Slow Baja - Geoff Hill Baja Bound Insurance

Episode Date: November 18, 2022

Geoff Hill is back for an update on Baja Bound Insurance, spoiler alert --Baja Bound can now insure your home in Mexico! We talk Baja travel, trip preparation, where he's just been and where he's headed next. Geoff's not your average Insurance agent. Since his first surf trip in 1990, he hasn't been able to escape Baja's pull. After surfing his way to a degree at UCSD, he joined Baja Bound Insurance in 2003. He is the VP of Business Development, the face of the franchise --and as I say Geoff "lives the brand." When our Lucha Libre Racing Team took on the grueling La Carrera Panamericana in 2006 -we were honored to be the first racing team sponsored by Baja Bound Insurance. We are thrilled to have their continued support for Slow Baja sixteen years later! In this conversation, Geoff announces the new Baja Bound Home Insurance program. We dive into the phenomenal success of the Baja Bound Lifestyle and Travel Expo. The growth of Escapar ala Baja, and the van life explosion. The pros and cons of working remote with Starlink. The bounty of the Valle de Guadalupe, and driving in the NORRA Slow Baja Safari. Get a quote and buy your Baja Bound Insurance here Visit the Baja Bound Insurance Travel Guide here Follow Baja Bound Insurance on Instagram Follow on Baja Bound Insurance on Facebook

Hey, this is Michael Emery. Thanks for tuning into the Slow Baja. This podcast is powered by Tequila Fortaleza, handmade in small batches, and hands down, my favorite tequila. Hey, I want to tell you about your new must-have accessory for your next Baja trip. Benchmark Maps has released a beautiful, beautiful Baja California Road and Recreation Atlas. It's a 72-page large format book of detailed maps and recreation guides that makes the perfect planning tool for exploring Baja. Pick yours up at Benchmarkmaps.com. Hello, hello, Ola, Como Stas, Slow Baja Amigos? My heaping dose of gratitude today goes out to Jeff Hill and Hank and the entire team at Baja Bound Insurance.

They really are Slow Baja approved. I know whenever I'm researching where I'm going to go and what I'm going to check out, usually Baja Bound has done an article about it already on their fabulous website so maybe David Kier's written about it or Martinez written about it but I often find a place that I'm researching or a person that I'm researching in Baja, Baja personality that there's already a blurb on it on the Baja Bound website so check them out slow Baja approved without further ado I've got Jeff Hill coming up and he's going to tell you about what Baja Bound is up to like they are now insuring homes. So if you've got a second home in Baja and you need to have it insured, well, you can't get

it done from the side of the road like you can get your car insurance done, but you can get it done if you give them a call. So all right, Jeff Hill, Baja Baja Bound, we're going to catch up on what they're doing, what he's up to. And again, he is my heaping dose of gratitude today. Thanks, Jeff. We are, we're going to hear the dog parking upstairs? Don't worry about it. I used to worry about things like that, Jeff. Now, now we just What are we talking about? We're just going to talk about Baja. Do you know anything about Baja, Jeff?

I love that place. Hey, it's a beautiful, warm, sunny day. I don't even, it's Wednesday, September 28th. It's a beautiful, warm, sunny day. It's a slow Baja here, and I am sitting at the kitchen table with Jeff Hill in this beautiful home in San Diego, and we're just going to catch up. I just want to talk to you about a Baja bound and what you're insuring these days because you're insuring more than you used to insure.

B, talk about what you've been up to, where you've been going, what's happening in Baja these days, and C, I think it would really be great if we gave maybe five minutes at the end where you can give your opinions on folks who are maybe planning that first Baja trip. What should they worry about? What shouldn't they worry about? So without further ado, Jeff Hill, Baja Bound. All right.

Thanks for having me. Yeah, Baja Bounds, we've been busy. Serving Mexico Travelers since 1994. Yeah, so, yeah, obviously the pandemic was, you know, a couple tough years to get through. Our volume dropped quite a bit when everything got shut down in mid-March of 2020. But we rebounded really quickly. And what we have, the two main markets that we've really seen an increase in is, you know, a lot of the digital nomads, the people that are the van lifers, homes where you park it kind of crew.

I think that has been a really big growth market. Hello, Josiah. Hello, Josiah. Exactly. Josiah is our friend that puts on Escapar al-A-Baha, which will be happening again in 2023, the first weekend of February at Tecalo de Beach down in La Paz. Super cool. Great van meetup.

