In July '04 the wife and I drove down (long, long drive from Denver in a lifted XJ on 33s - young and dumb I tells ya) to Baja. Neither of us speaks Spanish, and I'd recommend at least learning enough to read highway signs/maps.
We were strongly advised to purchase "Mexican insurance" before we crossed the border, for a couple reasons - 1)Your US ins. provider may not cover you in Mexico, and 2) If pulled over, the Mexican police may not recognize your US insurance as valid. Might be a scam, but on the US side of the crossing (south of San Diego) there were several places to buy Mexico insurance for around $10 a day - gets you documents in spanish, and an 800 number to call if you get thrown in jail. Oh, and a window sticker that said "TURISTA" - I only put this sticker in my window until I returned home (for the "I've driven to Baja, bitch" pride factor) - no way I'd advertise my gringo status while in Mexico.
We had no clue where we would end up, but all we knew was that we wanted to camp on a beach in Baja for a few days. We went as far south as Ensenada, but the day was fading, and we had been strongly warned about driving at night. So we doubled back north a few miles to a privately owned campground called Playa Saldomando (sp?). It was a nice place to stay, right on the coast. Cost ~$10 or $15 a night, but was safe and in a beautiful spot. I'd definitely recommend it for a stay, even thought it's not as remote/isolated as it sounds like you're looking for. I believe they have a website, even. The highway south of Tijuana is a toll-road, but is a nicely paved 4 laner (saw more California plates than local on this stretch of road).
On the way back north, we passed a checkpoint operated by the Mexican Army/Federales/Gang with army fatigues and M-16s. Apparently us gringos looked okay and they just waved us through, but they were tearing apart several other cars - don't fool around with transporting drugs, I guess.
When we hit Tijuana on our way back to the USA, I figured it'd be a simple job of navigating the same way back that we came in, and at first there were plenty of signs indicating how to reach the border crossing. Especially with the wife doing a great job of keeping an eye out for the signs and calling out "Left!" or "Next Right!" But at some point, the signage failed us, and we ended up heading south on a highway frontage road, and none of the California-plated cars were around us anymore. Guess I should've invested in buying a map of Tijuana at our Mexican insurance shack back in America.
At first I wasn't worried - this frontage road took us past Home Depot (ironic, no?), Wal-Mart, Staples and Office Depot box stores. Then it dumped us onto a south-bound freeway. I made the astute observation to my wife, "uh, we don't want to keep going south," and took the next exit and turned to the east. After crossing over the highway, I turned north, and ended up in some Mexican town. Still no reassuring Cali-tourist plates in sight, but plenty of transmission and exhaust repair shops along the street. Not a "ghetto" but definitely not part of the way back to America.
By a turn of luck, my sharp-eyed wife spotted a small sign indicating a US interstate was "this way" according to the sign's arrow. Now that I'd been lost in Mexico for a good 2 hours, I was driving like a local, so it was no problem to put on my right turn signal, toot my horn, and swerve across two lanes to make the right turn. It didn't make me feel good to see the street I was now following home to the "land of the brave" was called "somethingsomething la Industriale." Industrial Ave/Blvd/St in most US cities means a rough area.
But, the signs continued to appear, and we followed them until we came to an obvious border crossing - several lanes of gridlock, surrounded by street urchins hawking bottled water and porn. We showed our ID, crossed the border, and quickly realized we had not re-entered America where we left her. At the first gas station in America, we consulted our trusty Rand McNally atlas, and discovered that we had actually crossed back into the US from the city of Tecate. Whoops. Oh well, we made it back and it was a fun adventure.
Oh, and the signs we followed through Tecate with the US interstate symbol also included some Spanish words that we assumed meant "border crossing." Nope, turns out the signs referred to the San Diego County Jail - yup, for miles and miles, the Mexican highway dept makes sure all the locals know how to get to the SDC jail...to visit relatives, I'd guess? And that's our adventure. Have fun!
Edit: It was an odd experience to pay more attention to the little "KPH" markings on the speedo than the big "MPH" markings.
