Traveling to Mexico in your RV can seem daunting, especially for the first time.
So today, I'm going to take the mystery out of crossing the border and give you some easy
steps that you can follow so you can get on your way to that sandy beach in Mexico.
Under the sun, soaking up the rays, maybe a little cold beverage with some fruit around
the side.
An umbrella, perhaps, and a straw.
Or, you could just keep it simple and do some cerveza.
All right guys, stay tuned.
Hello everyone and welcome to Story Chasing.
My name is Amber and I sold my house and quit my job so that I could chase my dreams and
travel full-time.
And now, I'm helping people just like you transition into nomadic life and beautiful
places like tropical Mexico.
So long as you know the requirements at crossing the border.
Today I'm going to give you the seven must-haves when traveling across the border to Mexico
in your RV or your car, if you're going to vacation over there.
Especially if you're going to be there for over seven days and you're traveling with
pets.
Now, I'll tell you.
When I first thought about traveling to Mexico, even in a caravan with my Escapers group,
it felt a little bit daunting to figure out all of the requirements to get across the
border.
One of my number one fears was traveling to Mexico was insurance.
Thinking about the requirements for having insurance in Mexico and making sure that my
RV was covered and safe and that if I was in an accident and it was my fault and that
the other person's vehicle was also covered.
So tell me, what is your number one fear when thinking about traveling to Mexico?
Go ahead and leave me a comment below.
Let's talk about the number one must have and my number one fear in going to Mexico
and that is insurance.
So, we're talking about car insurance, RV insurance.
I actually went with a company called Sanborn Insurance.
And, I'll provide a link down below in the description box and the pinned comments so
that you can find that.
I went with Sanborn Insurance and the reason why you want to get Mexican insurance is because
Mexico does not recognize U.S. insurance.
Even if your RV or your car is covered in the United States, you'll need to get insurance
in Mexico because if you get in an accident and you don't have insurance you could potentially
be taken to jail for it or cited and ticketed.
So, you want to make sure you have Mexico insurance.
I'm with Progressive Insurance.
I called Progressive.
I knew I was covered in Mexico but I didn't know to what extent.
So, I made sure that if I was in an accident that my vehicle would be covered and the other
vehicle would be covered as well.
I wanted to find out what would happen if I did get in an accident and what would I
need to do.
What Progressive told me is that if I was in an accident and my vehicle was incapable
of driving that my insurance would cover a tow back to the United States so that it could
get repaired.
They would not cover any charges to repair it in Mexico.
So, because Mexico does not recognize United States insurance, you need to get Mexico insurance.
Because I was completely covered in Mexico on Progressive, I decided to only get liability
in Mexico.
I also made sure that that Mexico insurance had roadside assistance even though I had
roadside assistance on my Progressive Insurance, I thought it might be a little bit easier
to have roadside assistance in Mexico on Mexico insurance should I possibly need it.
I went ahead and got that as well.
Now, I was in Mexico for 10 full days and because I'm in a van and I'm potentially going
to drive that van around for all of those 10 days or some of those 10 days, I decided
to get insurance for all 10 days while I was there.
If you have a tow vehicle, if you're in a trailer and you have a truck, you potentially
don't need to have insurance on your trailer for all days that you're going to be there.
You can just get your trailer covered for the days that you're driving into Mexico and
driving out of Mexico.
But then only cover your truck for all of the days.
That way, because you're going to be driving your truck around Mexico, so you want to make
sure that that's completely covered on all days that you're there.
But then you only have to cover your trailer for the days that you're actually driving
with the trailer in and out of Mexico.
I went ahead and covered my vehicle for 10 days, full liability.
Just to give you some basis of cost, it was $75 for me.
That's going to vary, depending on what kind of coverage that you want to get with Sanborn.
Again, I'll provide a link below so you can find that information.
So, number one, make sure you get insurance.
They might check it at the border as well, so make sure you have that before you cross
the border.
The second thing you need to have, if you have pets, is you need to make sure they have
their rabies vaccination and a health certificate.
