There are quite a few big differences between Mexican campgrounds and your standard North American campgrounds. Camping in Mexico offers challenges you wouldn’t think of north of the border. Here are a few hints and tips that we have found helpful in our 13 years.
Water Pressure: There usually is very little water pressure in Mexican campgrounds, certainly not enough for a good shower. Our work around is to fill our tank up with water and use our own pump. Simple, but it works. This water is not potable, so be sure to stock up on bottled water.
No Air Conditioning: You know that nice big air conditioner you have on the top of your unit, get used to just looking at it in lust on those hot nights because that is all it is good for. If you were to run it at most places you may take out the power to the whole town. You may be plugged into 120 volts, but most places do not have the amperage to run your unit. We always carry two fans, one 120 volt and another 12 volt that plugs into our battery power for those inevitable nights we end up parking at a Pemex.
Electricity: Electricity is dodgy at best in most campgrounds. There are three things that we recommend carrying with you. One is an electrical meter that you can plugin inside your unit. This will show you how many volts you are at and let you know if you have enough power to run your microwave. You may find it entertaining to watch as your voltage meter drops from 120v to 106v when you hit start on your oven. Don’t even think about using your toaster at the same time as microwave, you will pop a breaker for sure!
The other thing that we have frequently run into is reverse polarity. In the past we have plugged in our trailer to find that the metal frame becomes a huge conductor giving you a shock every time you get into your trailer. A work around for this is to use your jumper cables to ground your unit by hooking them to the back bumper and a ground pole. We usually carry an electricity tester that tells us when to expect this.
The third thing we bring along is a surge protector. You can plug your entire unit into this to protect you from those inevitable spikes and brown outs in the not so stable power you can expect.
