Scaredy-cat beginner guide to getting to HK Tijuana

So before I went to HK, what I knew mostly about Mexico is from Breaking Bad and Ozarks and alarming news articles. If you are like me, and was hesitant to come b/c of this anxiety, read this step by step guide/description of how the trip went for a noob like me.

This is a guide for going from airport to border crossing to HK Tijuana/Hotel Cascadas.

1. Step out of the San Diego airport

2. Go from airport to 922 bus:
   Gps signal lost Elaine Markle's OK, when you walk out of the airport (there is really only one exit), you will see lots of cars and shuttles and buses driving by, and right literally in front of you (you can't miss it), there will be a red rectangular sign that says "Bus 992" on the sidewalk in front of the busy street.

If you are there before 7PM, the bus comes every 15 minutes, and if it is after 7PM, it is like 30 minutes. The bus is pretty reliable, and always come.

There are two ways to pay the bus. You either scan your credit card on this card reader next to the bus driver, or you get a pronto app (just go to your app store, download it, and sign yourself up for it, it takes a slight delay for you to appear on the app after you sign up for it, but it will work).

Why get the pronto app? Well, if you get the Pronto app, you can transfer for free for like 2 hours from bus to trolley to bus to whatever; if you pay by credit card, you have to pay each time you transfer.

But it is really cheap, like $2.50 each time you pay, so don’t sweat it if you just use your credit card and not the Pronto app.

OK, once you get on the 992 bus (there is really one direction that the bus goes when you wait for it at the airport, so don't worry about getting on the 992 going down the wrong/opposite direction), you just wait until it gets to the Santa Fe depot.

Sketchiness level of the bus: 1/10: This bus is really chill and has zero of the homeless/drug users you see in places like New York. Everyone is nice and chill like in a typical bus at US, cuz it is literally a typical bus in the US.

3. Stay on 992 until you reach Santa Fe depot, where the trolly is:
   You need to pay attention cuz the bus don’t really announce that they reach Santa Fe depot so you could easily miss it. Just open your google map now and type in “Santa Fe Depot, San Diego”, and you will see around where it should be.

It is this giant pale orange stuccato building, after you pass by this waterside with yachts.

Get off the bus when you reach this depot. If you get off in the right place, you will easily see these red trolleys or railway on the left side of you. This is your next part of the trip. If you don’t see the trolleys/railways, don’t panic, you probably missed a stop or something; just use google map to help you get back to Santa Fe Depot, and you can ask Google map how to get to get to San Ysidro border crossing by public transportation and one of the waypoints will show you EXACTLY where you should go to find the trolley at Santa Fe depot.

If you use a pronto card, you don’t need to pay again for the trolley, cuz the Pronto allows you to transfer between bus and trolley for free. If you use a credit card for the bus, you need to pay for the trolley separately for 2.50 dollars. The place where you scan your credit card are these little scanners outside/next to the trolley idling stops, so make sure you scan that BEFORE you get on the trolley.

Sketchiness of the depot/streets: 1/10: No graffiti, people walking by wearing nice clothes, looks gentrified US

4. At Santa Fe depot, get on the blue trolley
   OK, you are at the Santa Fe depot, it is very likely that you will see a blue line trolley already idling as more and more people get in on it. Make sure the blue line trolley says “San Ysidro” on the digital sign, cuz blue trolley goes in two opposite directions, and you need to ride the one saying “San Ysidro” direction.

Once you get on the trolley, you can chillax. The trolley will just barrow down a bunch of stops until it reaches the end of the line, specifically San Ysidro station. So you can basically turn off your brain at this point, watch the scenery until the trolley reaches its last station at the border. The trolley has an electronic system of announcing stops, so you will definitely know where you are at every moment (unlike the bus where you have to pay attention to get off at Santa Fe depot).

The trolley is very reliable and comes like every 15 minutes.

Sketchiness level of trolley: 1/10: Very chill, some people talking in Spanish, but again none of the homeless/drug users you may see in other public transportation; one time there was a dude selling cheese but he was cool and just focused on people who wanted cheese. Trolley is clean, no graffiti, modern feeling.

5. Arrive at San Ysidro station and get to the border crossing:
   OK, you get off the San Ysidro station, now turn left and walk straight. You will see a McDonalds on your left side and a boring, stone, blue-grey, tall, US government building on your right. If you get confused where the border crossing, just go to that US government building, there are some government dudes out in the front who will point out to you where the border crossing is.

