Baja California Highway 1: Tijuana to Catavina

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Tijuana

   It is a sprawling, energetic place, built across hills and canyons, with a reputation that does not match its character. It has an excellent food scene, a lively craft beer culture and a large community of artists.

   Read the complete Tijuana write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Tijuana is where the day begins. Next is Ensenada.

2. 2. Ensenada

   Ensenada is where most riders meet Baja for the first time properly, a port of nearly three hundred thousand people on the Bahía de Todos Santos, about an hour and a half south of the Tijuana border crossing. The bay got its name from the explorer Sebastián Vizcaíno, who sailed in early in the seventeenth century and named it for All Saints. Today the town is a working harbour first, with fish markets, shipyards and a busy cruise terminal, and a tourist town second, with a famous old cantina and plenty of seafood on the waterfront.

   Read the complete Ensenada write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Ensenada comes up about 212 km into the recorded legs. Next is Catavina.

3. 3. Cataviña

   Cataviña is a landscape from another planet, and it happens to have a road through it. Cirio trees, known in English as boojum, rise like upside-down carrots up to ten metres tall, with a few spiny branches at the top, and the cardón cactus, the world's tallest, stands in forests of its own. The whole area is protected as the Valle de los Cirios reserve.

   Read the complete Catavina write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   The route ends here after 970 km.