San Ysidro Port of Entry

The San Ysidro Port of Entry is at once the most unremarkable and the most fascinating border crossing in the world. On the US side, the pedestrian walkway begins at the San Ysidro Transit Center — the southern terminus of the San Diego Trolley — and funnels through the US Customs and Border Protection facility before depositing you in the streets of Tijuana. The whole process heading south takes about five minutes. Heading north is another matter entirely.

The crossing point itself is worth experiencing simply as a piece of infrastructure at scale. The queuing lanes stretch back for hundreds of metres, the signage is in three languages, and the flow of people and vehicles is constant from early morning to late at night. Practical note: pedestrian northbound queues are generally shorter than vehicle queues on weekday mornings and Sunday afternoons. Check current wait times at the US CBP app before you head back.

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On a typical weekday, around 70,000 vehicles and 20,000 pedestrians cross the San Ysidro Port of Entry heading northbound into the United States. That makes it the busiest land border crossing in the world by volume — more than double the daily throughput of most international airports. Southbound crossing into Mexico requires no documentation and takes minutes; the northbound queue can stretch to several hours.