But yeah, I feel like the whole van life thing really, took off because so many people were able to work remotely. And, you know, I don't see that trend stopping. I think it's also been, you know, the whole Starlink technology kind of came about in, you know, kind of a perfect storm. And now all these people who are trying to find restaurants or hotels or places where they can find Wi-Fi, now they're bringing the Wi-Fi with them. So I think that's a really fun, interesting market. Obviously, it's a double-edged source. You know, it's great to be off the grid and say, well, I was gone for a week and I was off the grid. But, you know, from the safety factor, I think, you know, Starlink has its benefits and, you know, being able to have the capability to be connected wherever you are in Baja is, you know, a cool thing.

Pretty soon there's not going to be anybody who is ever known not being connected anyways. Yeah, again. And maybe it's an old guy or old person mindset, but there's something fabulous about no signal. Yeah. No, I agree. In my opinion. Yeah. But.

I mean, for a long time, you know, when we first got our place, you know, it's down south of Rosarito. We didn't really have Wi-Fi. We didn't have Wi-Fi. And our phones really didn't work that good, you know, 10 years ago. So it was just, you know, hey, we're in Baja. But we had board games. Yeah, lots of board games. And that bottle of Kalua.

So now it's just like, now we do have Wi-Fi. Now we have Starlink, you know. And again, I don't, I think as long as it's helping you achieve the goal of traveling in Baja and going to places without really having to lose time because you got to go back home and go to work. If you can park and work for a couple hours, work for a day, work for a week, whatever, and still be in Baja, that's a pretty cool thing. It really is. You're absolutely right. And then, yeah, so the Van Life thing has been a very cool thing. We've been sponsoring some events in Baja.

Like I said, Escaparola, Baja was great. And an agency out of Colorado called Flarespace did a big event down in San Felipe as well. It's right before the 1000. Yeah. Right before the Nora Mexican in April. Yeah. Third week of April. And then the next big project that we kind of tackled the last year was launching homeowners.

insurance. So that's more of a slow thing. You know, it's you got to call the office right now to get anything done. It's not it's not as easy as the auto insurance side of things given that there's so many different types of houses. You can't pull over on the side of your road and get get your home insured in five minutes like you can with your car. No, you got to call the office at this point. We will hopefully have it launched on the public side of the website sometime soon. So And how where is that aimed? Is that aimed at people with their second home in Baja specifically? Yeah, I mean, just because by virtue of the fact that our market is, you know, folks that are tourists down there that then transition to being part timers down there and then ultimately either transition to full time or, you know, split their time, you know, in different places.

But yeah, so we've got folks that just are, you know, have their own house that they need to. insure and there's also a lot of Airbnb's, you know, a lot of vacation rentals that we can insure as well. Well, I think that's pretty exciting news that, again, people who may, you know, people who are your customers who love doing business with you like I do, that's a what a great opportunity that they have, if they have a house there to be able to stay with the folks that they, you know, already know, so to speak. Yeah, yeah. So we're hoping that when we make the official big launch, the big announcement that will, you know, be able to transition a lot of those, our current clients that have homes down there and capture their homeowners business as well. So we'll see.

It's all fun and exciting though. Well, let's switch channels from what your business is up to, but I'm thrilled about that and just talk about where you been. What have you been doing? We saw each other last on the Nora Mexican 1000 in April. It's now, what, it's almost October. It's almost October. So, I mean, gosh, the Nora of Mexican 1000 was an absolute blast. you know, went down there with Colin Corrigan from Transpennsalar and his brother-in-law, Mani, that was our crew, had an amazing time, helped a lot of people. You know, we were just smiling the whole time. It was a great event.

And, you know, people see my truck and they're like, you race that thing in the norm? I'm like, well, to be fair, it's slow, you know, slow Baja class. You know, we went fast on some sections. But yeah, and they said, oh, what, you know, how did it go? I'm like, oh, man, the only thing that broke was my tail light. Yeah. So, yeah, it was just an amazing event. Since then, I did a trip to Viarta with my in-laws, a little vacation.

It was kind of our first vacation back as a family. And that was amazing. Spent a little bit of time in Loretto and rented a car, went over to Scorpion Bay. We're actually working on a surf contest with the Baja Surf Club. Yes. That'll happen at Scurpingham Beach. next May. So it's all in the works right now.

