Communication and entertainment are essential when traveling through Mexico, especially in an RV. Here are a few hints and tips to know while on the go.
Entertainment: Unless you are carrying a satellite dish (which we do not) you can pretty much forget about TV in Mexico. Your over the air signal will only pick up a few poor Spanish language signals.
We do carry a portable Sirius/XM satellite radio with us. It has been invaluable in many cases. The year that Hurricane Wilma hit we would have driven right into the eye of the storm if we had not had our radio. We also have an iPod touch which we download pod casts to help entertain us on the long drive. Plus we carry a hard drive of movies to watch in the evenings on our computer or through our TV.
Communication: Mexican cell phones are cheap and easy to get. You can buy a basic Telcel phone with $100mxp credit on it at any OXXO convenience store for about $300-$400mxp, this will allow you to talk and text.
Or you can pick up a Telcel chip for about $150mxp and put it into your unlocked North American phone. A couple of things to keep in mind when buying a phone. Your area code will be wherever you buy the phone and you eventually will need to go into a Telcel office to registrar your phone/chip with your passport to get rid of that annoying recording that you get every time you make a call.
At Telcel offices in Mexico you can also buy a USB modem (Módems USB) that holds a chip and allows you to buy data packages so that you can surf on the 3G network via your laptop. This works great if you happen to be camping in an area where there is good cell service. We have found this extremely handy and have even watched football games over our stick. We carry a smart phone that takes the same chip, so we just switch the chip between our smartphone and the USB stick as needed.
Coming up next…
Crossing the Border
