Recently I was in San Diego on a trip that was mainly inspired by having to stay at Kimpton hotels a few more nights to maintain my Inner Circle status for next year. Plus, I had never been to San Diego, or anywhere in Southern California, plus it was starting to get cold in Michigan and that’s just no fun.

I was traveling with The Flying Consultant and while we were brainstorming things to do I half-jokingly said we should take a day trip to Tijuana. Later on in the trip after doing a bit more research and talking to a friend who had recently been there we decided it was actually worth a day trip, and we felt that the safety concerns were minimal.

We got up early on a Saturday morning to catch the trolley down to the border. It was about a 40 minute ride there, and then another 5 minute walk to the Mexico side. We didn’t even have to go through immigration going that direction, which I was pretty surprised by.

The two main areas of Tijuana that are more “touristy” and generally better patrolled by police are Avenida Revolución and Zona Norte (aka the Red Light District). From the boarder it is about a 15 minute walk though a safe feeling area with plenty of bars, restaurants, and shops to get to Avenida Revolución. We walked about that area for a while and then headed toward Zona Norte… it was definitely the Red Light District, though quite different from Amsterdam’s. We walked through the streets a bit until we found……

TACOS.

Like, the best tacos I have ever had in my life. They were so good that I couldn’t even stop for long enough to take a picture. They were made in one of those street vendor food carts. And they were a dollar. For a huge, awesome, amazing, scrumptious taco sent from the magical kingdom of tacos. I believe in that place now because of how good it was. So, definitely go to Tijuana for the tacos.

I just did a ton of searching on google maps street view, and I *think* the taco stand was on the South-East corner of Calle Coahuila and 5 de Mayo.

Anyway, as we were heading back to the boarder, we saw some dancers, which was a lot of fun. Going back across the boarder took about 30 minutes, but if I had remembered to bring my Global Entry card we could have gone though the fast lane and it would have taken about 10. So yeah, if you have that, and you’re going to Mexico across a land boarder, make sure you actually have it with you!

I felt safe the whole time I was in Tijuana, and next time I’m in Southern California I will definitely want to go back for some more yummy tacos!