21 Days of Van Life in Baja Mexico (driving top to bottom)

Episode 933 | Filmed March 2022 | Baja, Mexico

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Who are Kara and Nate?!

Originally from Nashville, Tennessee, we got married 2013 and were super “normal.” I was a teacher and Nate started a small printing business from the spare bedroom of our apartment.

We discovered the world of “travel hacking” while planning our honeymoon & became addicted ;)

So after 2 years of obsessively saving $35k and over 2 million miles and points, we sold our cars and apartment and left home January 10, 2016 for a “one year” trip around the world.

Our goal was to see as many places as possible before we ran out of money and went back home to “normal life.” We started this channel to share our experiences with friends and family, but quickly fell in love with living on the road and found a new passion for capturing our travels through video. So we did everything we could to keep going.

4 years later, we achieved our new goal of visiting 100 countries and all 7 continents. We had no plans to slow down, until 2020 forced us to ;) Which is when we bought a converted van to start exploring our own country for the first time!

After ~2 years of van life, we are back to full time international traveling! And now we are in our 9TH YEAR of finding the best adventures the world has to offer :)

We are incredibly grateful to be able to continue doing something we love every day. 😊🎥🌎 Thank you to everyone who has been a part of our journey!

00:00:00 Baja van life!!!🚐
00:01:00 Day 1: Tijuana border crossing gone wrong😅
00:07:52 head tacos…
00:09:33 Sleeping at a Mexican winery🍷
00:15:17 Day 2: local grocery shopping
00:17:50 first beach campsite!😍
00:23:43 Day 3: sorry my edit messed up here;)
00:25:34 more street food🌮
00:27:13 comment 🤩 if you love cilantro hehe
00:32:04 day 4: living the dream!☀️
00:41:40 day 9: GREY WHALES🐋best day ever
00:48:03 how we get drinking water in Mexico
00:49:35 picking up a hitchhiker :)
00:50:10 HALFWAY in San Ignacio
00:52:00 day 10: tortilleria!!!
00:53:48 Santispac beach site🤤🤤
00:55:40 our vendor game lol
00:58:48 cooking with kara🥑
01:00:28 Nate’s birthday celebration!🎂
01:03:12 Bay of Conception ;)
01:05:44 Day 12: Stressful drive😳
01:10:49 Day 14: finally surfing!!🏄🏻‍♂️
01:12:18 cooking lunch/fixing solar probs
01:16:57 our bathing hack🚿
01:17:55 day 18: major cleaning day
01:20:55 our new roommates!
01:23:10 sleeping outside on the beach lol🙈
01:25:03 Coming up next…😁

[KaraandNate]

Nate and I always call our Baja road trip “the pinnacle of van life” 🥹 It’s one of our favorite series we’ve ever made, so we decided to compile it all into one big “vlogumentary” 2 years later.

Trying something new here 🎥 For a few different reasons, we didn’t have a “new” video to post this week, and figured this was more fun than nothing 😄

But if you’re new around here, we hope you enjoy the journey as much as we did 🚐🇲🇽 and if you followed along back in 2022, grab a cuppa ☕️ (or a marg 🍋‍🟩) and reminise on this epic trip with us! 🥰

[hollihalfmann]

At first I thought I clicked an old video and not the new one, then realized it IS kinda an old video but I love a good refresh and in one long form version!

[nininininini]

honestly, the rewatchability of you guys' videos are insane! I can watch old videos again and again and not get bored. You guys are definitely my comfort youtubers, whose videos I already know will not disappoint!

[lelanhaley]

Thanks for the extended version of your Baja trip. I can listen to Kara say “this is the best day of my life” over and over. love you guys

[sarahbrownstein]

Just want to say I'm proud of you guys for putting your life first, before your Youtube consistency. I hope things go well for Kara, and you continue to take the time you need despite it being so different than what you've done in the past. You are precious and your life is precious, and we will survive 😉 while we wait to watch your next adventure. 🙏 Sending you positive, healing vibes. All the best.

