Here is a step-by-step breakdown of our home construction project from planning to breaking ground until the project was completed. Well, they say that a home construction project is never really done down here, but at least to a point that it felt pretty much done.

————————————————————

The first step in the process was deciding where we would want to build / live. We knew we wanted be on the Pacific side of Baja, just steps to the beach but quickly realized that to narrow it down we would need to be a lot more specific so we made a list. It looked something like this:

1. Clean / blue water
2. Minimum 10 miles off any paved road
3. Maximum 30 miles off any paved road
4. NOT listed on any tourist map
5. NOT been reviewed on any travel guide
6. NOT being pushed by 100 real estate agents
7. Blend of rocky and sandy beaches
8. Tide pools
9. Undisturbed marine life (starfish / sea urchins / etc)
10. Backdrop topography (hills/mountains/etc)
11. Good fishing
12. Good diving
13. Mild, year round weather
14. More than 3 hours from the US border
15. Less than 6 hours from US border

It was pretty easy to map out a section of Pacific coastline that would fit that criteria and we began our search at Erendira, which we thought would be about as far north as we would consider.

It was nice but it seems difficult to find a piece of land there without some level of dispute as to who really owns it. That soured things quickly.

We kept moving south, looking at the Colonet area, Camalu and Costa Brava areas. Each one was nice but we didn’t come across any coastline with property for sale that clicked with us, so we moved on.

And then we drove into San Quintin.

A friend took us around the Bay area which was nice and seeing fishing charters coming in at El Molino full of fish definitely caught my attention. We then made a trip out to the beach to an area called Lomas de San Martin. It fronts San Martin Island and is just along the north side of an old fishing village called La Chorera.

We immediately fell in love with the view of the island, the sandy beaches framed in by tide pools, the ancient volcanic topography looming behind us and the overall tranquility of the place.

So with the help of a good friend – retired attorney – in Tijuana who verified clean title on the land, we then tracked down the owner and staked our claim.