So again, keep walking straight, and you will see a sign that says “To Mexico” or something like that. Just watch for a giant stream of people walking, those guys are trying to cross the border to Mexico; follow them, and you won’t miss it.

During this walk to the border crossing, you will see a lot of nationals, and they are all pretty chill, wearing backpacks, chatting.

Sketchiness level of path to border crossing: 2/10: I dunno, these guys are super chill, lots of families just going to Mexico.

6. Border crossing:
   So you will cross this metal gate with turnpike. Then find the line for “Foreigners” (There is a foreigner line and a separate line for Mexicans). Get on the foreigners line. This line should be extremely short.

Walk up to the border person, and give her your passport card or passport. Make sure you have one or the other, I have heard they are getting more strict about you guys having one of these.

She swipes your passport card, make pleasant chitchat about why you are coming here and how long you are staying, then she stamps this small card with your info and gives it to you. This takes like 30 seconds, just a pleasant chat.

You then put your backpack on this luggage metal scanner thing (similar to the airport), but you don’t have to take off your shoes off or go through a metal detector.
You grab your backpack and now you are in Mexico.

Sketchiness of border crossing: 1/10: The ladies who will process you are really nice and don’t give you a hard time. They speak English and just wanna make sure you get your documentation.

7. Post border crossing station and on the way to HK limousine:
   So once you pass the border crossing station, you will go through this outdoors tunnel with metal fence on your left and right. There is literally one direction, just keep moving forward.

There are some people usually on the side selling knickknacks they make on the floor of the pavement, but otherwise no one is gonna walk up to you and chat you up; everyone keeps to themselves in a chill way.

Sketchiness of the outdoor tunnel to HK limousine area: 3/10: This is Mexico, and you can feel you are in a foreign place, where the income level for some is lower. But people are pretty nice in general, and you can easily do your own thing in peace without being approached.

8. Finding the HK limousine:
   OK, this is the part I actually got pretty confused. So you keep walking that outdoor tunnel until the metal turnspike gate (you know, where there are metal spokes you pass through so you can’t go back the other direction again). Once you get out of the gate, you are officially out of the crossing and into Tijuana.

Now you will see a lot of street vendors on your left and right. Walk through those (like 10 of them) until you reach the streets, where you will see a bunch of taxis idling and people telling you to get on their taxis. Once you see those taxis, turn right and walk a couple of steps and you will see a dirt downward slope pathway leading to an outdoor parking lot. That parking lot has a giant “Hong Kong Tijuana” sign on the wall.

You just walk there to that building, and then you walk through this small parking lot until you find one of the limousines. I am sure there is an easier way to find the limousine or the limousine could be in other places, but this is how I do it.

Honestly, if you could find the building, that is half the battle, cuz just walk up to the building where a parking garage person is sitting and he will tell you where the HK limousines are idling.

In all my times I have been there, I never waited more than 1 minute until some kind of HK shuttle arrives to pick me up.

Sketchiness of the path to HK limousine: 3/10: I never felt unsafe, especially since I was walking during day time. The locals were pretty nice, and knew I was some horny dude and actually some random lady driving a car pointed towards where the HK limousines are so I know where they are.

9. Get on the HK limousine:
   And you are done! Sometimes the HK limousine is a car, or a limousine, or a van, it is random. Make sure to tip the driver after he drives you there (I usually do $3).
   He drives you to the front gate of HK.

Sketchiness of limousine ride to HK: 3/10: I have heard that cops don’t stop the HK shuttles, so you can ride in peace knowing you won’t have to interact with them during the ride. I honestly felt people followed the rules of traffic pretty much the same as in US, it wasn’t clogged at all (Los Angeles WAY more clogged). We got to HK in very good time, no stuck in traffic, just a breeze with car moving at speed limit the whole time.

Again you will see some parts where the people live in lower income, but otherwise I felt quite safe: the driver was following all the traffic rules, focused on his job, felt like another Uber ride in US.

10. Get your VIP card if you wanna:
    So if you want to get some discount on your hotel cascada stay, make sure you get the VIP card BEFORE you pay for your hotel, so that you can use the VIP card to get the discount.

Just ask the HK guys on the front where you can buy the VIP card and they will point you to the right direction.

