Are You Safer In Mexico Or America?

As Lonely Planet’s US Travel Editor, I frequently get asked if it’s safe to go to Mexico. I have always said that, if you’re thoughtful about where you go, the answer is yes. But, after my most recent trip there, I’m answering the question with another question: Do you think it’s safe to go to Texas?

To be clear, violence in Mexico is no joke. There have been over 47,000 drug-related murders alone in the past five years. Its murder rate — 18 per 100,000 according to this United Nations Office on Drugs & Crime report - is more than three times the US rate of 4.8 per 100,000. Though Mexican tourism is starting to bounce back, Americans appear more reluctant to return than Canadians and Brits (5.7 million Americans visited in 2011, down 3% from 2010 – and, according to Expedia, more than four of five bookings were adults going without children). Many who don’t go cite violence as the reason.

What you don’t get from most reports in the US is statistical evidence that Americans are less likely to face violence in Mexico than at home, particularly when you zero in on Mexico’s most popular travel destinations. For example, the gateway to Disney World, Orlando, saw 7.5 murders per 100,000 residents in 2010 according to the FBI; this is higher than Cancun or Puerto Vallarta, with rates of 1.83 and 5.9 respectively, per a Stanford University report (see data visualization here, summarized on this chart, page 21). Yet in March, the Texas Department of Public Safetyadvised against “spring break” travel anywhere in Mexico, a country the size of the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy combined. Never mind that popular destinations like the Bahamas, Belize and Jamaica have far higher homicide rates (36, 42 and 52 per 100,000). Why the singular focus?

Before you nix Mexico altogether, consider these five things:

1. Mexico may be more dangerous than the US overall, but not for Americans.

According to FBI crime statistics, 4.8 Americans per 100,000 were murdered in the US in 2010. The US State Department reports that 120 Americans of the 5.7 million who visited Mexico last year were murdered, which is a rate of 2.1 of 100,000 visitors. Regardless of whether they were or weren’t connected to drug trafficking, which is often not clear, it’s less than half the US national rate.

2. Texans are twice as safe in Mexico and three times safer than in Houston.

Looking at the numbers, it might be wise for Texans to ignore their Public Safety department’s advice against Mexico travel. Five per 100,000 Texans were homicide victims in 2010, per the FBI. Houston was worse, with 143 murders, or a rate of 6.8 – over three times the rate for Americans in Mexico.

3. And it’s not just Texas.

It’s interesting comparing each of the countries’ most dangerous cities. New Orleans, host city of next year’s Super Bowl, broke its own tourism record last year with 8 million visitors. Yet the Big Easy has ten times the US homicide rate, close to triple Mexico’s national rate.

Few go to Ciudad Juarez, a border town of 1.3 million that saw 8 to 11 murders a day in 2010 (accounts differ - CNN went with 8). It’s unlikely to ever be a tourism hostpot, but things have been quietly improving there. By 2011, CNN reported, the homicide rate dropped by 45%, and the first six weeks of this year saw an additional 57% drop, per this BBC story.

If that trend in Juarez continues all year, and it might not, the number of homicides would have dropped from over 3000 in 2010 to 710 in 2012. Meanwhile New Orleans’ homicide rate is increasing, up to 199 murders last year, equivalent to 736 in a city with the population of Juarez.

4. By the way, most of Mexico is not on the State Department’s travel warning.

The best of Mexico, in terms of travel, isn’t on the warning. The US warns against “non-essential travel” to just four of Mexico’s 31 states (all in the north: Chihuahua, Coahuila, Durango and Tamaulipas). The warning goes on to recommend against travel to select parts of other states, but not including many popular destinations such as Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan, the Riviera Nayarit, Cancun, Cozumel and Tulum.

Meanwhile, 13 states are fully free from the State Department’s warning, including Baja California Sur, Yucatan, Mexico City, Oaxaca, Chiapas, Guanajuato and others.

