Crossing the Border to Rocky Point

The drive is the part people worry about, and it is the part that turns out to be simple. Puerto Peñasco sits about 60 miles south of the border. From Phoenix it is roughly three and a half hours door to door, most of it open desert highway, with Lukeville as the crossing nearly everyone uses.

What actually catches people out is smaller than they expect. The document they did not know they needed. The insurance they assumed carried over. The afternoon they picked to drive home. None of these are hard problems. They are just the ones nobody mentions until you are already sitting in line.

Two things before you read anything else: a passport is not optional, and your US auto policy almost certainly does not cover you in Mexico. Everything after that is detail, and the guides covering it are being written now.