The journey from Villahermosa to Veracruz City is a bit much to do in one day for us, so we broke up the trip with an overnight at a gas station complex with secured parking lot. Nothing fancy, but it got the job done.
It’s a more or less straight shot on Federal 180/180D from Villahermosa to the Veracruz State border, then nicely-paved 145D to our pitstop. Nothing terribly exciting, just lots of green, marred by the occasional flaming oil refinery.
4.5 hours later (including a stop for lunch), we rolled into KM 118. We haven’t encountered anything like this elsewhere in Mexico—about as close to a proper U.S.-style Truck Stop as we’ve seen.
Our Mexico-USA RV Journey 2024-25
This one’s got a gas station, secure overnight lot, restaurant and mini mart, and…a dog park.
I’m not sure whether it was originally intended to be a dog park for truckers or a foster home, but the latter is what it is today.
We pulled into the overnight area, found a nice spot next to an endless sea of gravel piles, and headed over to see about getting some laundry done—except they no longer offer that service.
Oh well, guess we’ll have to settle for dinner and wifi at the restaurant—except the restaurant isn’t open on Sundays (it’s a Sunday) and they don’t offer public wifi (even though the signage says so).
We were at least able to grab a coffee and hang out at a table in the minimart for a couple of hours, which meant the boys wouldn’t have to spend all their time playing in the gravel pit…
(just some of the time)…
It wasn’t the best dry camping overnight we’ve had, but it was secure and uneventful (which was the point, I guess), and after a fairly tasty breakfast at the restaurant the next morning, we were on our way north/west again.
Just shy of four hours later, we rolled into CocoAventura RV Park, about 30 minutes outside of Veracruz City on the Gulf Coast.
We didn’t know it then, but we would end up spending the next three weeks here. With the exception of occasional bouts of 65mph gusts lasting 24 hours or more, it made for a pretty nice place to park ourselves for a while, explore Veracruz City, and get some doctors’ appointments ticked off our list.
The RV section is nothing to write home about: a big grassy field with sites separated by old half-buried tires, and hookups that have seen better days.
With that said, we did have FULL hookups, there were never more than two other rigs at any given time, there was a large pool on site, and the beach just steps away.
On our first night, we crossed paths at the beach with a British family visiting from their home near Mexico City. The boys had a couple of fun hours playing with English-speaking kids for a change (which is always very exciting).
Most days at CocoAventura, the weather seemed just about perfect. Clear skies and not too hot, not too cool. Ideal conditions for school AND swimming.
The RV Park is sort of a hotel as well, with bungalows for rent up the hill in the jungle, which was nice because we rarely saw the guests, unless we were all at the pool at the same time.
The pool featured a sizable waterslide, which the boys couldn’t get enough of—until Noe got a nasty rash on his thighs from the exposed fiberglass. From then on, he stuck mostly to the rock wall and playing games with Riley.
Noe can’t get enough of the e-reader these days. I think he might be on Narnia 4 now.
The beach is covered in more driftwood than I’ve seen in a very long time. The boys had a lot of fun making various forts and creations.
Thursday, while the boys were doing school, a line of what must have been close to 50 college-aged kids came marching out of the jungle. A dozen tents went up and a number of raucous field competitions followed. The next morning, they packed up their encampment and marched back up into the jungle, and we never saw them again.
Interesting place, this is.
Tuesday (March 4th) marked ONE YEAR since we left Oregon and started our RV journey [mostly] in Mexico and living full-time in an RV with our two boys.
To date, we’ve added 6,613 miles to the odometer, traveling as far south as Zipolite, Oaxaca, and as far east as Merida, Yucatan (though we traveled to Holbox, Quintana Roo without the RV).
We’ve stayed at 43 different RV parks across 2 U.S. states and 14 Mexican states, bringing our total states in Mexico we’ve visited as a family over the past 4.5 years to 24 (including CDMX). Out of 31 total states, I believe Lori has now visited all but Durango and Chihuahua.
Our average nightly rate over the past 12 months for RV parks in Mexico has been around $18 USD.
Living in a home on wheels and seeing a bunch of different parts of Mexico has been a nice change from being pinned down in one place for a school year. Home schooling the boys has given us a ton of flexibility, and it’s been great not being tied to the Mexican national school calendar.
It’s crazy to think that just 14 months ago, we had never owned an RV and knew zero about them. It’s been a learning curve, but a fun and interesting one.
Living full-time and traveling in an RV with a six- and eight-year-old (while working remotely part-time and homeschooling the kids), isn’t always easy, but the boys seem to really enjoy it for now, and so have we.
We know we won’t do this forever, but right now, we can’t think of anything we’d rather be doing.