Jorge from Baja Surf Club just moved down there to Scorpion Bay permanently. Oh, terrific. He's now a resident. He's retired. So, yeah, so just a lot of, you know, we're seeing a lot of, you know, new events kind of popping up and stuff like Escapar al-Baha, you know, just growing immensely. He's, Josiah is expecting his numbers to double for next year, just with all the interest in the van life.

stuff. So, um, another thing I'm working on as well is doing another Baja Bound Expo next spring, which, uh, the first one that we did at Humphreys went off really well. And everyone's, yeah, everyone's asking about another one. And so I guess it just has to happen. So I'm already looking for a location. Yeah. I really think there's enough opportunity to do two of those or three of those in a year. I mean, can you do L.A.? can you do, you know, uh, San Diego. Can you do someplace in Baja, maybe one over in Scottsdale? I don't know.

Yeah, I know it's true. I mean, it's just the one event is so much work. So maybe we'll see. Get another one under our belt in San Diego and then maybe take it on the road, do something else. But yeah, there's definitely a lot of opportunities in other markets as well. I don't know. Your co-pilot Ted did that very thing with his Mexico travel expos back in the day. I know we went to one in, I think, Long Beach.

Yeah, he had one up in San Mateo. just south of San Francisco, Long Beach. Yeah, and I think that that's a, that, not Ted's event, your event specifically, the Baja Lifestyle Expo, I just was amazed at the mix. I mean, the mix of people

there and being a little bit on the inside, the amount of people who were trying to get in after you'd sold it out. Wait, wait, what? Wait, what? How can I get in? You had to take over the space upstairs. And you were like, you know, I thought you're going to have people on boats out there saying, hey, step on to my boat and hear about, uh, yeah. Well, I mean, the idea initially was just to do something fun and

really include all of the, you know, friends and partners that have businesses that relate to Baja. And by virtue of that alone, you know, we had already kind of filled up the outside space. And so then once we started getting inquiries when we launched, you know, all of a sudden, well, we need a spillover area. And they gave us that upstairs room. But, um, you know, some people were discouraged. They were like, I want to come, but I don't want to be just kind of, you know, it was what it was. It was the first time event. I thought it was great. People were stoked.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Yeah. So now, yeah, we just need to find a venue that we can do it bigger and better next year and have all of our vendors, you know, there and able to do stuff. So. Well, I'm looking forward to that. Yeah. No, it should be fun.

We just, we were a bit limited because of the hotel and, you know, what are the vendors that do beer and wine and food. So we were, they were doing samples instead of being able to, you know, let people have a a full delicious glass of wine. So they had to have a little sample. But we're going to work on that and find a venue that works for next year. Let me just ask, as a Mexican, ensuring people for Mexican travel, and folks, if you don't know, it's Baja and mainland Mexico. You can go, you get Baja bound, you can go to mainland Mexico, and that's how we got connected back in 2006 when I was doing the La Cerea.

But what made you decide to also be a portal of travel information? So you've got David Kier writing articles. You've got Martina doing articles. It just seems like whenever I'm looking somebody up and I'm doing some Google searching and some research and this and that. Some Baja Bound article from six years ago pops up. I'm like, dang these guys that, you know, Baja Bounce interviewed everybody. No, I think, you know, since the beginning, obviously the insurance is what we do to, you know, make money and run the business. But providing content for people that really helps them in one way, shape, or form to either plan their trip or

plan their return home, or just finding out what they need to do, you know, to travel in the country. Like the FMMs are always, you know, there's always a lot of confusion about, oh, do I need one if I'm only going to Rosario for the day? A lot of misinformation everywhere. But basically, the content was just a way to really help people, you know, plan an executed trip perfectly. And I think that mostly came from just, you know, us being on the phone all the time talking to people. And we were like, gosh, you know, we keep answering this question all the time. Why don't me do an article about it? And that led to, you know, tons of articles on, you know, crossing the border, you know, the different, you know, there's different lanes you can use that people get confused about all the time.

And we've got another project that we're working with the tourism board on, which is hopefully going to alleviate some of the confusion about crossing north back to the U.S. US. But yeah, just essentially helping them plan a successful trip. That was kind of the whole goal. It was like we do the insurance, but then you know, you can also read these articles about what to do, what not to do, just to plan your trip accordingly and have a great time and not have to worry about it. Well, I find that there are an awful lot of questions. And there are a lot of people that are first-time baha folks still. I mean, it's amazing to me how many, times I'm answering some question or sending somebody some link to an article or correcting, I'm not going to say the Facebook site, but correcting something and then a pile on after that.

