Is It Safe To Travel To Mexico?

Ron Erskine recently profiled one of Mexico’s safest places, a colonial town rich with Mexican history and as charming as a “hilltop Tuscan town… or perch in Provence, France.”  San Miguel de Allende is famous in Mexican history as the birthplace of the Mexican War of Independence.  Almost 200 years later, it is an expatriate enclave for Americans and Canadians with a bustling artistic community and cultural capital to boot – from fine dining to high fashion boutiques.

Said Erskine:

“From here, craft shops, great restaurants, magnificent churches and historical buildings are a stroll away. The downtown walking tour brought San Miguel’s revolutionary drama to life: Ignacio Allende’s house, the plaza where insurgents gathered, and the wall against which many were shot by a firing squad (note the filled-in bullet holes).

I suppose the Mexico of CNN — drug cartel killings, corruption, danger — is out there somewhere, but every moment we spent in San Miguel was a revelation. Great weather, friendly people, rich history, and sights with a European flair are right here in our hemisphere.”

To read the full article, go here.

A recent article in The Washington Post offers a great, updated guide to traveling safe in Mexico, along with a fair compendium of facts, statistics, and quotes from official and non-official sources. An estimated 4.7 million Americans visited Mexico from January to October 2011. From the article:

Of 2,500 municipalities (what we call counties), only 80, or fewer than 5 percent, have been affected by the drug war, which accounts for only 3 percent of all crime. Mexican cities are also safer than some urban centers north of the border: Mexico City, for example, has 8.3 homicides a year per 100,000 people. That’s fewer than Miami (14.1) and Chicago (16.1). On a global scale, Mexico is safer than many of its neighbors. In 2008, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime reported Mexico’s homicide rate as 11.6 per 100,000, significantly lower than Honduras (60.9), Jamaica (59.5) or El Salvador (51.8). Without a solid understanding of the geography (761,606 square miles) and the nature of the drug wars (internecine fighting), many foreigners assume that all of Mexico is a war zone. But it isn’t.

Violence by and large is limited to specific areas, and unrelated to tourism.  The article suggests areas that are safe to visit, areas to visit with caution, as well as areas to avoid.

Safe to Visit
Cancun, Cozumel, Playa del Carmen, Puerto Vallarta, Cabo San Lucas, Campeche, Merida, Tulum, Uxmal and Chichen Itza, Leon, Guanajuato, San Miguel de Allende, Queretaro, Chiapas, San Cristobal de las Casas, Oaxaca

Go with Caution
Avoid traveling alone and at night in Tijuana, and beware of street crime in Mexico City.

Places to Avoid
Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Copper Canyon, Baja California, Guadlajara, Veracruz, Monterrey, Mazatlan, and Acapulco

Says U.S. and Hampton, VA expat Margo Lee Shetterly – who relocated to Mexico with her husband 6 years ago: in the article:

“There’s a big gap between perception and reality.  It’s a real shame for people to write off a whole country without looking at the map and at the statistics.”

To read the full travel guide, go here.

Christine Delsol of the San Francisco Chronicle asked recently, “Quick – which national capital has the higher murder rate: Mexico City or Washington, D.C.?”

If you happen to base your answer on recent headlines and news coverage, your answer will probably be Mexico City. But in fact, Mexico City’s drug-related-homicide rate per 100,000 population was one-tenth of Washington’s overall homicide rate in 2010. These kinds of statistics continue to justify Mexico as a safe travel destination by and large, but are ignored by the mainstream media.

While parts of Mexico are indeed plagued with drug-related violence, these parts have been well-publicized and are easy to avoid, as the article relays. On the flip-side,

“More than 95 percent of Mexico’s municipalities are at least as safe as the average traveler’s hometown. Yucatan state, for example, had 0.1 of a murder for every 100,000 people in 2010 – no U.S. tourist destination comes close to that. Most cities in central Mexico, outside of the scattered drug hot spots, have lower murder rates than Orlando.”

As Delsol points out, while it’s fairly clear what travelers should do when visiting Mexico – fly (don’t drive) across the border directly to safe regions, it seems that tourists would rather just write the country off as a whole, than bother with figuring out which places to avoid – even if it means writing off great vacation spots and even greater discount deals.

