Plan Your Trip

Cabo Airport Guide: Don't Stop Walking Until You're Outside

By Cabo Wander

The most useful thing I can tell you about the Cabo airport is that nobody who talks to you inside the building is your driver.

After customs, the only way out is through a couple of rooms full of friendly people in official-looking shirts who would love to help you with your transportation. They're selling timeshares and tours. The real drivers aren't allowed inside the terminal, so every one of them is waiting outdoors in the sun.

On every single trip, I book a private car before I fly, I screenshot the confirmation, and once I have my bags I walk through those rooms without stopping until I'm outside. A private car runs about US$70 to $110 for the whole vehicle, depending on where you're staying, and it turns the one stressful part of this airport into about ninety seconds of saying "no, gracias".

The airport itself is small and pretty quick. Its code is SJD and it's in San José del Cabo, about 28 miles from Cabo San Lucas, which surprises a lot of people. The timeshare rooms get all the attention, but they aren't where I see people lose real time and money. That would be the baggage carousel on a Saturday, a shared shuttle to San Lucas, a rental car quoted without insurance, and assuming an Uber will come get you. I'll go through all of it in the order you'll meet it.

Before You Fly

Book the ride first. Then take a screenshot of the confirmation, because it tells you exactly where outside to meet your driver, and you won't have data when you land. I learned that one standing in the heat, staring at an email that wouldn't load.

Give the transfer company your airline and flight number when you book. There are two terminal buildings a short outdoor walk apart, and the meeting spot depends on which one you land at. I'm not going to give you a list of which airline uses which, because every list I've seen disagrees with the next one. Your booking will tell you.

A few other things I sort out at home:

• The state visitor fee. It's about US$25 a head for visitors over 12, and you pay it online on the state government's own site, which emails you a QR code. Nobody at the airport collects it. If a person or a lookalike website with a "service fee" offers to handle it for you, that's not the real one. I keep the code on my phone in case I'm asked.
• Leave the vape at home. Bringing them into Mexico is banned and customs will take it. Same goes for fresh fruit, meat and cold medicine with pseudoephedrine in it.
• Pack a pen and some cash. You may be handed a customs form on the plane (one per family), and cash is your backup plan if anything goes wrong with your ride.

If you still have a choice of flights, pick one that isn't Saturday at lunchtime. Saturday is changeover day for the timeshare crowd, and the flights from the US and Canada all bunch up between about 11am and 3 or 4pm. A Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, or any flight landing before 11am or after 4pm, feels like a different airport. The busiest weeks are Thanksgiving, Christmas through New Year's, and spring break, and I've got more on timing in the best time to visit Cabo. For a holiday week, I book the car the same day I book the flight.

Immigration, Bags and Customs

Don't be surprised if you walk down stairs onto the tarmac. Plenty of flights park away from the building, so I dress for the heat and wear shoes I can manage steps in.

Immigration is the easy part. There's no paper tourist card to fill out at this airport anymore, whatever your resort's welcome email says. An officer asks where you're staying and for how long, stamps your passport, and writes in the number of days you're allowed. Read that number before you walk away. 180 days is the most they can give, and you don't get it automatically, so I keep my return flight and hotel booking handy in case they ask.

Some adults get sent to passport machines in place of an officer. If that's you, the machine prints a small receipt, and I'd tuck it in your passport and keep it until you're home. If anyone in your group is under 18, plan on the regular line for all of you.

On a quiet day, it all takes hardly any time. I've landed late in the afternoon and walked up to immigration with not one person ahead of me, and with only a carry-on you can be at the curb about ten minutes after the plane door opens. A bad Saturday looks very different. Picture half an hour or more at immigration, and then the baggage carousel, which is the slow part these days. Twenty to thirty minutes for bags is normal, and on a peak weekend it can be a lot longer. If I landed at 1pm on a Saturday with checked bags, I'd expect an hour to an hour and a half before I saw daylight.

If you can pack in a carry-on, this is the airport to do it.

Customs comes after the bags. Hand over the form if you were given one, and your bags may get a look. Camera and dive gear tend to get pulled aside.

The Timeshare Rooms

Okay, now the famous part. Once you're past customs, sliding doors open onto a couple of rooms you have to cross to get outside. The people working them are timeshare and tour salespeople. They aren't airport staff, they aren't from your hotel, and they aren't from your transfer company, although they'll happily tell you they're any of the three.

The internet makes it sound like a gauntlet, but nobody grabs you. I've done the Cancun version and this one is tamer. They're persistent and they'll fib, and that's the whole problem.

The fibs are what catch people, so here are the ones I've heard:

• "Who is your transportation with?" followed by "that's us" or "oh, they already left for the day."
• "You need to check in here first."
• "Let me see your hotel voucher."
• "There are several exits, I'll show you which one is yours."
• "If you walk outside, you can't come back in."