And then I will reach out and message somebody individually to say, my experience has been this. Check out this article at Baja Bound. And if you need any other help, you can reach me here. Yeah. And not sort of jump into the fray. And I think that decoding Baja for people is really. really thoughtful, I don't know how to pay you this compliment, but it's maybe one of the most

thoughtful things your business does, to be ambassadors of the place to put forth these amazing travel articles about this place and also be able to be right there in sell the insurance. It's pretty amazing. Yeah, well, I think a lot of it, you know, stems from just wanting to inspire people to travel down there. So a lot of what we do is, you know, we want to feature fun things in the newsletter that people go, oh my gosh, that's really cool. I want to check that out. Now, how do I do it? And in the case of like some of David Kears articles, a lot of times he'll give you, you know, the waypoints, like, oh, or travel, you know, go here, make a left on this road, you know,

he'll give you David Kear an inch. He's going to be in your car telling you. Exactly. David Kear's voice on your GPS, turn right. Turn right. Go half a mile and turn left. This mission was started in 1769. Now, David Kier's the wonderful. I was thinking about him today on my drive down. Yeah, I mean, I think all of it stems, too, is just from our, you know, we started going down there in the late 80s as kids, Hank and I, his dad was instrumental

in taking a surfing all the way down into Baja Sur. And so I think part of it for us is just sharing our experience and knowledge with clients to, again, just have them plan a successful trip and feel. feel confident that they can go down there and have a great time. And get back. And get back. Yeah, exactly. And so let's talk about it.

You have a modern Toyota vehicle. I have an ancient Toyota vehicle. What do you do for car prep or what do you recommend for car prep for folks who are taking that first Baja trip or taking their 50th Baja trip? Yeah. I mean, if I'm going to, you know, a race like the Nora or if I'm going to go down and chase for one of our, you know, our bikes at a score race. I mean, there's definitely a handful of items that I will always have, like an air compressor.

I will always have a floor jack. I will always have a full-size spare, sometimes two, depending on how far I'm going. I always have fix-a-flat. I always have a tire patch kit. Just anything to basically help myself or help others get out of a situation. Well, case in point, I think it was on the fourth day. at the Nora last year when we went from Skripian Bay to La Puraesima, through La Pheresma, ended in Loretta. I think that was day four. We came across a razor that had a flat.

So we pulled over and we're looking at everything. And they're like, oh, do you have any fix a flat? Yeah. Do you have a patch kit? Yeah. So we basically patched them up, inflated the tire. They got going again. And wouldn't you know it? Like 20 miles later, we come across them again. and the patch had busted out. So another can I fix the flat, another patch kit got them going, and then they hit the pavement, and their chase crew was there. So even though it wasn't a perfect fix, it was enough to get them to their crew. Yeah, that is a perfect fix, actually.

It's a perfect Baja fix. Or into the next village where there's a tire guy. Correct. Because there's a tire guy. I'm not sure if I said toe strap, but I always have a toe strap and my traction pads as well. because we were pulling all kinds of people out on some of those sections near Catavina. Like there was one turn where it was almost a, you know, 180-degree turn. And these cars were overshooting it and going straight into the bushes and getting stuck.

So we were yanking people out there. And yeah, I mean, in terms of, you know, just regular prep, I mean, I just, I mean, it's a Toyota. I changed the oil and I make sure the tires are good. And other than that, you know, know, I don't overthink it, but I always make sure that if something does happen, I have the resources to, you know, help myself get out of it or help others get out of their situation. Yeah, and I always come clean and say, I'm not a mechanic. Oh, yeah, I mean too.

The one time my car stalled on the trail was a Nora event, the Nora 500, and the first time I did it with Kurt Leduc leading the class. And I came down and a local, local guy, ranch truck had gotten stolen. duck and they were jamming twigs and branches and stuff under the truck and trying to dig it out, didn't have a shovel and didn't have obviously max tracks or any of the stuff that that Instagram would have told them they needed if they were in Baja, actually. And so I stopped to lend a hand in the way that the trail was, I wasn't really able to get around them. And I, you know, I really didn't want to try and push them forward anyhow.

So I helped them with the getting this, that had a little. shovel and help them get the truck and stuck. But when I got back in my truck to drive, my truck wouldn't go. I'm like, what the heck? And so, you know, it had crank and pulling the air, opening the air cleaner. I could see that, you know, there was getting gas, so I had gas in the carburetor. And then I just lifted the air filter out. And it was so caked with silt that a couple taps on the bumper, you know, dislodged the silt,

put it back in. Or I had, I fired it up with the, with the air cleaner out. And then I, you know, got the tap the air cleaner, put it back in. And that's about the extent of my mechanical ability. But it was enough to get me fired up. And by that time, the local guy in front of me had gotten his truck unstuck using my shovel. And off they went. And, you know, that's that.

