Mexico Road Trip Travel Blog Adventure Mexican Insurance Services - MexAdventure.com

Camping tip of the day - Dust Brush & Pan will keep your vehicle dirt and sand free

Bring a dust brush and dust pan.

In Baja, everything is dusty or sandy, so every time you get in your car, your shoes bring clumps of dust and sand in with them.  If you go for a walk on the beach, you can carry globs of wet sand into your car.

If you set a cooler or a chair outside on the ground, it will also have dirt and sand stuck to it.

After a few days, you could suddenly find the interior of your vehicle and all of your possessions covered in sand and dirt (really not cool if it gets into your bedding).

Solution:  A simple dust brush will work miracles.  Once you get in the habit of brushing off your shoes, feet, and cargo before putting them in your vehicle – you can say adios to the dirt and sand that seemed to breed inside your vehicle.

Most dust brushes come with a handy dust pan – the whole combo pack is about $4-$5 at a hardware store.

A simple fix to an annoying problem.

0 comments - Posted by Jeff Nordahl at 3:34 PM - Categories: Baja Road Trips | Mexico Road Trips - Mainland Mexico | Mexico Travel

Mexico Road Trip – Tip of the Day – Bring 3 Photo Copies of All Documents with you to Mexico

Getting your vehicle stolen is bad enough – but now you do not have your Mexican insurance paperwork to help you file an insurance claim.  And even worse, your passport was in the vehicle, so now you do not even have the correct identification to get across the US border!  What a nightmare.

To avoid this hellish fiasco – we always recommend making photo copies of all of your important documents and keeping them in a number of safe places inside your vehicle and outside of your vehicle. 

We suggest keeping these photo copies in your wallet, glove compartment, and keep a set of photo copies with your family back in the US.  Heaven forbid – if your vehicle and wallet got stolen, you could still contact your family in the US so they could quickly locate your insurance and passport information.

You would not believe how many people keep all of their important travel documents solely in their vehicle glove compartment.  Then, if their vehicle is stolen – the cascade of confusion starts.  They don’t know who to call to report the Mexican insurance claim because all of their Mexican insurance paperwork was in the car.  Their passport also went adios because it was in the glove compartment – so it will now take hours to get back across the border (if flying, you may be required to fly to Tijuana, then walk across the border after a lengthy interrogation).

Solution:  Adventure Mexican Insurance supplies our customers with pre-printed wallet sized Mexican insurance ID cards that you can cut out and place in your wallet at the time you print your Mexican insurance from our website.

As far as your passport, it is much easier to get through the customs madness if you have a photo copy of your passport with your passport ID number.  So keeping a photo copy of your passport in your wallet is a great idea.

We also recommend keeping photo copies of your vehicle registration in your wallet as well in case you need to prove ownership of your vehicle – this is required if your vehicle were impounded for any reason.

3 minutes worth of photo copying can save your hours and hours of headaches in the event of an emergency – hope that helps!

Even better advice – Don’t get your vehicle or wallet stolen.  Be smart, and park in secure areas.  Try to keep an eye on your vehicle at all times (especially in towns within a few hours of the border).

2 comments - Posted by Jeff Nordahl at 9:00 PM - Categories: Baja Road Trips | Mexico Road Trips - Mainland Mexico

Mexico Camping – Tip of the Day – Bring a head mounted flashlight

This may sound like a small trivial detail – but trust me, while camping in the dark in Baja you want your own light source, and you want both hands available.  A hand held flashlight becomes an annoying utensil when you are trying to cook, clean dishes, fillet a fish, open a beer, or any other camping task in the dark. (don't expect your frinds to volunteer to hold your flashlight for you)  Wearing a head lamp is a liberating experience that will make all of these camping tasks easy because both of your hands are now free to accomplish whatever needs to get done.  Most head lamps cost around $20 at camping and sporting goods stores.  You may also want to consider a some type of lantern as well – especially for groups who set up a table where everyone eats and congregates, but try getting a battery powered lantern.  Many people hate the smell of fuel fired lanterns, and they are also a fire hazard.

Good hands-free lighting is especially important during the winter months when the sun goes down between 5:00 – 6:00.  Without good convenient lighting, you will be forced to fumble around for hours with an annoying hand held flashlight (or eat dinner by 5pm and go straight to bed).

Hope that helps - have fun!

2 comments - Posted by Jeff Nordahl at 8:39 AM - Categories: Baja Road Trips | Mexico Road Trips - Mainland Mexico

Mexico Road Trip – Tip for the Day - Fill Your Gas Tank Frequently

Never allow your gas tank to go below half a tank.