That last one is my favorite, because you don't want to come back in.

None of it is true. Your driver hasn't left, because real transfer companies track your flight. You don't check in with anyone indoors. And please don't show anybody your voucher, because they read the company name off it and suddenly that's who they work for. If someone inside is holding a sign with your transfer company's name on it, I'd still keep walking. The real ones can't come in.

Rental car people get caught here more than anyone. You expect to find a rental desk inside, and somebody inside is glad to be one for you.

What they're offering is a free or cheap ride to your hotel, or a discounted boat trip, sometimes with a tequila shot at the desk. What it costs is a morning. The "90-minute" presentation takes three to four hours, and sometimes a lot longer, and some of them hold a refundable deposit to make sure you show up, anywhere from US$20 to about US$100. Some people do it on purpose and feel fine about the trade, so I've laid out the real math in what a Cabo timeshare presentation actually costs you. At the airport, with your bags, right off a flight, is the wrong moment to decide.

The mistake I see most is stopping "just to ask where the shuttles are". There's nobody in there to ask. Say no thanks, keep your feet moving, and go through the last set of doors. And if all of this has you wondering about the bigger picture, I talk about that in is Cabo safe.

Finding Your Driver Outside

The heat hits you, and so do the taxi drivers, who stand right at the doors. Past them is a crowd of reps from the transfer companies, in company shirts, holding boards with the company logo. They won't be holding your name, which throws people. You're looking for the logo and the meeting spot from your screenshot.

Once you find your rep, they check you off a list and radio for the car, which is parked somewhere else. I usually wait about ten minutes at this point. Then somebody hands you a cold water or a beer and you're on your way.

Every Way to Get to Your Hotel

Private Transfer

This is the right answer for almost everybody, and it's less of a splurge than it sounds. The price is for the whole car, which usually seats five or six:

• San José del Cabo: about US$70 to $80
• The Corridor: about US$75 to $95
• Cabo San Lucas: about US$90 to $110
• The Pacific side: about US$100 to $160

For two people, that's close to what the airport taxi charges for the same ride. For a family of four going to San Lucas, it's the same money as four seats on the shared shuttle, or less, and you leave right away.

A good company tracks your flight, has a rep waiting no matter how late you land, keeps cold drinks in the car, and brings a child seat if you ask ahead. Book the round trip, because it's usually 10 to 15% cheaper than two one-ways and they'll set your pickup time for the ride home. Check whether the quote includes tax, since some sites add 16% at the end. The tip isn't included either, and I give 100 to 200 pesos for the car, or 10 to 15%.

One thing I wouldn't do is let the hotel arrange it. I priced a hotel's own car once and it was more than double the independent company, for the same kind of Suburban.

Official Airport Taxi

If you land with nothing booked, or your booking falls through, this is your backup, and it's a perfectly good one. Nobody ever says that. You pay a fixed price for your zone at the official taxi booth, they hand you a printed ticket, and someone walks you to a van.

It's about US$65 to $85 to San José, US$75 to $95 to the Corridor, and US$90 to $115 to San Lucas, for up to four people. There's no posted price list I can point you to, so treat those as ranges. Bring cash, because the card readers are flaky.

The trick is that a lot of desks on your way out say "Taxi" on them, and most of those are sales desks. The real one sells you a ticket at a set price and that's the end of the conversation. If the person behind the desk wants to talk about your week or offers you anything free, keep going.

Shared Shuttle

About US$20 to $25 a person, and for a solo traveler or a couple headed to San José, it's fine. The ride is short and there's not much that can go wrong.

To Cabo San Lucas, I think it's a false economy. The van waits at the curb until it fills up, which can be half an hour or more, and then it stops at two to four hotels before yours. With the wait and the stops, I'd plan on an hour and a quarter to an hour and a half. My worst one was close to two hours of standing around, at which point I was offered a private ride for extra money... which is where I should have started. There's a bar out by the pickup area, and I'm pretty sure it stays in business thanks to people waiting on shared shuttles.

Tip US$2 or $3 a person if you take it. And if there are three or more of you, just book the private car.

Rental Car

I'd only pick up a car at the airport if I were touring, meaning day trips to places like Todos Santos or the East Cape, or if I'd rented a condo on the Pacific side. For a week at a resort or on Médano, it'll mostly sit in the parking lot.

The cars aren't at the terminal. The big brands have a counter or a uniformed rep in or just outside arrivals, and then a shuttle takes you to an office a few minutes away. Local companies meet you outside. With the shuttle, the paperwork and the walk-around, give it 45 minutes to an hour and a half from the curb before you're driving.