If you happen to be that type of traveler, read the full article here for some excellent Mexico safety tips and travel suggestions.

Despite the bloody picture that many U.S. politicians have painted – a USA Today special analysis found that rates of violent crime along the U.S.-Mexico border have been falling for years, even prior to the U.S. security buildup.  It looks like those famous quotes from U.S. politicians, such as Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer’s warning that human skulls were rolling through her state’s deserts, and Rep. John Culberson’s (R-Texas,) claim that violence on the U.S. side of the border was “out of control” run counter to police reports and violent crime statistics.

In fact, the USA Today analysis found that U.S. border cities are statistically safer on average than other cities in their states, and that murder, robbery and kidnapping rates were all on the decline. The analysis drew from more than 10 years of detailed crime data reported by more than 1,600 local law enforcement agencies in four states, as well as federal crime statistics and interviews along the border from California to Texas.

As USA Today points out, the appearance of an out-of-control border region continues to have  wide-ranging effects including:

Stalling efforts to pass a national immigration reform law, fueling stringent anti-immigration laws in Arizona and elsewhere, and increasing the amount of federal tax dollars going to build more fencing and add security personnel along the southwestern border.

San Diego City Councilman David Alvarez said some of the money going to border security should instead be going to expanding the existing ports of entry and adding new ones to allow the state’s already-hurting economy a chance to recover. But, he said, the image of a lawless border makes it impossible to even discuss the topic.

“When you’ve got the national rhetoric about illegal immigration, you can never get to a conversation about legal immigration,” Alvarez said. “Effective border crossings and better regional economics don’t sell newspapers.”

To read the full article, go here.

Former Mexican resident and educator Allan Wall gives a fair take on the Mexican safety debate at Mexidata, acknowledging Mexico’s violence problem and the sobering statistics of deaths in border towns like Ciudad Juarez and Tijuana. He also acknowledges that more Americans were killed in cartel related violence in 2010 (reportedly 108) than in years past, and that those numbers may be under-counted due to reporting complications such as dual citizenship and people who simply disappear.  However, he makes the point that, of those killed, many are involved in criminal or cartel-related activity – and that overall, the number of deaths does not quite match up to reports of rampant violence or of the whole country being in chaos.  Says Wall:

Let’s say for the sake of argument that up to 300 Americans die annually in Mexico.  Each one of those deaths is a tragedy.  But 300 deaths would still be a fraction of the estimated 15 million Americans who visit Mexico annually.  So statistically, the chances of an American tourist being killed in Mexico are not very high at all.

Wall urges Americans to make up their own minds about whether to travel to Mexico or not, but to make an informed decision.  He recommends the U.S. Travel Advisory as a fair and reliable source, and says, “In any city you visit, it makes a difference as to what part of town you are in, and in what sorts of activities you are engaged.”

Read the full article here.

There’s been a lot of news coverage about violence in Mexico, very little of it bothering to note that Mexico is a huge country with thirty-some states and that a) almost all of that violence is narco-related and b) you can count the number of tourists affected on one hand.

Here is another interesting article that provides needed context to violence statistics in Mexico, as well as compares safety statistics between Mexico and the U.S.  The official number of 111 U.S. citizens who were killed in Mexico last year may seem scary at first, but this was out of the almost 8 million U.S. citizens who visited Mexico last year.  In comparison, Boston, Las Vegas and Orlando also had 111 murders last year, and almost 1,000 U.S. citizens were killed in Puerto Rico (a country that gets far less press).  The statistic becomes eve more grounded once other facts are presented, namely, that a third of those 111 murders happened in just 2 cities and almost all of them were involved “in illicit vocations, usually the trafficking of guns, drugs, or people across the border.”

For more reasoning and statistics, read the full article here.