5. Malia Obama ignored the Texas advice.

Of all people, President Obama and first lady said “OK” to their 13-year-old daughter’s spring break destination this year: Oaxaca. Then Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum made snide remarks over that, perhaps overlooking that Oaxaca state has a smaller body count from the drug war than his home state’s murder rate (Oaxaca’s 4.39 per 100,000 to Pennsylvania’s 5.2).

Oaxaca state, not on the US travel warning, is famed for its colonial city, Zapotec ruins andemerging beach destinations like Huatulco. Lonely Planet author Greg Benchwick even triedgrasshoppers with the local mezcal (Malia apparently stuck with vanilla shakes.)

So, can you go to Mexico?

Yes. As the US State Department says, “millions of US citizens safely visit Mexico each year.” Last year, when I took on the subject for CNN, one commenter suggested Lonely Planet was being paid to promote travel there. No we weren’t. We took on the subject simply because – as travelers so often know – there is another story beyond the perception back home, be it Vietnam welcoming Americans in the ’90s or Colombia’s dramatic safety improvements in the ’00s. And, equally as importantly, Mexico makes for some of the world’s greatest travel experiences – it’s honestly why I’m in this line of work.

So yes, you can go to Mexico, just as you can go to Texas, or New Orleans, or Orlando, or the Bahamas. It’s simply up to you to decide whether you want to.

Robert Reid is Lonely Planet’s US Travel Editor and has been going to Mexico since he was three (most recently to Chacala).

 

Original at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lonely-planet/are-americans-safer-in-me_b_1503288.html

Mexico as we know it!

Fear of Going to Mexico

Is it safe to travel to Mexico?
Published on February 29, 2012 by Judith Fein in Life Is a Trip

You’re going to Mexico?” my friends asked. “Don’t you know how violent it is, and how they are killing people in the streets?”

 

 

Full disclosure: I am certainly not deficient in the feardepartment. I do not fancy the idea of my head swinging from a lamppost with my body detached from it. My idea of fun is not being found by local kids in a black plastic trash bag, folded up into a non-breathing, fetal position.

So why would I choose to go to Mexico? Read on, my friends.

In the Spring of 2011, I went to Ixtapa and Zihuatanejo. Problems? Yes. I couldn’t decide which flavor of margarita to order. In October of last year, I went to Chiapas and Tabasco. Was I in danger? Yes, of wanting to be a no-show on my return flight home. And, shiver, shiver, I just came back from Sonora, Mexico. You can drive there from Tucson, Arizona. You have to cross the dreaded “B” word-border.

 

This time, because I got so many emails bidding me adieu forever, I decided to do a little fact-finding. I went to talk to the police in Alamos, a charming, Andalusian-style colonial town. Actually, three policemen were standing in the middle of the street during one of the largest music festivals in the world, named after Dr. Ortiz Tirado.

 

 

When guests exited an opera performance that was held in an indoor venue, they followed costumed local musicians in a street parade called a callejoneada, where wine was carried on the back of a donkey and distributed freely to enhance the party mood. Then everyone headed to another area of the city, where locals were boogeying to a Puerto Rican band.

“Dangerous job?” I asked the law enforcers.

They looked at me as though I had just landed from the planet Gronzo.

“Yeah. It’s dangerous to be bored,” one of them replied with an indulgent smile. “There’s nothing for us to do. Wish we could dance.”

I emailed my amigos back home that they could fill up their calendars, as they didn’t have to wait to see what day my funeral would be.

The next morning, I snaked past paraders in stilts and masks to talk to Joaquin Navarro, the mayor of Alamos, who is also a doctor.

“Is it dangerous to be here?” I asked him.

He laughed. A well-known local politico, he had no security guard, and he was unarmed. He offered to take me to visit a genuine haunted house-his idea of danger.

At the gorgeous Hacienda de los Santos, where I stayed, I was in danger of gaping too intensely at the Mexican art collection, ogling the fine silver jewelry in the gift shop, and eating too much as I dined outdoors, overlooking the lush gardens. Next to me, a wealthy businessman was waxing ecstatic over his five-course filet mignon dinner, which only set him back $27. At downtown Charisma restaurant, dining under huge, perforated tin stars, surrounded by white Andalusian arches, I was horrified that after eating flash fried calamari with spicy dipping sauce, corn bread muffins, blue cheese truffle fries and rice paper salmon with lemon grass sweet and sour sauce, I still asked for the dessert menu.

