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Tijuana to San Diego Help


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Making an emergency trip to US in the morning and for a complicated reason have to fly to Tijuana and get to San Diego airport. Anyone who has done this or has suggestions, I'd love to hear from you!!

Gracias

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I do this frequently but only to downtown SD. First I would leave the TJ airport by taxi to the San Ysidro, not the Otay Mesa border crossing. I paid $170 pesos in February by negotiating with the guys on the sidewalk down from $220.00 pesos. The taxi lets you off on the pedestrian walkway 1 block and a half from where you enter the US border station area. If you have a US passport card you can walk up to the entrance and show the CPB officer it and get in the shorter line for the 5 "Ready Lanes". If not wait at the end of the line, usually 1 hour or so except on Sundays, longer. I did it last time at 10:30 PM on a Sunday night in a rain storm and was the only person there. 5 minutes and I was on the trolley. Unfortunately there were drunks on the trolley.

The trolley stops running about 1 to 1:30 AM Mon. thru Sat, and 11:30 PM to 12:00 AM or so on Sundays.

Once you leave the US border station walk 50 feet to the San Diego trolley and buy a ticket from their machine, select the 50% off ticket for seniors if you are 60 or over and it has room for suitcases. Take this "Green Line" trolley to downtown to the American Plaza, the end of the line for $1.25 each. You need a $5.00 bill or less and can buy multiple tickets before getting change. Then get off there and walk across the trolley tracks and the street and take a taxi to the SD airport at the Amtrack Santa Fe station. The taxi should cost under $15.00 US.

It should take about 90 minutes to 2 hours or more to downtown SD. A taxi from the border station to the SD airport is now about $60.00 US.

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Alan ... worked perfect!! Taxi to border, walked across, trolley to downtown and a quarter block walk to get the bus to SD airport.

On the return, when we walk into Mexico, what do the INM folks ask to see/require? I have Permenante card but wife only has paper receipt showing she's applied for Permenante.

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I think that your wife may have a problem, since she actually has no visa and should have purchased an “exit letter“ from INM before departing Mexico. The Tramite NUT letter that she holds is not good for international travel, but can be used as temporary ID only within Mexico. If she fills out an FMM as a tourist, she will likely lose her RP application and the fees, reverting to tourist status. She cannot fill out the FMM as Residente Permanente, as it has not yet been issued.

If I were her, I would hope to be able to walk into Mexico without incident or encounter, lake a day-tripper, then hop a bus further into the country; La Paz or Hermosillo perhaps, before trying to board a plane for your final destination.

You did not indicate that either of you checked out with INM, so you both should try to avoid INM when walking back in, I guess.

Maybe Spencer will chime in on this problem.

Good luck.

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Does this mean that the lines to walk across have gotten shorter at San Ysidro? After I waited for over 3 hours in the hot sun on a Friday afternoon, I have been crossing at Otay.

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As

Does this mean that the lines to walk across have gotten shorter at San Ysidro? After I waited for over 3 hours in the hot sun on a Friday afternoon, I have been crossing at Otay.

Having done this once, I will NEVER, EVER do it again. The line was terrible.

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Does this mean that the lines to walk across have gotten shorter at San Ysidro? After I waited for over 3 hours in the hot sun on a Friday afternoon, I have been crossing at Otay.

If you cross in the shorter wait time at the Otay Mesa crossing the bus service is spotty there and a taxi to the SD airport is over $65.00 US. You add more time waiting for a bus to take you to the IRIS trolley station [never attempt to take the several busses to downtown] and trying to find out where the proper bus stop is etc. 3 hours is not the normal wait time anymore but does happen on occasion. They have shade the last 1/2 block before you get to the San Ysidro border station entrance and shade inside. A passport card, which I have, gets you way up in line when there is a long wait on the sidewalk.

If someone is picking me up on the US side I take Otay. A taxi from the TJ airport is usually $150.00 pesos. Otherwise I take San Ysidro and the trolley and get picked up downtown. The longest I have waited there in 10 years is 1 1/2 hours.

http://traffic.calit2.net/border/border-wait-times.php?type=pedestrian⊂=standard&port=250401

This chart shows the wait time for the pedestrian line and rarely is over 80 minutes lately.

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Alan ... worked perfect!! Taxi to border, walked across, trolley to downtown and a quarter block walk to get the bus to SD airport.

On the return, when we walk into Mexico, what do the INM folks ask to see/require? I have Permenante card but wife only has paper receipt showing she's applied for Permenante.

I cross from San Ysidro into Mexico often on foot, Otay Mesa crossing a few times on foot.

Here is exactly what to expect crossing at San Ysidro, I did it again in March, as I have seen this same senario for over a year.

It will not be a problem for you or your wife.

Baja Calif. is a "Free Zone". There are no Mexican Immigration officers asking for documents when crossing. You have to walk to their office on the other side of a walkway bridge over the vehicle traffic lanes once in Mexico if you want to see them. Otherwise you will be in Mexico and legal.

At the TJ airport you are not asked for any Immigration documents anymore, they used to have an INM officer sitting at a desk when passing security check into the baggage dropoff counters and he could if he wanted to asked you to show him a document, he usually just sat there, but took out both him and the X-ray machines and moved security to the entrance into the walkway to and from the gates after you check baggage etc. and no INM officer sitting there and left the ADUANA agents and their Red light/ Green light button. They usually are not paying attention and many people don´t even push the button. If they get a red light they wave you on anyways if you don´t look suspicious, I think. In Guadalajara you will not be asked for any immigration documents on National flights either.

If the clerk at the baggage counter asks for photo ID I show my RT card or passport card they never have asked for any INM visa or FMM cards yet. They just want to see a photo ID.

Crossing the border from the trolley in San Ysidro is now this.

You get off the trolley walk across the trolley tracks and the street down the lane where McDonalds is behind the small stores on a wide sidewak marked To Mexico for about 2/3 of a block. This walkway is a ramp that takes you up to a very small room above a store right on the border on the Mexican side of their walkway to the US border station. You pass through one of the 2 large turnstiles large enough for you and a large suitcase. Here there are 2 ADUANA agents, a Red light/Green light button and a table and also a military person with a rifle. The room is so small if they asked even a couple of people to open their suitcases it would cause a jam up. If they ask you to, open your luggage on the table for them, if not keep walking out the door and down the ramp or stairs and onto the walkway/sidewalk in Mexico and to the taxi stand 1 1/2 blocks [same place they dropped you off] in the opposite direction from the entrance to the US border station where people might be standing in line.

Otay Mesa crossing same, no INM officer and Mexicali same, no INM officer, you need to go find their office once in Mexico if you need to.

The INM kiosk at the TJ airport is roughly in the middle of the airport´s lobby. They won´t bother you and you do not bother them unless you need a FMM tourist card. They will not stamp passports out of Mexico or take a FMM tourist card when leaving Mexico. They will send you to San Ysidro or their Otay Mesa office for that. I think they will stamp a passport into Mexico though I am not sure if you need to be getting a FMM card. .

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Alan:

You have been WEALTH of information and I THANK you! I can breathe a sigh of relief with this info. There will be no need to seek out INM, so hopefully just keep truckin' and grab a cab to a hotel in Tijuana with airport shuttle service for an early flight to GDL the next morning.

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