Nah. I like skiing too much to waste winter on warmer climes, and if I were to head south, it would be somewhere less risky than Mexico.
It’s not just the drug crime that worries me. It is also the Mexican authorities’ tendency to lock up innocent tourists who happen to be in the location of a crime. For example, one of my past firm’s clients was arrested for murder simply for having a room on the same floor in a resort.
What it comes down to is that I prefer to remain in the first world.
Many years ago, I spent a day walking about Ciudad Juarez. I really can’t see myself doing that again, given how greatly Mexico has deteriorated.
Today, four people with whom I dance left for a Mexican vacation, and another couple of friends spend their winters touring Mexico. Good for them. Just not what I am interested in.
My experience of Mexico is not recent, but for what it’s worth:
The border towns can be dangerous. Mexico City can be dangerous. That leaves a huge amount of the country! By far the vast majority of Mexicans are ordinary people, living ordinary lives.
Obviously there have been high-profile problems in certain other locations over the past few years. The US State Department’s travel advisories are going to err on the side of caution, so if they don’t mention San Luis Potosí as a problem, then it won’t be.
You can be the victim of serious crime anywhere in the world. Take sensible precautions. Don’t flash around expensive-looking jewellery or technology. A little polite Spanish will go a long way. Don’t go wandering around back streets looking lost. Book taxis via your hotel’s reception. Listen to local advice. Keep some “mugging money” handy. All that sort of thing.
As an ordinary foreign visitor, you’re really no more likely to be killed by a Mexican drug lord than you are going to be killed by a gang when visiting Los Angeles on holiday.
So upon crossing the border from the USA into good ol’ Mexico, you finally got to experience what a peaceful, ordered, lawful, stable society was like, eh?
I used to go to Juarez a few times a year. Haven’t been there in well over 2 years. In fact, there is nowhere in Mexico I would go right now. No doubt being close to Juarez colors my opinion of the rest of the country, which may be much safer, but no thanks.
I was being just a teeny bit facetious there, the annual murder rate being in the multiple thousands and all. I’ve been to D.F. recently without incident and had a great time, but I wouldn’t go to Juarez under any circumstances now.
Potosí is an eminently visiteable city and you’ll have a local guide (well, local-ized); I would definitely go under those conditions, but that’s me.
There have been places in Mexico where I wouldn’t have left the hotel to take a walk around the block (Toluca), others where I felt perfectly safe during the same trip (Apizaco Tlaxcala, Puebla - Apizaco didn’t look any better economically than the area around my hotel in Toluca, but for some reason it didn’t feel threatening, while Toluca did), but I can say the same about France, Spain, the US… at the same time, I’ve heard Mexican coworkers talk about being robbed at gunpoint with a casualness I definitely do not consider normal. Ask your cousin’s advice, and if your mother doesn’t feel safe then she shouldn’t go.
That’s “Vaya con Dios”, por favor. And “Vaya por Dios” would actually be more appropriate.
I’m not sure if you’re making this mistake or not, but it seems common for Americans to assume that Ciudad Juárez and Tijuana are somehow typical of Mexico as a whole. They’re not!!
Heh, yeah, but I’ve been reading your stuff in Bibliovore’s thread, and you’re a veritable David Attenborough of political hot-spots. Whilst YOU might be able to avoid the problem areas, yer’ average schmuck like me will get eaten by a Mexican hippopotamus probably.
Unless you can take me on a guided tour, I’ll decline thanksverymuch.
Would I go to Mexico now? Well since I am not into cruises or laying around on a beach gettting drunk I would probably not be interested in most vacay plans to Mexico. But I might be open to perhaps a cultural/antiquities type tour…
But after reading about Mexico vacations gone bad I would really be extra extra careful about everything I do there.
That website is written by an upset mother who feels like it’s Mexico’s fault that her 22 year old son drowned in a 4 foot deep pool. Mexico is many things, but it doesn’t put a gun to your head and force you to go swimming drunk.
And what say you about the other incidents? TThe little boy sucked into an uncovered pool outlet, the parasailing accidents, the kid who fell down an elevator shaft?
Yeah some people get themselves into iffy situations yet what is the reason for the hotel staff to deny a family access to the their loved ones dead body, why do they lie and coverup about hotel dangers?
Do you think the people who took the time to write in about their experiences are lying or drunk or both?
I think for the most part they were unfortunate accidents, and the grieving families are looking to create some kind of meaning out of the inherently injustice and meaninglessness of death-by-accident.
Anywhere in the world, people swimming in oceans sometimes get swept away, kids swimming unattended (as they were in almost all of these cases) in pools drown, and stuff like dune buggy accidents and shark attacks happen. Some of the detailed incidents do seem like gross negligence- like the elevator shaft story. But there are also a number of balcony falls by teenagers, which I’m going to venture have more to do with tequila shots than anything else.
And why the hell would you parasail in the developing world? Why, for one moment, would you put your life in the hands of a rope that you know nothing about? You have to use your head.
I’m not sure I would vacation in Mexico even if it was a free trip. Why take the risk? I know it’s probably overreacting on my part but I’m seeing Mexico as a third-world war zone lately and that’s not my idea of a good time.
Tulum is awesome. And perfectly safe. Probably significantly safer than any major US city. I’ve been there several times and wouldn’t hesitate to return any time.
Mexico is a big country. Generalizing the safety or non- of the entire country based on the small, scattered pockets of lawless violent-prone areas is selling both them and yourself short. Do you think people avoid visiting the US just because [insert US city] is a hellhole?
Mexico hadn’t really been high on my list of places to visit to begin with, with the possible exception of Cozumel. My brother took his family to Cancun last year and had a horrible experience: crappy hotel, rude service, nickel-and-dimed everywhere they went. They vowed never to go back, and instead to resume annual stays at the Jamaican resort they’ve visited about five times (which sounds incredibly tiresome to me, but they enjoy it).
I did wander around the streets and back alleys of Tijuana alone one night, which was pretty stupid at the time and would be exceptionally reckless now. What I remember most are the aggressive pitches from hucksters outside the many strip clubs, each of them trying to convince me that THEIR club had the hottest girls, while all the female strippers at their competitors’ clubs were actually men.
I wouldn’t mind seeing other parts of the country, but frankly there are too many other places I want to visit (unexplored parts of Brazil, France, England, etc.) to potentially waste time and money on a disappointing, if not dangerous, trip to Mexico.
I realize that. I know I should be more logical about it and there are probably very safe areas to visit. But every time I hear about Mexico lately, it’s a story about a drug-related killing, or a kidnapping, or gang violence. That gets into my subconscious and influences my opinion of the place. Unfortunately the name “Mexico” now has bad connotations for me.
Hell no. I used to go all the time and felt pretty safe no matter where I was. Lots of border towns from Ojinaga to Juarez to Reynosa, Nuevo Laredo and Matamoras and resorts like Cabo. Now I’m just not interested in being anywhere near it. I don’t worry that much about getting caught up in any drug turf war but there are so many kidnappings and the like now, criminals doing whatever wherever just to get money. It simply is no longer worth it to me, nor will it be in the forseeable future.