 

In Guaymas, it certainly was threatening to be on a sunset cruise, looking out at the mountains that swooped down to the water’s edge.

 

 

 

 

At the Perlas del Mar de Cortez pearl farm, I had to hold fast to my credit card so I didn’t buy a $5,000 necklace made from pearls grown in the rare rainbow lip oyster. At the Delfinario Sonora, it was a threat to my well-being to talk to a blind man who had been helped by therapyoutside of the water, as well as inside the water with the dolphins. Why? Because I wanted to become a therapist.

 

 

 

In Hermosillo, the danger was that I couldn’t find a brochure after visiting the spectacular contemporary Museum of Art of Sonora, where the current exhibit, that includes work by Francis Bacon, Botero, Picasso, Giacometti, Magritte and Henry Moore, reportedly is worth $100,000,000.

So there you have it. My head is still attached to my body. I came home with some great folk art. And although there are a few areas in Mexico I would not willingly visit right now, I would visit the rest of Mexico again in a heartbeat. Or half a heartbeat.

As I write this, wrapped in a red fleece sweater, I am in danger of ripping it off and heading back to warm, welcoming Sonora.

All photos by Paul Ross.

Judith Fein is an award-winning travel journalist who has contributed to more than 100 publications. She is the author of the acclaimed book LIFE IS A TRIP: The Transformative Magic of Travel. Sometimes she takes people on trips with her. Her website is http://www.GlobalAdventure.us

 

original: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/life-is-trip/201202/fear-going-mexico

Reality Check: How dangerous is Mexico for Canadian tourists?

By Armina Ligaya, CBC News

 

High-profile attacks on Canadians in Mexico have put the popular tourist destination in the hot seat.

But it may not be as dangerous a place for travellers as you think.

On average, three Canadians for every 100,000 visiting Mexico are killed or assaulted per year, according to more than a decade’s worth of data from the Department of Foreign Affairs.

However, when looking at Canadians most popular travel destinations, China topped the list for the rate of assaults and murders involving Canadian visitors. About seven Canadians out of every 100,000 travelling to the country came under attack, though most were assaults.

Jamaica was second to China, with about five out of every 100,000 Canadian travellers assaulted or killed on average per year.

The rates are based on the number of assault and murder cases reported to the Department of Foreign Affairs from 2000 to 2010, compared with visitor figures for overnight trips from Statistics Canada.

Country comparisons complicated

It’s difficult to determine the true security of Canadians when travelling abroad because of limited available data.

A variety of factors can change from destination to destination, including the average length of stay, the number of dual citizens and the type of travel, such as resort versus off-the-beaten path type trips.

Still, figures suggest that Mexico is not necessarily the most dangerous travel destination for Canadians.

2000-2010

Violence per 100,000 overnight Canadian visitors

Country Violence rate* Assault rate Murder rate
Australia 2.475 2.207 0.269
Austria 0.137 0.137 0
Belgium 0.752 0.752 0
Hong Kong 0.437 0.437 0
Mainland China 7.759 7.38 0.379
Cuba 1.591 1.547 0.044
Dominican Republic 1.679 1.339 0.340
France 0.847 0.847 0
Germany 0.378 0.351 0.027
Greece 2.076 2.076 0
Ireland 0.171 0.171 0
Italy 0.816 0.791 0.026
Jamaica 5.34 3.609 1.731
Japan 2.648 2.5 0.149
Mexico 3.077 2.809 0.268
Netherlands 0.416 0.312 0.105
Spain 0.631 0.631 0
Switzerland 0.053 0.053 0
United Kingdom 0.338 0.283 0.055
United States 0.088 0.040 0.048

Source: Department of Foreign Affairs, Statistics Canada. Rate is an average over 11 years. *Combined rate of assaults and murders.