[aidanevelyn]

We’ve had a pet praying mantis in the house for the last week or so, he hangs out in my house plants, and I found him wandering around when I started watching this. I put him on my lap next to my phone and he was absolutely enthralled with watching. He loved the drone shots, ocean shots, tried hunting the wild horses across the screen, tried punching your hands in the pov shots, and got a bit too excited when Kara was filling the fridge in a sped up clip and fell off my phone😂 he watched the whole video and loved it. Bugs love YouTube too🤷‍♀️

[katiet]

The national guard taking pictures and you saying “we’re all just human” made me teary-eyed!

[grethelpineda]

I cried when I saw you guys pet the whales . What an amazing energy you can feel through the screen …. I’m so happy to see Kara’s smile . I would’ve freaked to be able to experience that … animals are amazing ! ❤❤ love you guys !

[MadddyDawn]

I’m really grateful for your channel. I could never travel like you two do. I’m a home body and I love my alone time. So I really appreciate getting to see the world with you two. You always give us just enough information about where and what your doing. Plus the way you guys interact with each other is just the cherry on top and makes you guys the complete package. So I went to the beginning and started watching. There are years of videos I’ve never seen. I’m really enjoying it. You two look like babies. Lol Thank you for sharing your beautiful love story with us.❤

[emilyrose]

I’ve been a silent viewer for about a year now. I’m so thankful for your channel!! I get to live my dreams through your guys channel 😊 I inspire to be like you guys. I love how Nate always tells Kara how proud he is of her. Your channel brings me happiness

[dehwadehwa]

I’m here for Kara’s energy it’s a good way to start my day.

[kevinh]

Baja is probably by far the safest area of Mexico for tourists doing their own thing, along with much of the south of the country. It's the inland areas where the cartels are much more active that can be dangerous, but if you follow the advice of other travel vloggers and stick to the main routes through those areas you're generally OK as there's normally a high police presence on main roads.

[zoec]

Omg over an hour!?!? Couldn’t be a better morning!! Coffee and K&N yes please 🥰

[nabelNunez]

Hi you two. Thank you for a great video. Hiccups... I'm 70 and found something that works EVERY TIME QUICKLY. Take very long, slow deep breaths. Hiccups are a spasm. Like those dang leg spasms, stretching the muscle is the best solution. breath so deeply the tummy looks and feels distended and really stretched. Then, breath it out slowly. You may get a few more hiccups, but within say five repeats, the hiccups will be gone... or at least they do for me. Just stretch that diaphragm slowly and let it out slowly.

I love how you two have done the ultimate key to success practice, "Find what you really love to do and figure out how to make a living at that. You did. You have. And.... 3.9M love watching you both do it. You demonstrate such deep, committed, loving compassion, care and dedication one to another. Thank you for sharing your life with us.

[beverlydawntrumble]

I love how Nate encouraged Kara this is your moment and the whale came up to get petted. Such a beautiful experience❤❤❤

[alexandracarter]

I gotta say a positive Mexico experience. I'm from San Diego, so Tijuana's our closes international destination. When I was in college (to be fair, that was quite a few years ago, ahem), a girlfriend and I were broke but wanted to do *something* for spring break. We headed to Mexico with a tent and ended up tent camping at a gorgeous park - this was strange behavior to the park managers, so they'd left their dog with us overnight. It was such a nice gesture.

[lmolinaherrera]

I love watching people enjoy being in mexico . It brings me so much joy how much my country is appreciated and loved . You can leave mexico, but mexico will never leave your ❤

[jennastewart]

wihtout reading the comments, I thought that you had made a NEW trip, and then every so often, I was having Deja Vu thinking that I had seen things before. It didn't really HIT me until the scene on the beach with the vendors....so then I read the comments...and here we are! Still loved watching this again.

[Bennshorts]

Mexican American here, and this by far my favorite Kara & Nate video. Little embarrassed that they have explored Mexico more than I have! :)

[ChibiFighter]

Kara during the Whales bit was just pure joy.