How Safe is Mexico?

The question of how safe it is to travel to Mexico is one has been around for quite a while, and is important both in practical terms if you are planning to travel there, and also because it raises a number of questions about the safety of travelling generally.

Much of the questioning about the safety of Mexico comes from people in the USA, in part because they are constantly exposed to daily stories of pretty horrific gang murders and killings related to drug cartels.

Until fairly recently, most people would argue that whilst there was a huge amount of violence and drug-related crime in Mexico, most of it was taking place in quite a narrow strip of the country along the border with America.

In addition, there are a number of cities in Mexico that had been decimated by gang-related killings, and are almost ghost towns.

This article at CNBC, articulates these fears and concerns, and paints a fairly realistic picture of where it’s safe to go at the moment ( March 2018) and where to avoid.

There is no doubt that there are certain areas of Mexico anyone travelling there is any type of a tourist should will avoid if they can. Equally it is important to remember that it is possible to find out with a fair degree of certainty where is likely to be safe, and where to avoid, with a fairly minimal amount of research.

It is also important to remember that travelling to lots of countries can be unsafe as well as very safe, and much of an individual’s sense of safety is partly about their own sense of who they are as a person, as well as the practical reality of what they do and don’t do on the trip.

Other people will argue that someone like Mexico is more dangerous than say London or Paris or New York. If you were to ask any individual living in any of those cities you would probably get different answers as to what they thought or where they thought safe and unsafe.

The reality is that in London people are attacked and sometimes knifed to death on the streets pretty much every day. There are some pretty horrific acid attacks again pretty much every day in London, as well as significant amount of robberies and muggings.

The statistics are pretty horrific, and whilst these things are reported to an extent in the press, they very rarely get flagged up as a reason people not to travel there. The same is likely to be true of most other major cities in North America and Europe.

There’s no question that the world is probably more unstable now than it has ever been, and many people reflect that in their attitudes to safety and unsafety.

The whole process of travel has both opened up enormously, and has also become more rigid in things like airport security and visa restrictions.

When people talk about how safe Mexico is or isn’t, it can certainly in part be about the reality of where they might or might not be travelling to, but is also likely to be a reflection of their own attitudes to safety, both within themselves and how they see the world.

No one else can really advise anyone as to the extent of where is and isn’t safe, at least without the fairly likely outcome that any advice you give is likely to turn out to be wrong!

Anyone thinking of travelling or visiting Mexico for any length of time would probably do well to apply the same standards they would any other trip overseas.

A degree of research and looking at what people on-line are saying about where to go to and not go to, as well as common sense in terms of precautions in major cities.

Perhaps common sense is the single most important attribute that should guide your attitude to safety, sadly often something that is sadly lacking in a lot of coverage of Mexico and its beautiful country.