11. Safety in the room:
    There is a small safe in the Hotel Cascadas room that you can put valuables inside. I never really bothered with it, but you can use that if you want extra security.
    Hotel Cascadas uses a keycard system, just like most of the hotels you go to. Just touch the card on the door and it opens.

Be careful of the toilets cuz you can’t flush toilet papers in there, it can easily get clogged. The water coming out of the faucets and showers is clear/clean appearing like anywhere else, but don’t drink it.

If you have issues with your room, just chat with the people at the front desk, they are super helpful, speak English, and are eager to help.

If you want doubly sure that you have the room you want at Hotel Cascadas when you arrive, make sure to go to the Hotel Cascadas website and pre-order a room on that day there. It totally works, and I got my preferred room every time when I did this.
There is a mini fridge in the room. All the drinks in the fridge are labeled. When you check out, the front desk person will send a guy to check out your room and also count how many of those drinks you drank/used before check out is complete.

When you bring girls up for arriba, it is likely they will ask to grab a drink from there (or just grab one, cuz she knew I was chill, lol). I am kinda “whatever man” about that, but you should be aware about this.

There is a also a little piece of handwritten piece of paper they give you at the end of the check in process. Make sure to keep that piece of paper, you need to give it back when you check out (I think it helps with the drink counts in the fridge, I dunno, I didn’t really read that paper).

The check in guys also offer $5 condom packages for you to buy. Some girls have their own condoms, some don’t, so make sure you have some type of condom with you.

The return home:
When you go wanna go home, when you check out, ask one of the HK guys to help you to a shuttle. Again, there is nearly always a shuttle active and ready to take you to the border.

Once the shuttle drops you at the border, walk forward until you see two lines, the regular line to cross the border, and the border for "SENTRI". The SENTRI/Global Entry line is usually a ghost town, and you will very very quickly get through this line, it is like a not particularly busy Target store line for me usually.

If you don't have such a card, you have to wait in the regular line, and that could be suuuuppppper long, like LOOOOOONG, like CRAZY long (yeah, longer than that, it can stretch multiple blocks, not kidding), or not that long sometimes. So be wary of this. If you want a global entry card, it isn't that hard, the process is pretty simple, and the interview is like 5 seconds.

EastCoaster has this to add on for the Global Entry card part:
"Good advice on getting the SENTRI/Global Entry card, which can save you hours getting back into the US. You said, "If you want a global entry card, it isn't that hard, the process is pretty simple, and the interview is like 5 seconds." I totally agree with every single word in that sentence.
People should know, however, that scheduling the appointment for that 5-second interview should be done weeks in advance; after the interview it will take some time before your card is sent to you. And typically, you have to go to an airport for the interview, which must be done in person. In addition, not every airport does these interviews, and your nearest airport may not have any appointment times available. Definitely, get the card (which also gives you TSA Pre-Check status whenever and wherever you fly), but plan ahead."

RonJax2 also has this to add on the Global Entry card:
"Good advice on getting the SENTRI/Global Entry card, which can save you hours getting back into the US. You said, "If you want a global entry card, it isn't that hard, the process is pretty simple, and the interview is like 5 seconds." I totally agree with every single word in that sentence.
People should know, however, that scheduling the appointment for that 5-second interview should be done weeks in advance; after the interview it will take some time before your card is sent to you. And typically, you have to go to an airport for the interview, which must be done in person. In addition, not every airport does these interviews, and your nearest airport may not have any appointment times available. Definitely, get the card (which also gives you TSA Pre-Check status whenever and wherever you fly), but plan ahead."

After getting through border entry, you just do everything I wrote in the guide in reverse to get back to the airport. Again, if in doubt, just put your final destination on Google map, then look at where it tells you the bus/trolley stops are in the route.

Final impression:

The process was way way less stressful than I thought it would be. The most stressed I felt was making sure I was getting to the right stop on bus 992, and not the crossing Mexico part.

I wore a backpack the whole time and a lot of people were doing it too, and I felt pretty safe doing so.

I would say, if a scaredy-cat like me could do it, you can also try it too. The stuff in the club is truly fun and spontaneous, I felt it was very worth it.

Since I am a newbie, if any of you more experienced senpais find any mistakes in my guide, please comment and correct them please.

This was originally a discussion topic on the HK review section, but I made some edits and changed it to an article based on the kind advice of IWantHerOnMe.