So each village I say to people has a tire shop. Every village has a tire shop. And every town has a mechanic or three. And every city is going to have an auto zone. Yeah. Or, you know, whatever the, the, the, local equivalent is. And a lot of these mechanics, I mean, they are very resourceful and they can, they can make

magic happen. It's phenomenally resourceful. Yeah. Yeah. It's amazing. Well, Jeff, what's your next trip? I am actually heading down on Saturday, actually doing a Baja bound getaway with the, it's actually a retreat with all of our employees.

We're going to do a little retreat, little team building stuff on Saturday. Saturday and then Sunday I head down for Baja Raleigh for a handful of days. Terrific. And your retreat is that off to the wine country or to Encinata proper or? Wine country, yeah. And Hank has actually been planning this whole thing for our crew. And I honestly have no idea about anything. It's all a surprise at this point.

So he said, we're going to have a great time. Well, I spent a little time in the Valle in my last trip. It's a great time every time. Yeah. Ted and I have two nights in the Valle, after the Noro 500, which has caused a little consternation among the other halves of our team that we're going to be roughing it at Casa Ocho at Bruma. Someone's got to do it.

Someone's got to review these places. Slow Baja needs to know. Yeah. If you're not sleeping in your tent, you should know what it's like to stay at one of the most beautiful places in the Valle. And I tell people that constantly, the Guadalupe Wine Valley, I mean, all the wine valleys are gorgeous. But if people haven't been there, man, it's an eye-opener when they do finally go. Yeah, it's an eye-opener whether you're adobe Guadalupe or Pignon, Paula Pignon, her family have such a beautiful, tiny little thing.

And then you get to a place like Bruma that's like, whoa. Yeah. Yeah. Everything from, I mean, one of my favorites is Solibaro, which, you know, he kind of built the place. place by hand, does a lot of the bottling himself. Like he, you know, it's kind of a one-man operation with a couple helpers on the side, and it's just a passion project. And it's really cool to see something that's that grassroots and then see somebody else,

you know, like an Eliaceto that's, you know, one of the biggest wine producers for all of Mexico. It's really cool to see that dynamic. And I try to share that with people. We'll see the small guy first. I'm going to say. And then that's, that's a slow Baja tip right there, folks. You got me, Jeff.

And I'll be going to check that out right after. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's a good story. We've got an article about it on our website, of course. No doubt. I'm sure. I'm sure you can do. All right. Well, if people want to get more information about a Baja trip, they're going to go to Baja bound.com. And you're also on Instagram and Facebook. Yes, both. And you can buy your insurance through clicking the sponsor link at Slowbaha.com. Should you want to toss a taco in my tank, you can click right there and get right to the website, folks. So, um, Let me know when your service for being able to ensure houses is live and ready to go and up and available.

We should do a broadcast from Baja. I think that would be fun. Well, Jeff, thanks for making a few minutes for me. And without further ado, I'm going to head down the highway and off to Ensenada. All right, buddy. Thank you for having me. It's always a pleasure. Thanks.

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The food, the setting, the pool, it's all spectacular. AdobeGuadalupe.com. For appearing on Slow Baja today, our guests will receive the beautiful benchmark map 72-page Baja Road and Recreation Atlas. Do not go to Baja without this, folks. You never know when your GPS is going to crap out, and you're going to want a great map in your lap. Trust me. Hey, well, I hope you enjoyed that travel talk with Jeff Hill.

It really is amazing to me that we've been doing fun stuff together now for 16 years. I do delight that I don't have to think twice about where I'm going to get my insurance. It's a one and done for me. and I do hope that someday I will have a second home in Baja that Baja bound will be insuring for me. If you have somebody you want to hear from on a travel talk or a regular show, please reach out via the contact function at slowbaha.com or Instagram or Facebook. Send me a DM. Let me know who you want to hear from. Let me know what you like. Let me know what you don't like. And you can always drop a taco in my tank. And hey, if you are buying insurance, well, you can click right through the sponsor. page on slowbaha.com, click that Baja bound and get your insurance. Same great price, same

great service, and Baja Bound drops a taco in my tank. It's amazing. I think it's called affiliate marketing. But they do it and I need it and I like it. So if you're buying insurance, you've got a winter trip coming up, please click through my site and get your Baja Bound that way. All right, without wasting any more of your time, we're going to wrap it up with Mary McGee's friend, Steve McQuinn. I'm paraphrasing here, folks. I'm paraphrasing Mary McGee's friend. Baja is life. Anything that happens before or after is just waiting.