In the category of murder rates alone, Mexico fell even farther down the list. Jamaica had 1.73 killings annually for every 100,000 Canadians visiting the country. Mexico’s rate was 0.268 killings for every 100,000 Canadians visiting a year, on average, between 2000 and 2010.

All other favoured tourist destinations had less than one Canadian killed for every 100,000 who visited the country, including mainland China (0.379), Dominican Republic (0.34) and Australia (0.269).

Gordon Houlden, the director of the Edmonton-based China Institute, said China’s ranking surprised him, but the higher figures in China may stem from the type of tourism it offers.

Visitors to Jamaica and Mexico typically head to enclosed resorts and spend their time on the beach, while visitors to China tend to explore the country independently, he said.

“People who go to China are circulating in the broader society,” Houlden said. “They are on their own to a greater extent — much more than if you look at the numbers of Mexico or Jamaica.”

Also, violent incidents don’t necessarily get reported in the Chinese media unless the incident is high profile.

Houlden, who lived in China for 20 years, said he considers the country to be quite safe for tourists.

Visitors to China tend to stay in the country longer than tourists to Jamaica or Mexico, where short-term resort holidays are common. And the longer a person stays in a given country, the greater the chance of trouble.

But it is Mexico that has recently come under the most scrutiny. The high-profile attacks on Canadians in Mexico, such as the vicious beating of Alberta woman Sheila Nabb in January, have heightened concerns over the security of travellers to the popular destination.

Gar Pardy, a former head of Canadian consular services and a former ambassador to Central America, said incidents in Mexico, in particular, grab the attention of the public despite the fact the risk of violence back home can be equal or greater.

“The stories get played up a lot more in terms of it happening in exotic locations, as opposed to it happening in Timmins,” Pardy said.

1.6 million Canadian tourists visited Mexico in 2011

Tourism to Mexican resorts and hotels continues to grow, said Milko Rivera Hope, counsellor for economic and business affairs for the Mexican Embassy in Canada.

Canadian visitors to Mexico hit an estimated 1.6 million last year, up eight per cent from the year before, he said. It is the second most popular destination for Canadian travellers, just behind the United States.

“Mexico is very, very aware and very concerned about the safety and security of every single visitor to Mexico,” Hope said. “And that is the reason that we do not have 1.6 million bad stories about travellers to Mexico.

“You have many good stories. There have been incidents and they have been unfortunate, but there have been very few incidents.”

Still, violence related to powerful drug cartels operating in Mexico has reached record proportions. In 2010 alone, the bloodiest year to date, more than 15,000 people were killed in drug-related violence.

But Hope says this violence is limited to non-tourist destinations and hasn’t affected Canadian tourists.

“Not one single incident involving Canadians have had to do with drug cartels, drug violence,” he said.

However, in January 2011, a Penticton, B.C., man was shot in the leg while on vacation in Mazatlan by a group of masked men believed to be targeting a Mexican allegedly involved in the drug trade.

Xu Yan, the director of the China National Tourist office in Toronto, said China, too, is a safe destination for tourists and growing in popularity, with roughly 57 million overnight visitors in 2011 alone, he said.

“China has already become the No. 3 destination in the world,” Yan said. “If China was an unsafe destination, how can so many go to China so frequently?”

Travel warnings for China, Mexico, but not Jamaica

John Lynch, the director of tourism for the Jamaica Tourist Board, told CBC News his country had “one of the lowest rates of crime against visitors” and safety was not an issue for tourists.

“I’ve never heard about that before,” he said. “There would have been a warning on [the Foreign Affairs] site, which there isn’t … If it was an issue, we wouldn’t have the increased amount of tourism that we’re having out of Canada.”

Foreign Affairs has listed warnings for parts of both China and Mexico on its website, but no official warning is in place for Jamaica.

Another potential factor in the rate of violence is that it encompasses leisure travellers as well as visits by dual citizens, who may not stick to typical tourist paths, Pardy said.

