Add This Trip to Your Bucket List!
On a March day, we packed up our Honda Odyssey minivan and headed to the Baja. Road trip! At the time our kids were 10 and 5 years old. We also had our little Papillon dog with us. After a long winter, we were ready for some beach time, but we were also making the trip for a special reason- the gray whale migration.
Our destination was Laguna San Ignacio to see the North Pacific gray whales. Every year they migrate from Alaska to San Ignacio Lagoon to calve. The best months to see them are January through March. The lagoon is part of the El Vizcaino Biosphere Reserve, which is Mexico’s largest protected area. It is an extremely important whale habitat and the whale sanctuary is a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site. Boats must be permitted to be in the area and their time with the whales is limited.
This is a very special site- much more than just a whale watching tour. You are in a small boat and the whales actually come up to the boats to interact with you. The boats are not allowed to chase down or go up to the whales. The whales must come to you! We were told that the whales seem to especially enjoy children and will often spend more time with boats that have kids in them. I don’t know if this is true but we certainly had lots of time with the whales and they did seem to congregate around the side with our kiddos.
This is a trip that your children will never forget- heck you won’t ever forget it!
We stayed in the town of San Ignacio, Baja for 3 nights. We were able to get a room at Hotel La Huerta without any reservations. It was a fantastic place to stay and we were thankful to have found it. The hotel was very affordable, extremely clean, and pet-friendly. It’s an approximately 1.5-hour drive from the town of San Ignacio to the lagoon. There are eco-tours that have lodgings set up at the lagoon, as well as a tiny little airport right next to the water. However, staying in town was much more budget-friendly, so that is the route we took.
Our boat actually stopped next to the airport to pick up 4 people who had flown in to see the whales. So, for our trip, the boat consisted of us and those four other people- that’s it! This is not some large scale commercialized whale watching trip.
Like I said these are not large boats you are getting into.
After a short boat ride we arrived and it did not take long before whales and their calves began approaching the boat. They are literally larger than the boat you are in.
Our kids were completely captivated!
You can even pet them! It is an absolutely amazing experience!
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Of course, because we homeschool we had to read a book about whales. This is a fact-filled, easy to read
After our days in San Ignacio, we headed to Mulege.
Mulege was our base camp, while we explored the surrounding beaches. Our favorite things to do while there:
- Exploring the town
- Horseback riding on the beach
- Kayaking in the many bays around the area- we even got to swim and kayak with a whale shark!!
- Often having beaches all to ourselves
Riding on the beach and in the water. Our horse loving girl was absolutely elated!
Beautiful beaches all to ourselves.
This post would not be complete without a photo of our sweet Dixie Bell in the Baja. She was quite popular and we often had stray dogs following us around because of her! Very funny!
If you have questions about visiting this area, please let me know in the comments below.
Happy Travels!
~Melissa
