Will this be your first time in Mexico? Are you heading down to Baja, to the Riviera Maya, or to one of the Spanish Colonial cities in the interior?
If this is your first trip to Mexico, it will probably feel a bit strange, even if you’re headed to Cancun, with the usual hurdles you encounter when visiting a foreign country. This one gets more Americans and Canadians than any other though, so they’re used to hosting foreigners. Here’s what to be aware of and prepare for ahead of your vacation.
Data, Texting, and Phone Calls in Mexico
We’re now at point where people’s faces are glued to their smart phone half the time they’re awake, but too often they don’t think about how that phone is going to work in a different country. If you have a good T-Mobile plan, then you can call, text, or surf between Canada, the USA, and Mexico no problem. If you don’t though, you’re probably going to pay extra to stay online while not on Wi-Fi.
You could pay your carrier an extra $5 or $10 per day, or you could get a physical SIM card on site from the likes of Telcel or Movistar. A better bet though is to get a Mexico data eSIM so you can just use your apps and surf the web the whole time you’re away. You know the price up front and you won’t have to pay more unless you use up all the data. If that happens, you top up the balance on your phone, nobody to call or e-mail.
All hotels and resorts in Mexico have reasonably fast Wi-Fi now and it’s usually included in the rates. The only exceptions are a few places tacking on a silly “resort fee” on top the rate that’s really just a way to reach into your pocket again. Those are not nearly as common as they are in the states though, fortunately.
Some hotels have smart TVs where you can log into streaming accounts or you can cast from your device. Just be advised that some services don’t work outside the USA or you’ll have very few choices available to watch—the case with Amazon Prime. Netflix is actually better in Mexico than in is the USA though thanks to a wider selection of good movies.
Navigating the Airport After Landing
It’s always a bit uncomfortable to land in a new country with a different language, but Mexico gets 30 to 40 million foreign tourists each year, so they’re used to dealing with first-time visitors to the country. You can’t assume the immigration officers or others you encounter will speak English, especially outside of the resort areas, but signage will be clear and there’s usually no question about where you’ll need to go when you leave the airplane cabin.
The immigration officer may ask you how long you’re going to stay and if you need the whole 180 days that’s the maximum, be prepared with any documentation showing you’ve got a return ticket and place to stay. If you’re just coming on vacation for a week or two, it shouldn’t matter. They’ll stamp your passport and you’ll head to the baggage area. There used to be a piece of paper to hang onto from a form you filled out, but now it’s all electronic.
If you are traveling with a carry-on, go straight to the “Nothing to Declare” line. If not, wait for your bag to arrive first and then do that. The wait could be short or a half hour, depending on how busy the airport is. (Mexico City is usually the slowest.)
You may have to hand them a filled-out customs form, but it’s not consistent from city to city. In some airports you will press a button to proceed. Red means they will open your bags for inspection. Green means you usually put them through an x-ray machine and then exit, or sometimes there’s no x-ray and you just leave.
Once you leave baggage claim, the scene can span the gamut of an almost-empty airport, one that’s thronged with family members holding signs and flowers, or complete mayhem with “helper” touts trying to get you into an overpriced taxi or get you onto a timeshare tour. Cancun is the absolute worst, so plow forward and ignore anyone asking you or telling you anything. At best it’s a sales pitch, at worst an outright lie.
At the non-beach airports, there’s usually a pre-paid taxi desk that’s priced according to zone. You tell them where you’re going (centro is the city center, otherwise a resort name) and they tell you the price. In Mexico City there may be 10 or 12 companies trying to pull you in but that’s just competitive zeal: they are legit.
In madhouse Cancun, you’ll have dozens of touts all shouting at you and it can be really disconcerting. It’s worth it to arrange a driver or hotel transfer ahead of time. Then they’ll have the name of the hotel or the shuttle company on a sign. In many cities you can use Uber, but in others the taxi mafia has a chokehold on airport transportation.
If you do set up transportation ahead of time, know that large airports have multiple terminals and you need to make sure the driver knows which one to meet you at. Mexico City’s two terminals are on opposite sides of the runways and Cancun’s terminals are a confusing mess of buildings with different gated entrances.
If there’s a hotel shuttle, you may have to wait a while for it to fill up if they’re expecting more people on incoming flights. At the Cancun and Los Cabos airports there’s a bar outside where you can get a drink while you wait to get the vacation started.
