The move

There's been so many scary stories lately about travel from here to there, that I was wondering if it would be safer..although more expensive, to ship our stuff rather than bring it down in our trailer?

H

Where are you coming from? Which route will you take? What kind of car/truck will you be driving? BTW, trailer may be more hassle than it's worth in that you'll have to export it with the car/truck should you decide to take a trip north.

The Northwest. I don't know for sure which route yet..we've always flown to PV. We have a four wheel drive pickup and a 16 ft flatbed trailer that we could enclose.

If the PU is new it could be a target vehicle. We moved here from OR. Had movers do the house stuff. We drove the car down.

I know i'm late to this post but for future.

I just drove a rig down from LA to Tulum for a friend who just moved here from Hawaii and didn't have the time or stones to do the drive himself. By the way I had a GREAT time on this 9 day road trip, i would do it again in a heartbeat. Took hundreds of great photo's ate wonderful street food everywhere i went and was treated great by all of the military, police and others along the way. If your smiling and have a positive attitude it will carry along way in any country especially Mexico.

I had 2 of the most amazing experiences on this trip. Somewhere in Baja before Loretto i came thru a pretty serious Army checkpoint. They were extremely thorough looking thru my stuff but not messy or rude at all. The young officer who was in charge upon seeing my FM-3 card broke out into a big grin and wanted to shake my hand and thank me for choosing to live in his country, it blew me away and except for his wanted to speak English to me my search all but ended right there. It happened again south of PV. Do you think this would EVER happen in North America?

My strategy was simple as Baja is still considered to be a territory and not quite real Mexico they really don't stop you from crossing over the border in TJ within the 50 mile free zone. But once across your home free, i went thru many check points and none of them cared other than the normal drug inquiry's.
Caught the ferry across to Mazatlan went thru a more serious customs inquiry and was easily able to explain that i was just moving my belongings across to my new home in Tulum or Lake Chapala. They really don't have ax to grind. The process was simple really. You have to decide how much stuff you really want to bring.
I also thought the border crossing area south of TJ was a better option having all of that stuff till i got well past the so called 50 mile danger zone.

One important distinction, i got him set up for his FM-3 before we did this, but i was never challenge challenge for the paperwork not once.

How was that ferry ride to Mazatlan? How long? Cost? Accommodations?

sorry.
Ferry was $230 US for an all nighter with pretty good bar & Rest. 16 hours. I slept most of the way. Huge modern ferry
you could get a sleeper berth for another $50
I would do that next time