parking area, so we left the car over here, and we, yeah, we walked towards that migration. When we went through,
We did like a U-turn into this parking lot, and they let you go in, in reverse to the right. So you needed to get this form, the regular one, the same one that they, you usually, whenever you’re flying to Mexico, you have to fill it out,
And afterwards, you have to pay. They have a bank over there that is Banjercito. You pay; it was 700 pesos, and then you can go again, and they put the stamp in your passport. And we’re also aware that a lot of what you read online says
Like they really don’t actually care if you’re not going further than Ensenada, you probably won’t get asked for this. We just wanted to be sure we follow by the rule book, and now we’re, we know for sure that we’re all good. So thanks,
Martin. Sorry that we are from two different countries, but it kind of makes it interesting. It does. Definitely a stressful trip, but something else. Yeah, I think we tried to be prepared, and we were, but in the wrong ways. We were so focused on all the
Documents we needed, making sure our food was okay to pass, and no one even cared about that. That’s right. And also, we were, we were worried about a good video, so it was like so stressful, but right now we’re here… Yeah, and hopefully,
You guys can learn from our mistakes. And really, our mistakes only are because we are spending more than seven days here, which I imagine a lot of people aren’t. Now, Martin, I want you to share some tips about driving in Mexico, as our Insider here. What
Should the people know? You have to know that sometimes people, they don’t stop when it’s a stop sign. You have to be very careful. You always have to be aware of your surroundings whenever they don’t have to cross, like, I mean the people that they are walking. And yes,
People are very aggressive whenever they are, um, driving, especially crossing the border. Yeah, another thing to know about this specific area too is that you, we, it’s recommended not to drive at night, stick to the toll roads,
And when you’re filling up gas at the gas station, make sure that they zero out the gas tank first. They’re going to do it for you. Yeah, they’re going to do it for you. Do not get out of your car ’cause you’re not allowed to pump your own gas in Mexico.
That’s right. This is going to be only the first of our videos of our adventure over here in Baja California. So we left this one for you guys to watch next. We’re so excited to be heading
To Tijuana. Well, actually, we’re here right now, and we’re going to be filming a whole video here. We’re here for a whole week. Who knew there was so much to do in Tijuana for a whole week? So long, travel well, and make the world your neighborhood. See you guys next time. Bye!
Video “DRIVING OUR CAR AND DOG TO MEXICO – First time crossing the Mexico Border” was uploaded on 03/03/2024. Watch all the latest Videos by Tourist to Local on Gretopia