More than 226,000 people in Canada have Chinese citizenship, while Mexican and Jamaican citizens number around 33,000 and nearly 35,000, respectively, according to Canada’s 2006 census.

Pardy noted that though many dual citizens return to visit family and friends, meaning they would have less opportunity to get into trouble, they would also stay in the country longer.

The risk of violent crime for Canadian tourists must be put in perspective, said Bruce McIndoe, president of iJet International Inc., a consultancy firm that advises companies on employee risks in international markets.

The likelihood of violence against travellers is often far lower than the risk posed by traffic accidents and illness, he said.

“Those are the major issues that travellers need to face,” McIndoe said. “When you look at these statistics, the number of people that get ill going to China are significantly higher.”

 

original: http://sanmiguelwritersconference.wordpress.com/2012/03/09/mexico-a-cautionary-tale-by-jc-sullivan/

Mexico: A Cautionary Tale, By JC Sullivan

Backpacking Poet, JC Sullivan, recently attended the 2012 San Miguel Writers’ Conference.  She sent us an email that stated, “The Conference was amazing — everyone was raving about how fabulous and inspiring it was. What a beautiful gift to the world.”  Also included was the following poem.

Mexico: A Cautionary Tale

I was warned.
Repeatedly.
Warned.
So many times it lost its potency.
Warned.
By well-meaning friends
living in “safe” gated communities with armed guards
By acquaintances
who have never been here
By media reports
glamorizing and spreading alarm
Who have a different definition of danger. And of what
constitutes safety.

Stupid me!
I didn’t listen
to any of it.

Adventurous, perhaps with a death wish,
I didn’t look.

Worse.
I wasn’t careful.

And…
In “dangerous” Mexico,
I was robbed.

Stupid, stupid me!

Yes, Mexico…
stole from me…
A smile.
At first.

And then,
they got bolder
and took…
A laugh.

and bolder still, they ran off with…
my poor self-image.

Which turned into a larger felony: They took …
time
to fill me with compliments!
Telling me
repeatedly
how wonderful it is…
to be a woman
of experience.
Who smiles.
Who laughs.
Repeatedly.

Time after time. Again and again.
Until
finally, I believed them.

As I was smiling and laughing, and actually trusting myself,
They had the nerve to go and pick-pocket my lingering self-doubts,
my well-nurtured insecurities including
my belief that “real beauty” was limited to youth…

While I was still reeling in shock,
from having been robbed,
and pick-pocketed
Mexicans took
the opportunity to kill my previous ideas of what constituted
“hospitality”,
replacing it with a generosity
that
is frightening
to even try to emulate,
yet so, so fortunate to know.

See how really dangerous Mexico is?
And it got even worse!

I hadn’t recovered from such brutal behavior, when
they committed another truly horrible,
almost unspeakable
crime.

They gave me hope and optimism.
Repeatedly.
About who I was.
About who I could be.
About who we could be together.

Amongst wrapping me in love and force-feeding me laughter and
compliments and
smothering me in generosity
and unfathomably fabulous hospitality,
I was rendered helpless.
Utterly
helpless.

Stupid, stupid, stupid me.

I did not cry for help
or
run away.
Mexico took complete advantage of my situation and committed the
biggest atrocity of all. Once again, they stole …
my heart –
and my soul.

Now I’m so scared -
deeply, utterly terrified -
that I cannot return the favor.

Never happier,
I steal away…
to wish
this kind of “danger” on everyone.

JC Sullivan is a poet and writer and also a member of the Travelers
Century Club for people who have been to more than 100 countries.

 

http://sanmiguelwritersconference.wordpress.com/2012/03/09/mexico-a-cautionary-tale-by-jc-sullivan/

State Department updates Mexico travel warning

The U.S. State Department has updated and expanded its travel warning for Mexico, providing a more detailed, state-by-state security assessment and noting any restrictions on U.S. government workers traveling within the country.

The warning, dated Feb. 8, replaces one that had been in place since April 22, 2011. It notes that “millions of U.S. citizens safely visit Mexico each year for study, tourism, and business … there is no evidence that Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs) have targeted U.S. visitors and residents based on their nationality. Resort areas and tourist destinations in Mexico generally do not see the levels of drug-related violence and crime reported in the border region and in areas along major trafficking routes.”