If you go online and look at what are the requirements to get into Mexico with pets,
they're going to cite those two things.
Now, I will tell you I've been to Mexico twice with my pet.
One walking into Mexico through Los Algodones, with my dog Lily and they never asked me for
that information even though I did keep it on me.
When I traveled in my RV over there, they also did not ask me for that information but
I wouldn't go over there not having it, just in case.
Because you don't want to get to the border and then all of a sudden not be able to get
your pet over the border.
That would put a huge damper in your vacation plans and nobody wants that.
Make sure you have the health certificate and the rabies vaccination with you.
The third thing that you need in order to cross the border into Mexico is something
called an FMM.
You only need this if you're staying for over seven days.
So seven days or less, you don't need an FMM.
What is an FMM?
An FMM is basically short for a tourist visa.
I was there for 10 days so I did need to fill it out.
It's a really pretty easy form to fill out.
I actually went online to complete it.
I'll give you a little tip here, make sure you use something like Google Chrome that
has a translate button on it because the first part of filling out the form is in English,
but when you get to the payment section, it wasn't in English at all and I had no idea
what they were talking about.
I had to hit the Google Translate button and even then it did not completely translate
everything.
Especially if it was a picture on the webpage and the picture had a word that was in Spanish.
It wouldn't translate a picture, it only translates text.
I did actually have to go into Google Online and do Google Translate there as well.
Meaning, I would take the word that was in the picture and go to Google Translate, type
that word in and then tell me what it said in English.
It's really not a big deal, just make sure you have that Google Translate on.
Or, if you know Spanish, you're a little bit ahead of where I was with that.
It's very easy to fill out online.
It's basically just going to ask you, what is your entry point into Mexico.
We were entering from El Centro, California, into Mexicali.
There's a little drop down for that and you just would choose Mexicali or wherever you're
going to cross the border.
You're going to put the date that you are crossing the border into Mexico and then you're
also going to put the date that you're going to depart Mexico and cross back over the border.
Now, if that should change, if you want to extend your stay, that's completely fine.
You don't need to change your FMM.
The FMM is actually good for 180 days.
It's just a starting point for you when you cross the border.
They just want to know what's going on.
The other thing that you need to put down is where you're going to be.
If you have an RV park, like we did, we had to actually put the address of the RV park
that we were going to be staying at.
You're going to need to put some sort of address on there for where you're staying in Mexico.
Now, you may be hopping around Mexico and that's completely fine, just find a place
that you're probably going to stay at some point in time and put in that address.
It asks you for some more information like your name and your passport number, so you'll
want to complete all of that.
The next think you'll need to do is pay for the FMM.
Once you get to the payment screen, you'll put in your credit card information and then
you're going to see how much it's going to cost you and keep in mind that is in pesos,
it's not dollars, so don't freak out.
It's like 500 and something pesos.
When I paid for it my credit card statement said it was about $30 once they did the conversion.
You're going to get an email once they approve your FMM and you'll want to click on the link
inside of the email to go to the FMM form and print out your FMM.
Make sure you go ahead and print two copies while you're in there.
The other thing that you need to be aware of when filling out the FMM is that you need
to make sure you fill it out within 30 days of arrival to Mexico.
If you're thinking that you want to go to Mexico in about six months and you're super
proactive and you want to go ahead and get your paperwork done now.
Wait to fill out the FMM.
You cannot fill it out right now and have it approved six months ahead of time.
You have be within a 30 day window before you cross the border so just make sure you
keep that in mind.
The fourth thing that you're going to need is a driver's license.
Now this may seem like a stupid thing for me to tell you but yes, you definitely need
to have your driver's license.
They might check once you cross the border.
You need a license to drive.
The good thing is you don't need an international driver's license to just cross over the border
and drive into Mexico for your vacation.
So, just make sure to bring your U.S. driver's license with you.
Or, if you're Canadian, your Canadian driver's license.
The fifth thing that you're going to need is a passport.
