Tijuana Border Crossing

This week’s travel theme is Mexico and today we are at one of the busiest border crossings in the world – where Tijuana in Mexico becomes San Ysidro in the United States.

It’s possible to catch a tram (or light rail, to be more accurate) from the heart of San Diego right to the border at San Ysidro – and then a 5 minute walk later and you are in Mexico.

Coming back, however, takes quite a bit longer.

There are two pedestrian crossings into the US – and it’s not unusual to take 20 minutes or more to get past the Homeland Security checkpoints to reenter the US on foot, especially if you enter via the 3-gate checkpoint rather than the 16-gate one.

But even that pales into insignificance if you want to cross by car.

The AVERAGE wait time to cross by car is 60 minutes. Of course, at peak times (and especially late at night on a Sunday) that can blow out to double, or even triple that.

But even on a normal weekday afternoon (when this shot was taken) the queues can be astounding.

No wonder that vendors walk up and down between the cars, to sell food, and drinks, and all manner of things.

I mentioned that the border crossing here is busy. How busy?

By some estimates, there are 30 MILLION crossings each year.

That’s more than the population of Australia crossing at a single border point every year.