There are two reasons for this:

1: In Baja and other remote areas of Mexico, it is not uncommon for certain Pemex stations to be closed or out of gas.  Also, in central Baja – between San Quintin to Guerrero Negro – there are hardly any Pemex stations.  When we drove through Catavina, the small Pemex station was closed.  This meant we had a stretch of driving over 200 miles without a gas station!  You do not want to run out of gas in Mexico, so fill up frequently.

2: The other reason to always keep your gas tank filled to over half full is mechanical.  Every once in a while we hear reports of some bad gas being sold in Mexico.  While this is not a frequent occurrence, you can protect yourself by filling up frequently instead of letting your gas tank get below a quarter tank.  The principal is this: If you get some old gas that is slightly dirty or old, then your vehicle will handle it much better if it is mixed with other good gas.  But if you run your gas tank until it is almost empty, then fill your entire gas tank with some lower quality gas, your vehicle will then need to run on 100% bad gas.  By filling up every time your tank get s below  ¾ of a tank, then you will always be diluting any potential gas that may not be of the highest quality with the ¾ tank of quality gas you already have in the tank.

That is your Mexico road trip tip of the day!  Hope it helps – happy travels!

5 comments - Posted by Jeff Nordahl at 11:13 AM - Categories: Baja Road Trips | Mexico Road Trips - Mainland Mexico | Mexico Travel

Baja Highway is on the mend after heavy rains

Over the past week – January 21-26, heavy rains caused a lot of flooding of the roadways in Baja.  Fortunately, it sounds like most of the bridges and washed portions of road are already being repaired or temporary detours have been arranged.  As of January 29, it sounds like all of Baja Highway 1 is flowing again, but some of the other roadways like San Felipe to Ensanada Highway may be difficult driving for a few more days.

Luckily for tourists, it is in the best financial interest of Baja to get the highways flowing as quickly as possible.  The agriculture business grinds to a halt if the highways are not passable.  So Baja quickly dedicates resources and creativity to get the highways and agriculture shipments moving.

Most reports are saying that the roads south of Ensenada in San Quintin, El Rosario, and San Vicente are where most of the road damage occurred.  As of January 28, it sounds like detours and fixes have been established for all of these areas.

Here are some articles about the road conditions in Baja after the rains.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/jan/26/baja-bridge-damage-stymies-buses-large-trucks/

http://thepacker.com/Rains-close-Baja-road--halt-strawberry-shipments/Article.aspx?articleid=980257&authorid=680&categoryid=122&feedid=217

1 comments - Posted by Jeff Nordahl at 11:35 AM - Categories:

Mexico Road Trip Favorite Songs

Best Mexico road trip songs, a list of great songs for driving in Mexico

Read more...

1 comments - Posted by Jeff Nordahl at 2:30 PM - Categories: Baja Road Trips | Mexico Road Trips - Mainland Mexico

The Importance of Medical Payments on Your Mexican Auto Insurance

The Medical Payments coverage section of your Mexican auto insurance policy is designed to pay for medical costs for the passengers of your vehicle.  Many customers do not pay much attention to the medical payments section when purchasing their Mexican auto insurance - but I will provide you with a real life situation where the medical payments amounts have made a huge difference in how the customer's insurance claim has been handled.

Most Mexican auto insurance policies come standard Medical Payments limits of $2,000 per person up to $10,000 per accident.  This means that the Mexican auto insurance will pay up to $2,000 in medical expenses for each passenger of the vehicle up to a total payment of $10,000.  So to maximize the benefit, the insurance would pay for 5 people for $2,000 each.

We highly recommend purchasing Mexican auto insurance with the higher limits of $5,000 per person up to a total of $25,000 per accident.

We recently got word of the following insurance claim:

There was a serious accident that resulted in multiple injuries to the passengers of the insured vehicle. The Mexican auto insurance claims adjuster was able to pay the hospital $2,000 for each passenger who was injured, but the medical bills totaled more than $4,000 for each person.  So the customer was responsible for paying all costs above the $2,000 per person.  The hospital then refused to release the patients until their medical bills were paid in full.  Needless to say, this became quite a nightmare for the customers.

For this reason, we strongly encourage you to purchase our Mexican insurance policies which include the higher Medical Payments amounts.  Higher medical payments cost less than one dollar per day!

We also encourage you to check with your US health insurance provider to find out if your US health insurance will cover you while traveling in Mexico.  You should also find out how to contact your US health insurance from Mexico in case you need to their assistance.

0 comments - Posted by Jeff Nordahl at 12:12 PM - Categories: Mexico Travel