You can take a passport card or you can also use your traditional passport.
Now, you cannot get into Mexico without that.
They no longer use a driver's license.
Maybe I'm dating myself by saying that but you used to be able to get into Mexico and
Canada with your U.S. driver's license.
You cannot do that now.
You actually have to have a passport or the passport card.
Make sure you have that with you.
They will absolutely check that at the border.
The sixth thing that you're going to need is to make sure you have your registration
and or a title with you for a car to make sure that you own it and that it's actually
registered.
They may or may not look at that.
In my case, I brought it with me, they did not look at it.
But you always want to make sure you have it, just in case.
You don't want to get into Mexico or get to the border and they turn you around because
you don't have the proper identification to prove that you actually own your vehicle that
you're in.
So, make sure that you bring that with you.
The seventh thing that you're going to need, that's only six fingers, the seventh think
that you're going to need is a copy of all of the information that I just told you you
needed.
You want to make sure you have an additional backup copy.
Just in case it gets lost, or they happen to take it for some reason.
Just have an additional backup so that you can have your passport number on there, your
driver's license number.
Any of your pertinent information like your insurance and everything so that you can have
it handy in case it's lost or it's taken from you.
So, those are the seven things that you're going to need.
Now let's talk about actually crossing the border.
Before I actually got to the border, I put all of my documentation into a little binder
like this.
And then I kept this up in the front seat with me so that I could access it easily if
I needed to.
I even put my passport in there where it was right here on the front.
I made sure that, again, that was accessible to me in the front so that I could grab it
really quickly.
When I actually got to the border, you have to park your vehicle and then go into the
Customs office so that you can show them your passport and show them your FMM card.
They're going to stamp the FMM document and they're going to, obviously, look up your
passport to make sure that you're good to go into Mexico.
One of the reasons that I made sure that everything was inside of here too, is that I could just
grab this pouch, go into the Customs office and show them all of my documentation so that,
hopefully, I can make the process as easy and painless as possible.
And, hopefully get through the border very, very quickly.
The other thing is that there's a border agent that will want to come into your RV and inspect
it.
One of the things I did before I went to the Mexico border crossing, the night before,
was that I made sure that my RV was inspection-friendly.
What I mean by that is, if I open this cabinet up, is everything going to fall out of it
if they open it up and inspect inside.
So, I made sure ... That happens in a van, by the way, or an RV.
Things jostle around when you're driving.
So, I made sure everything was tight in there.
It was not going to fall out if they went to open it and inspect it.
I made sure that that was done all throughout the RV.
One of the things that you want to make sure of is you are not taking anything illegal
or that is prohibited into Mexico.
The two number one very large things that are a no-no to take into Mexico is one, firearms.
Can't take those in guys.
No firearms, no ammo.
The second one is no drugs.
So, I'm talking about illegal drugs.
Seems like a no-brainer.
There are also recreational drugs, in the United States, that are legal now, like marijuana.
You want to make sure that you're not taking those over into Mexico.
It is not legal there and you will be arrested for that if it's found.
They do have drug-sniffing dogs around the border so make sure you keep that in the United
States.
One thing that you can do for items that you can't take into Mexico is to find a friend
who can keep them for you.
Or, just go get a storage locker and put all of that inside there.
So, you just want to make sure that everything in your RV is inspection-friendly and ready
for them to board and look through.
The cleaner you have it, the less things that will fall out.
I feel like the easier it's going to be on them and the easier it's going to be on you.
Just make sure that's all set and ready to go before you get to the border.
Guys, I'm going to make this so easy for you.
I'm providing a checklist on my blog that shows you exactly everything that you need
to do to cross the border so make sure you click that link below in the description box
or in the pinned comment to get that checklist.
And remember, Create Do Live everyday.
Right over here, there's another video on traveling to Mexico.
Click that playlist so you can find more videos on everything related to traveling to Mexico
and how I spent my time in Mexico traveling around San Felipe.
All right guys, I'll see you in the next video.