Mexico’s drug war is entering its fourth year. Its H1N1 flu outbreak began with dozens of deaths and global headlines last spring. This leaves travelers with at least two reasons to study up before booking that trip to Mexico.
But it doesn’t necessarily mean staying home.
Mexico’s drug-war death toll reached more than 9,900 between January 2007 and early October 2009, by the count of the University of San Diego’s Trans-Border Institute. Many of the deaths have occurred near the U.S. border and far from the resorts and cities that draw thousands of Americans every year.
Robert Reid, who has contributed to Lonely Planet’s Mexico volumes and serves as the New York-based U.S. travel editor for the guidebook publisher, likes to remind people that Mexico is about the size of France, Spain, Germany and Italy combined.
Before you let trouble in one corner of the country affect your travel to another corner, he said, “Imagine a shootout in Sicily forcing a canceled vacation in Germany.”
Still, there has been plenty of trouble in Mexico, and it continues. On Oct. 16, authorities said they found nine mutilated bodies in Tlapehuala, a town in the state of Guerrero, and three more bodies in Acapulco.
Since Aug. 20, the U.S. State Department has urged Americans to delay unnecessary travel to parts of the states of Michoacan (capital: Morelia) and Chihuahua (which includes the cities of Chihuahua and Ciudad Juarez on the Texas border). Mexican authorities say that in the first half of 2009, more than 1,000 killings took place in Ciudad Juarez, located across the Rio Grande from El Paso.
Edward Hasbrouck, author of “The Practical Nomad: How to Travel Around the World,” says the biggest danger for a law-abiding traveler in Mexico is probably “the same as the big danger in the U.S. — road crashes. Almost everything else is negligible by comparison.” But, Hasbrouck said, “You have to evaluate not only ‘is it safe?’ but also, ‘Will I be so frightened that I won’t enjoy my trip?’ “
For details on the geography of Mexico’s troubles, check the U.S. State Department’s website, especially the Mexico security travel alert, at /cis pa tw/cis/cis 970.html.
The State Department recommends you stay on the beaten path, carry a cellphone, tell others where you’re going, and register to receive State Department e-mail notifications at travelregistration .
On the swine flu front, Rayann Aziz of the offices of Passport Health Los Angeles, a travel medicine and immunization clinic, advises anybody traveling to Mexico thusly: Get the swine flu vaccination, especially if you’re in a high- priority group (pregnant women; people who live with or care for children up to 6 months old; health care and emergency medical services workers; those 6 months to 24 years old; and anyone 25 to 64 with a chronic health disorder or compromised immune system).
