Trish & Ivanna met in 2004 when Trish joined Arizona Roller Derby, the league Ivanna founded. We were opposing home team captains for a season before we realized we wanted to play on the same team. So we moved to Las Vegas and founded another league that exclusively played against players of other leagues. Over the course of 16+ year roller derby careers that ended up ultimately in Southern California, we met an uncountable number of roller derby players and became lifelong friends with many of them.

Those 16 years also included a lot of derby games and roller skating trips, coaching and playing on several continents. Over all those long drives and plane flights, we started dreaming about a place where all our friends could come together to skate. The dream evolved over time and so did our skating. Eventually we reluctantly retired from competitive roller derby play when the pandemic put derby on hold. But we haven’t stopped skating and probably never will. We began most pandemic days skateboarding and roller skating in Southern California skate parks until we started to turn our attention to realizing our dream: Baja SurfnSkate.

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Baja is the perfect place for this dream. Locals, including expatriates tend to be laid back and accepting of lifestyles that may not be considered the norm in more uptight places. Bigotry, racism and transphobia are rare here and not generally accepted, and people tend to be kind and welcoming. Over all those years of traveling, we learned how important it is to feel welcomed. As same-sex couple travelers, and not presenting 100% binary, with friends from everywhere – we learned how fast a bigot can ruin an otherwise great vacation. We wanted our place to be a lovely, golden sanctuary for people like us, and also for people who aren’t like us. Everyone deserves the opportunity to travel without being hassled. And we have lodgings in every price range because everyone deserves a vacation, not just rich people. It is super important to us to have a place where people feel like they belong. We welcome everyone!

La Misión is absolutely gorgeous, too, where lovely mountains and fertile farmland meet the Pacific Ocean. Winding highways navigate the cliffs and valleys, and whales and dolphins patrol the shore below. The playas (beaches) feature white sand – including dunes. Baja Norte is famous for surfing, hiking, boating, off-road races, wine country and so much more. We came for a long weekend and it was love at first sight: we knew we’d found the right place for our skater paradise! La Misión is the best of rural living without being isolated; it’s 40 minutes to Ensenada and Tijuana, and another 20 minutes to San Diego. It’s the best of all worlds.

Baja SurfnSkate is an ongoing work in progress. We hope to build lots of little houses and welcome lots of visitors and have friends and family all around. Thank you for joining us!