Why I Turned Back: The Baja Was Too Dangerous to Drive Alone

The Baja dream I chased turned into a lesson in personal safety — a solo traveler’s harsh reality check in Tijuana.

I recently shared part one of this story, but felt they should be separated, because this is a whole other story in itself. But, if you’d like to read the previous article about how one kiss, after 12 years of friendship, opened up a whole can of worms, start here.

This story is about how I decided to drive to Cabo San Lucas from San Diego, on my own (well, with my wonderful dog) to visit that man that I kissed.

Before you go assuming that I’m naive to how dangerous this was, trust me. I’m aware, and I weighed the risks, I did my research, and I’m not your average person…I’ve been through a lot in my life, I’ve seen a lot and been in some very dodgy situations, so I felt confident in myself and had a solid game plan in place to drive it in 2 days.

At this point, I had been gone for a few weeks on my solo road trip to the Southern States. I was currently staying in Joshua Tree, and my friend “Sean” was going to come visit me, but work kept getting in the way. It was just too challenging to swing it because he was trying to get everything done before leaving on a family trip to Cabo San Lucas for 10 days…he was also covering a bunch of my business for me, so I couldn’t exactly complain.