Rental Cars in Mexico
If you rent a car in Los Cabos, Huatulco, Queretaro, or Leon/Guanajuato, it will probably be a straightforward affair to get to the rental counter and start the process because the airports have plenty of space. In other cities it can be more difficult because they’ve run out of land (Puerto Vallarta), everyone is trying to scam you (Cancun), or no sane person rents a car there (Mexico City).
Don’t expect anything related to rental cars to work smoothly and efficiently like it does in most of the world, especially the grab-and-go USA. No rental car worker ever seems to be in a hurry in Mexico and with cars costing as much or more than they do in far richer countries, every tiny defect and scratch will get someone’s attention. Photograph and video the car you are assigned and make sure every nick or dent is noted in their records too before you drive off.
Manual shift cars are much more common than automatic ones, so you’ll pay more for the latter. They’re also smaller. If you get a “compact” it really will be compact: that’s one of them above.
You do usually get A/C though. What you don’t get is liability insurance, which is required and not covered by your home policy or credit card. It is an add-on that you can’t decline. So this is where the scammers really go to work, trying to tack on $25, $40, or more per day to your already agreed-upon rental price. A liability policy should really only be $12 to $15 per day tops, so anything above that is profit they are pocketing.
The only way to be sure they’re not going to pull a bait-and-switch on you at the counter is to rent from a company where the liability coverage is already included in the quoted rate. The best bets are usually Hertz, Avis, and Mex Rent-a-Car. Triple-check this and make sure you have it in writing by paper or on your phone. The worst are Budget and Europcar: they are famous for listing very low daily rates and then scamming you on an inflated liability policy at pickup.
Then stay under the speed limit and be aware of the road rules. This is especially true of Nayarit, the state right above Puerto Vallarta, where I’ve personally been pulled over and hit up for a bribe three times now. (It hasn’t happened to me in anywhere else.) If you don’t pay on the spot and support the cop’s taco fund, they’ll confiscate your driver’s license and you have to go to the station later to pay.
See a dedicated post here on renting a car in Mexico – what to expect.
Tipping in Mexico
There are really two sets of rules for tipping in Mexico. First are the areas filled with gringos where the staffers expect gringo tips. There you can go by what you would tip in the states. The cultural differences are that locals never tip taxi drivers but they do tip grocery baggers and parking attendants. The places where they are used to high US-level tips would include the best-known beach resort areas on both coasts, any cruise ship port, San Miguel de Allende, and Lake Chapala.
In the rest of the country, 10% is normal in restaurants. More at a fancy place with good service, less or even zero at a family owned market stall. Bartenders and baristas don’t generally get tipped the insane amount American ones do, especially if they’re just handing you a bottle or a cup.
Tour guides and drivers will probably expect a tip and it’s better to err on the side of giving too much than not enough. The same with bellhops and concierges. The average service worker wages in Mexico are measured in the hundreds, not thousands, so tips can make a big difference for their family well-being.
Watch for double-dipping at luxury resorts in Mexico though. Many of them will automatically add on a “service fee” that’s anywhere from 10% to 18%. This goes on the bill of everything you order, from a cup of coffee at the take-out place to a romantic 5-course tasting dinner with wine. Gallingly, they’ll still leave a place on the bill for you marked “tip” or “propina,” even though this is essentially an extra charge on top of an extra charge. So if you don’t notice the first add-on and put down 15% on top, you can end up paying $33 in gratuities on a $100 meal.
Spanish Outside the Resort Areas
Yes, they speak English in Cancun. And most people you will encounter as a tourist do in Puerto Vallarta, Los Cabos, Tulum, and Playa del Carmen. Once you get beyond these fly-in resort areas though, the English thins out and Spanish takes over.
Some residents of San Miguel de Allende never get past the basics because the city is flooded with foreigners and it’s the same in Ajijic, by Lake Chapala. These areas are exceptions though. If you’re venturing out beyond the cities full of all-inclusive resorts, you’ll probably need Google Translate, Deepl, or SpanishDict to get by. Most menus aren’t in English at restaurants and a whole lot of taxi/Uber drivers will be talking to you in Spanish.
All of this is part of the travel adventure though, so bring a positive attitude and enjoy your first visit to Mexico!
Making plans now? See the most extensive set of expert reviews anywhere on the web for luxury hotels and resorts in Mexico.