But it adds that “crime and violence are serious problems throughout the country and can occur anywhere. U.S. citizens have fallen victim to TCO activity, including homicide, gun battles, kidnapping, carjacking and highway robbery.” According to the warning, the reported number of U.S. citizens murdered in Mexico increased from 35 in 2007 to 120 in 2011.

The updated warning cautions against nonessential travel to part or all of 14 Mexican states, including Chihuahua (which includes the Copper Canyon), Sonora (where U.S. citizens visiting Puerto Peñasco are urged to use the Lukeville, Arizona/Sonoyta, Sonora border crossing to limit driving through Mexico, and to limit travel to main roads during daylight hours) and Michoacán.

However, no advisories are in effect for such popular tourist areas as the state of Quintana Roo (Cancun, Cozumel, Playa del Carmen, Riviera Maya and Tulum), southern Baja California (Cabo San Lucas), Guanajuato (San Miguel de Allende and Leon), Oaxaca (Oaxaca, Huatluco and Puerto Escondido) and Chiapas (San Cristobal de las Casas), as well as Mexico City, Puerto Vallarta and nearby Riviera Nayarit.

The warning recommends that travelers stay within the tourist zones of Acapulco, Ixtapa, Monterrey, Zihuantanejo and Mazatlan – where, the State Department notes, “incidents of violence are occurring more frequently in tourist areas. (Government) personnel are permitted to travel between the Mazatlan airport and the tourist areas only during daylight hours. We recommend that any other travel in Mazatlan be limited to (Zona Dorada and the historic town center).”

RELATED: Is Mexico safe? Record numbers of tourists think so

Original at: http://travel.usatoday.com/destinations/dispatches/post/2012/02/state-department-updates-mexico-travel-warning/623473/1

New Malecon

Mexico safer than headlines indicate

Christine Delsol, Special to The Chronicle
Sunday, August 21, 2011

Quick – which national capital has the higher murder rate: Mexico City or Washington, D.C.?

If you answered Mexico City, you’d be in good company – after all, Mexico is a war zone, isn’t it? But you would be wrong, on both counts.

Based on FBI crime statistics for 2010 and Mexican government data released early this year, Mexico City’s drug-related-homicide rate per 100,000 population was one-tenth of Washington’s overall homicide rate – 2.2 deaths per 100,000 population compared with 22. (Drug violence accounts for most murders in Mexico, which historically does not have the gun culture that reigns in the United States.)

And while parts of Mexico can be legitimately likened to a war zone, drug violence afflicts 80 of the country’s 2,400 municipalities (equivalent to counties). Their locations have been well publicized: along the U.S. border in northern Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas states, and south to Sinaloa, Michoacan and parts of San Luis Potosí, Nayarit, Jalisco, Guerrero and Morelos states.

The flip side is that 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.

It would seem fairly clear – fly, don’t drive, across the border into the safe regions. Yet whenever people say they are going to Mexico, the invariable response is “Aren’t you afraid?”

Media sensationalism accounts for much of the wariness. “Gangland violence in western Mexico” “Journalists under attack in Mexico” and “Mexico mass grave toll climbs” sound as if the entire country were a killing field. The story might name the state, but rarely the town and almost never the neighborhood. And some reporters apparently are confused by the word “municipality” – some of the killings reported as being in Mazatlan, for example, actually happened in a town miles away from the city – akin to attributing East Palo Alto’s slayings to San Francisco.

But the biggest factor may be that travelers looking for a carefree vacation simply find it easier to write the entire country off than to learn what areas to avoid.

The Mexico Tourism Board is working to change that. Efforts so far have concentrated on getting accurate information to travel agents, who funnel the lion’s share of tourism to Mexico’s popular destinations. Independent travelers’ primary source of information is the State Department travel alerts (travel.state.gov), which are finally getting better at pinpointing the trouble spots.