The bigger thing is that the price you saw online probably isn't the price. Those few-dollars-a-day quotes leave out the liability insurance that Mexican law requires, and it gets added at the counter at roughly US$20 to $40 a day. The worst I've had was a US$260 prepaid booking that turned into a US$1,650 total at the desk. Rent from a company that quotes insurance included, and read renting a car in Cabo before you book, because that's where I get into which coverage you need.

Before you drive off, take photos of the whole car, and ask the desk how the toll gets paid in that car. You'll want the toll road if you're headed to Cabo San Lucas or the Pacific side. For San José you don't need it. And if your flight lands late, check the office hours, because some of the small local companies close their desk in the early evening.

The Bus

The cheapest ride by a mile is the public bus, about 100 to 110 pesos, so five or six dollars, to either town. It's a clean, air-conditioned purple and orange coach and I like it a lot.

It's just not a great fit for arrival day. The stop is at the smaller, mostly domestic terminal, so from an international flight you go up to the departures level, out of the building, and along the sidewalk past the rental car offices and an OXXO, with your bags. It comes by roughly every half hour through the day and stops running in the late evening, so I wouldn't count on it for a late flight. You pay the driver in pesos. It takes an hour to an hour and a quarter to reach San Lucas, and it stops along the highway and in town, so you'll still need a short cab or a walk at the other end.

If you're traveling light, on your own, and in no hurry, go for it. With a family and four suitcases, I wouldn't.

Uber

Please don't plan on being picked up by an Uber at arrivals. Whether ride apps are allowed to collect passengers at the airport has been argued over for years, it goes back and forth, and I wouldn't bet my first afternoon on which way it's leaning the week you land. Pre-book a car.

Going home is a different story, because Uber can drop you at departures with no trouble at all. From San José it's been about 250 pesos for me. From Cabo San Lucas I've paid anywhere from US$30 to $55, when a taxi wanted about US$80. Uber, taxis and the local bus once you're in town all get their own post in getting around Cabo.

How Long the Ride Takes

You'll see "30 minutes to Cabo San Lucas" all over the internet. That's the toll road on a good day, to the edge of town. To a hotel lobby, here's what I plan on in a private car:

• San José, the center or the hotel zone: 15 to 30 minutes
• Palmilla and the east end of the Corridor: 25 to 30 minutes
• The middle of the Corridor: 30 to 45 minutes
• Cabo San Lucas, the marina and Médano: 45 minutes to an hour
• The Pacific side: 45 minutes to an hour, sometimes more
• The East Cape: about an hour, in the opposite direction

There are two roads south. The toll road runs inland and skips San José and the whole Corridor, so that's the one your driver takes to San Lucas and the Pacific side. The free highway is the coast road that every Corridor resort sits on, and it's the one with the views. Transfers and airport taxis include the toll in the fare, so you don't need to think about it. The Corridor is 20 miles long, so which end you're on changes the ride a lot, and I get into that in my Tourist Corridor guide.

The East Cape is its own thing. The Four Seasons at Costa Palmas is about an hour the other way, and the car is around US$280 each way through the hotel or a private company.

If you haven't booked a hotel yet, the ride is worth thinking about. It's one of the things I weigh in Cabo San Lucas vs San José del Cabo, and I list the drive for every area in where to stay in Cabo. On a week-long trip an extra half hour is nothing. If you're coming for a long weekend it matters more, and flight times are the first thing I look at in my 3-day Cabo itinerary.

The Grocery Stop

Almost every private transfer company will stop at a supermarket on the way for an extra US$30 to $40. You get about half an hour to shop while the driver waits.

If you're in a villa, a condo, or a room-only hotel on the Corridor or the Pacific side, it's absolutely worth it. Those are the places where you can't walk to a store, and a case of water, some beer, limes, breakfast things and sunscreen will cost you a lot less at the supermarket than at the resort shop. I LOVE this stop when I'm in a condo. It's the difference between coffee on the balcony the first morning and a cab ride to find some.

I'd skip it for an all-inclusive, where you've already paid for the food and drinks. The same goes if you're staying around the San Lucas marina or in San José's center, where there's a store a few minutes' walk from your door. And I'd skip it on the short ride to San José, where it can turn twenty minutes into an hour. A late arrival with tired kids is a no too.

What It Costs

Here's the whole thing in one place, one way, from the airport:

• Private car: US$70 to $110 for the vehicle to either town or the Corridor, more for the Pacific side
• Official taxi: US$65 to $115 for the vehicle, in cash
• Shared shuttle: US$20 to $25 a person
• Bus: about 100 to 110 pesos a person
• Grocery stop: US$30 to $40 on top of a private car
• Tip: 100 to 200 pesos for a private driver, US$2 or $3 each on a shuttle
• State visitor fee: about US$25 a person, paid online

For a couple staying in Cabo San Lucas, a round trip in a private car with tips comes out somewhere around US$200. That's the number I'd put in the budget, and the rest of the trip is in how much Cabo costs.