There are more safe destinations in Mexico than you might think, according to USA Today’s Travel Column “Destinations.”   Lamenting Mexico’s bad press situation which makes tourists think they’re “guaranteed to get caught in drug cartel crossfire just about anywhere,” the USA Today article cites some of the recent recommendations sprouting up from various travel experts on where to travel to in Mexico.  There is the article on the 5 Safest Mexican states published by the San Francisco chronicle, which we cited on this blog.  Lonely Planet travel editor Robert Reid also published a list of the “8 Safest Tourist Haunts in Mexico.”  The list includes Merida, Playa del Carmen, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico City, and Puebla.  To read Reid’s full list, go here.  For the full USA Today article, go here.

Robert Reid’s recent article for CNN Travel discusses Mexican tourism’s big PR problem – what we all know, the escalating drug war and gory media reports of violence.  He notes the U.S. State Department’s travel advisory’s recent expansion to 14 of Mexico’s 31 states doesn’t help matters either.  Yet, says Reid,

It’s in the 17 of 31 states not named in the newly expanded warnings that you’ll find the most rewarding destinations: the Yucatan Peninsula and Baja California beach resorts, colonial hill towns like the ex-pat haven of San Miguel de Allende, even the capital Mexico City.

Reid says, “We tend to lump all of Mexico – a country the size of Western Europe – together,” citing how a border incident involving the death of a Colorado tourist  in 2010 prompted the Texas Department of Homeland Security to issue a travel warning for all of Mexico.  The fact of the matter is that most of central and southern Mexico sees less violence than many U.S. cities, and residents remain miffed at the public’s fear of their quiet communities.

Offering “jungles, deserts, volcanoes, beaches, coral reefs, ancient pyramids, living pre-European cultures and some of the world’s most satisfying cuisines,” not to mention proximity and value, Mexico remains a great travel destination with a very bad PR problem.

Reid is a Lonely Planet U.S. Travel Editor and host of the 76-Second Travel Show.  You can read his full article at CNN Travel here.

The colorful streets of San Miguel (Photo by Marco Antonio Torres)

Sunset Magazine recently published their list of the 5 best places to visit in Mexico, titled “5 (Safe) Mexican Escapes.”  Their list is as follows:

1. Puerto Vallarta/Sayulita:  Popular beach city, and a little north, another beautiful beach city popular with surfers and expats.

2. Mexico City: Mexico’s capital, and a world-class, metropolitan city.

3. Oaxaca: A colonial jewel full of museums and galleries, and close to archaeological sites.

4. Ixtapa/Zihuatanejo: Resort town with wide beaches, high rises, and golf galore.

5. San Miguel de Allende: A quaint but metropolitan town rich with culture, and popular with artists and expats.

Sunset also gave some good tips for staying safe wherever you travel in Mexico, including limiting driving to during the day and on highways, and renting a low-key model car.  Read the full article here.

Last week’s article in the San Francisco Chronicle named the top five safest places in Mexico to travel to, based on homicide rates:

1. Tlaxcala (1.1 deaths per 100,000) – the safest state of Mexico, an agricultural state with archaeological and historical sites as the main attractions

2. Yucatán (1.3) – famous for its Mayan ruins, beaches, wildlife attractions and eco-tourism

3. Puebla (1.85) – home of both mole poblano and national dish chiles en nogada

4. Querétaro (2.02) – known for its historic attractions, and home to one of Mexico’s Magic Pueblos

5.  Baja California Sur (2.98) – a diverse mix of artsy, urban and rugged cities, with plenty of outdoor and adventure activities

In addition to these states whose homicide rates are comparable to that of Vermont’s, the areas of Campeche, Veracruz, Hidalgo, Chiapas, San Luis Potosí, the Federal District (Mexico City), Tabasco, Zacatecas and Guanajuato are also all considered safe to travel to, all of which recorded single-digit rates.  As always, a useful point of context is homicide rates in American cities.  While Mexico City’s drug-related homicide rate was 2.2 per 100,000 in 2010, the homicide rate for Washington, D.C. in 2009 was 24 per 100,000 (though this number is not limited to drug-related homicide).  The U.S. national average was 5.0

Even if the barrage of headlines makes it sound as if the entire country were in flames, the violence that feeds Mexico’s death toll takes place primarily in just nine of 31 states — mainly along the U.S. border where the smuggling takes place and in places where marijuana and heroin are produced.

To read the full article go here.

To access the Mexican government’s official database of drug-related deaths, go here.