“We are trying to work with U.S. authorities in making these travel alerts specific and not general,” said Rodolfo Lopez Negrete, the tourism board’s chief operating officer. “Unfortunately, they have projected a somewhat distorted image.”

In the meantime, we have done some of the work for you. The chart above recommends destinations for various comfort levels and travel styles. If you’re totally spooked, there are places that pose no more risk than Disneyland. If you’re open-minded but don’t want to take unnecessary risks, we have places safer than Miami, New Orleans or Washington, D.C. For fearless travelers, these sometimes dicey destinations are worth the extra caution.

Tips for traveling safely in Mexico – or anywhere

Mexico safety tips

Your most important tactic for traveling safe, in Mexico or anywhere else, begins before you even decide where to go. Get familiar with Mexico’s geography; it’s a big country, and your destination might be hundreds or even a thousand miles from violence-prone areas. Keep up on Mexico coverage in major dailies, then do some focused research. Some sources:

– The current State Department travel warning (travel.state.gov) and security updates make a good start.

– The travel agents trade publication Travel Weekly has created a map that puts the latest travel warning in easily digestible graphic form (travelweekly.com/uploadedFiles/MEXICOMAP4.pdf).

– The United Kingdom Foreign Office Travel Advisory for Mexico ( www.fco.gov.uk; “Travel advice by country”) provides another perspective.

– Stratfor, a global intelligence company that advises government agencies and international corporations on security issues, is a reliable, up-to-the-minute source. Membership is expensive, but the website ( www.stratfor.com) makes some reports available for free.

Assuming you’re not headed for northern border areas, normal safety precautions that apply anywhere in the world will suffice. These are particularly important in Mexico:

– Don’t pack anything you couldn’t bear to part with; leave the bling at home.

– Carry only the money you need for the day in a money belt (not a fanny pack), and leave your passport in your hotel unless you know you will need it.

– Get local advice about areas to avoid.

– Don’t get drunk and stumble around dark, unfamiliar streets. Drunk or sober, don’t walk beaches late at night.

– Stick with taxis dispatched from your hotel or a sitio (taxi stand); if you go out for dinner, ask the restaurant to call a taxi for you.

– Drive during the day; if nighttime driving is unavoidable, use the toll roads.

– Leave a travel itinerary and a copy of your passport with someone at home. If you’ll be traveling in higher-risk areas, notify the nearest U.S. Consulate.

A final note: Don’t get rattled if you see armed soldiers patrolling the beach or manning highway checkpoints. They are young men doing a difficult job. On the road they’ll usually just ask you where you’re coming from and where you’re going; very rarely they will ask to inspect your trunk or your bags. I’ve never encountered one who wasn’t cordial and glad for a smile or a brief conversation.

- Christine Delsol

Christine Delsol is a frequent contributor to Travel and writes the Mexico Mix blog at SFGate.com. E-mail comments to travel@sfchronicle.com.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/08/18/TR3O1KLPOQ.DTL#ixzz1VsvvyvHE

Despite Violence, Mexico Plants Hum at Border – NYTimes.com

MATAMOROS, Mexico — When the latest bloody headlines from the drug war in Mexico reach headquarters in New York, Ken Chandler, the manager of an American electronics manufacturing plant here, jumps on the phone.

read the complete article:  Despite Violence, Mexico Plants Hum at Border – NYTimes.com.

For Mexicans Looking North, a New Calculus Favors Home – Interactive Feature – NYTimes.com

AGUA NEGRA, Mexico — The extraordinary Mexican migration that delivered millions of illegal immigrants to the United States over the past 30 years has sputtered to a trickle, and research points to a surprising cause: unheralded changes in Mexico that have made staying home more attractive.A growing body of evidence suggests that a mix of developments — expanding economic and educational opportunities, rising border crime and shrinking families — are suppressing illegal traffic as much as economic slowdowns or immigrant crackdowns in the United States.

Read the complete interactive article here For Mexicans Looking North, a New Calculus Favors Home – Interactive Feature – NYTimes.com.