Urban camping

A couple of years ago, while reading about trips to South America, I read about how a couple had parked their Westy in front of the main square in San Ignacio, in Baja California Sur, and called it a night. For some reason, I guess because of my acquired sensibilities after living in the US for so long, I thought this was extremely weird. Normal people don’t sleep in vans in the street! What would people say? What if a cop comes knocking at night and we have to find a hotel at 4am? I was never too concerned about safety–just about what the locals would think. By the time we set off, I had relaxed this a bit. The first time we did some urban camping was the day that the rain stopped us from leaving La Paz. We run into The Dangerz shortly after driving back into town, and ended up parked just behind them for the night.

Other than that night, Baja was mostly about either camping in a nice beach or staying at some cheap hotel in the bigger towns. Once in the mainland, and after a few nights in a hotel due to Moctezuma’s revenge, we camped for one night in front of the lake, in Ajijic.

In Tapalpa, we just parked in front of the church for two nights.

And in Morelia, it was raining so hard that we stayed in the van, in front of the first hotel where w asked if they accepted dogs. Milo is our excuse to not go to expensive hotels.

In Guanajuato it was great. For the first two nights, we just parked in one of the calles subterráneas. There was always a cop standing around when we woke up in the morning. No questions asked, just a polite “Buenos días.”



For the third night in Guanajuato, we paid $10 to park in a gated lot that closed for the night, on top of the hill overlooking the city. The view was worth a lot more than $10.



Now we are in San Miguel de Allende, a Disneyfied Mexican town for American and Canadian retirees. Parked next to a park with the pop up, mind you.

We are donating all the hotel savings to the Stephanie and Juan travel fund.
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