Border Tours — Attraction in San Diego

This tour didn't meet our expectations! I would not recommend it to spend an entire day just for this tour.

Tour Guides - The tour guides were fine and were doing their job properly in terms of co-ordination, communication and guidance. Andres helped us cross the border. He was on time and co-ordination was very good. Tadeo was our tour guide after crossing the border. He was punctual and was friendly. He was speaking moderately good English although he was very much a Tijuana native. He was able to answer all our questions.

Actual tour - The border crossing to Mexico was seamless and didn't take much time. After crossing the border, you will ride on a public transport, not a tour bus. We basically walked around Tijuana. This tour doesn't cover much ground, gives little substantive history about Tijuana, fills the time by taking you to places for candy and tequila tasting in local shabby stores filled with flies and unclean places. This is not a tour, just a friendly stroll through downtown Tijuana that does not justify the cost. Tequila seem to be diluted not found it to be authentic. Tijuana's history was not discussed but the local monuments like an arc donated by Samsung or a statue. Not very desirable.

Lunch - While we were walking, we came across decent restaurants which we thought we would dine in but apparently we were taken to just another place for lunch in a basement. We were looking forward to tasting authentic Mexican cuisine but we were offered only couple of tacos. Me and our group was expecting some rice and beans being Mexican staple, but it was missing.

Return back - This was the most tragic, unprofessional and frustrating part. The tour guides do not own the responsibility to cross the border back. The return line at the border entering into USA was so busy that it took in total 4 hours for us to cross the border. For the 4 hours of tour we spent 4 hours of waiting in line to border crossing by walk. People were cutting lines and most inefficient processes. There was no consideration for old people, children or handicapped people. They can also consider dividing the lines based on Passports or visa etc. to speed up the process. There were no washrooms available and the ones available were paid.

There is a lot of room for improvement for this tour. Till then, I would not recommend the visit and the cost...

Do NOT use this miserable scam of a company.

Border Tours is fraudulently stealing money from paying customers. I paid for a tour, drove hours to the meeting spot, and the tour operator NEVER showed up. I called the tour operator and company I booked them through and was unable to reach them. Waited at the meeting location for hours and the entire day was ruined.

After filing several complaints with involved parties, this tour operator proceeded to fraudulently lie about the situation. The tour operator first informed the travel company that they had proof that they were at the meeting location. They said they had a photo of a "man in a mask" and that they were at the location. They said they had screenshots of phone calls and texts sent to me. All of this were lies.

A few days later, they changed their story, claiming how they were UNABLE to reach me because I had booked the tour through a different company and they weren't provided with my information. This is a complete 180 from their first story. Apparently they had changed the meeting location and did not inform me. I believe they were too lazy to cross the border as border crossing times were around 1.5 hours. Due to their laziness and unprofessionalism, they probably changed the meeting location from the US side to Mexico side; or they never bothered to show up and just wanted to pocket the money anyway.

In the end, this company STOLE money for a service they never provided. I would advise everyone to AVOID this company. This company is SCAMMING customers. Border Tours is DISHONEST and intentionally defrauding customers by never showing up to provide the service and even worse, LYING and DECEIVING the travel agencies you book this service through.

Do NOT use Border Tours. ...

This tour was amazing! We really enjoyed our time in Tijuana with Victor as our tour guide. He put in the effort to make sure we had a great time, and shared a lot of great stories, and interesting facts about Tijuana, while taking us to some of the best shops and restaurants! We ended the tour with a tequila taste-testing, where we enjoyed the best tequila we've ever had (for those who don't like tequila, I can guarantee you'll enjoy the fruit flavored ones). I felt very safe throughout the whole experience. Overall, super fun trip, and I now really want to visit again!

Also side note - for those concerned about crossing the border to arrive at the tour, it's super quick and easy. Walking across the boarder is super smooth, and you meet your tour guide right where the border crossing ends. If meeting your tour guide over the border is stopping you from signing up, don't let it - this was literally no hassle at all and was quick and safe. I will warn you though, crossing back to the U.S. will take a long time. There was a bus service where we were able to pay $20 each to drive right to customs, which we ended up doing and it was relatively quick. It would have been hours of wait time had we not done this (we were arriving back on a Saturday evening, so this probably contributed to the especially huge line). Something to consider when...