Baja Studios

Until 1995 Rosarito was part of the city of Tijuana, but it became a municipality when local politicians like Hugo Torres realized that it was capable of generating its own tourism dollars. Conventional sights are lacking in the city itself, but movie aficionados come to see the Baja Studios, 4km south of town at km 32.5 on the free highway to Ensenada. This bit of Hollywood-in-Mexico, originally created by Fox for the filming of Titanic, was sold to a group of private investors in 2007. Since then its massive production facilities and seventeen-million-gallon oceanfront tank (also used to shoot films such as Pearl Harbor and Master and Commander) have seen little action, and have instead become a major tourist attraction. The Xploration theme park (t661/612-4294, US t866/369-2252, wwww.xploration.com.mx) offers a range of exhibits and experiences based around the studios, from an interactive journey through the process of movie-making to the kitschy X-Men exhibit. The Titanic model, created at 95 percent scale, has been disassembled, but much of the set is viewable at the park’s Titanic Museum.