Flying Home

Leaving is easier than arriving, with one exception, and it's the same Saturday lunchtime that caused trouble on the way in.

My own habit is to be at the airport three hours ahead for any flight leaving in the middle of the day on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday in high season. On a weekday morning or evening I'm comfortable with two, and I've gone from the curb to the gate area in about ten minutes on a quiet day. Security moves quickly here. What's slow is the line at the airline desks when all the midday flights are checking in at once.

Then add the drive. It's 40 to 50 minutes from Cabo San Lucas and 15 to 30 from San José. There's one toll plaza on the way from San Lucas, and it has jammed up badly before, so I leave a cushion. If you booked a round trip, the transfer company picks the time for you, and it's usually three hours before the flight plus the drive.

Make sure your driver knows which terminal. They're separate buildings, and getting dropped at the wrong one means an outdoor walk with all your bags.

As a tourist, you don't have to do anything at immigration on the way out. There's no form and no exit stamp. (If you hold a Mexican residency card, you do need a stamp at the immigration counter before security.)

The part I wish I'd known is to eat before you leave the hotel. The food past security is fast-food chains at prices that still make me wince. I paid US$56 for three Subway sandwiches, and they were exactly as good as Subway sandwiches. There's nothing in there I'd call worth eating.

There's a lounge past security that takes Priority Pass and sells day passes for somewhere around US$40 to $60. It's a calmer place to sit than the gates, which don't all have much seating. I wouldn't go for the food, which is thin, and there's a three-drink limit. It also tends to close in the early evening, so check the hours if you have a late flight and don't count on it for dinner. At what a beer costs out in the food court, I can see paying for the pass on drinks alone.

On some flights to the US, a few passengers get pulled for a second bag search and pat-down at the gate, after regular security. It happened to me once and cost me about ten minutes and my spot in the boarding line. If your flight is doing it, buy your water after that check. And you may be walking across the tarmac and up stairs again.

The Traps, and How to Walk Past Them

Most of these I've covered, but here they are together so you can skim them at the gate on your way down.

• Stopping in the sales rooms to ask a question. At best you lose ten minutes. At worst you lose a deposit and a morning. Ask outside.
• Showing your voucher to anyone indoors. Keep it in your pocket until you're outside with a rep in the right company shirt.
• Not knowing where to meet your driver. Screenshot the confirmation before you board.
• A shared shuttle to San Lucas for three or more people. It costs as much as a private car and takes twice as long.
• Landing with no booking and no cash. Carry enough for the taxi, in case the card reader is down.
• Counting on Uber at arrivals. Pre-book, and save Uber for the ride back.
• The US$5 a day rental car. Ask for the total with liability insurance before you pay anything.
• Paying the visitor fee to a person or a lookalike site. It's the state's own website only.
• Buying lunch for the family past security. See above, and eat at the hotel.

The Verdict

The Cabo airport is a small, fairly quick airport with one well-known ambush, and the ambush is harmless once you know it's coming. Walk through, say no thanks, and everything real is outside.

For nearly everyone, I'd book a private car, round trip, before you fly. It's a fixed price, someone is waiting for you, and for two or more people it costs about the same as the alternatives. If you're alone and headed to San José, the official taxi or a shared shuttle is fine. If you're alone, headed to San Lucas and patient, take the shuttle or the bus and enjoy the savings. If you've got a villa or a condo, get the private van with the grocery stop. I'd only rent a car if I were touring, and only from a company that quotes insurance in the price.

Before you fly, it's also worth reading the Cabo first-timer mistakes I'd avoid and Cabo with kids.

Book a private car before you go, screenshot the confirmation, bring a pen and some cash. After customs, don't stop for anybody until you're outdoors. Your driver's out there. Going home, eat first, and take the Uber if you didn't book a round trip.

Quick Answers

How do I get from the Cabo airport to my hotel? Book a private transfer before you fly, about US$70 to $110 for the car depending on where you're staying. The official airport taxi is the backup, and a shared shuttle or the bus works if you're solo and not in a rush.

Can I get an Uber from the Cabo airport? Don't plan on it at arrivals. Uber is fine for getting dropped off at departures on the way home.

How far is the airport from Cabo San Lucas? About 28 miles. Plan on 45 minutes to an hour to your hotel in a private car, and 15 to 30 minutes if you're staying in San José.

Do I still need to fill out a tourist card? No, not at this airport. Your entry is recorded electronically, and you may be handed a customs form on the plane, one per family.

How early should I get to the airport to fly home? I do three hours for a midday weekend flight in high season and two on a quiet weekday, plus the drive. The airline desk line is the slow part, and security is quick.