How Safe is Mexico?

As most everyone knows, thanks to the media, there has been yet another travel warning issued for Mexico. This latest warning is due to the increase in violence in certain Mexico states and towns. This warning has again made the public weary of traveling to any part of Mexico whether on vacation or business.

As with past posts on this blog, I feel it is my duty to help you sift through the media hype, the misstatements, the false and misleading advertising etc when it comes to travel related issues. This is why I feel it is necessary for me to help you understand the reality of this latest travel alert.

I will state right up front...I am a fan of Mexico. I have traveled to Mexico and had and will have clients who travel to Mexico and it is my opinion that Mexico offers some of the best vacation options throughout the world. That is why I am very bothered when I see and read things that try to get travelers to think otherwise, especially when news stories paint an unrealistic and negatively skewed picture of a situation.

I have recently posted a quiz to get a better idea of what the general public actually might know about Mexico and its size and geography. The results of that quiz were as I expected and further convinced me that this post was necessary. I asked questions such as "How far is the Yucatan Peninsula from the town of Nuevo Laredo?" Some responded that it is 100 miles away, some responded that it is 200 miles away. The correct answer was that they are over 600 miles apart. I also asked if it was true that Tijuana is within 50 miles from Cabo San Lucas? The correct answer is false, they are hundreds of miles away from each other. Another question was concerning the location of the Mexico town of Nogales. Almost 50% of the responders think it is in the southern part of the Country. The correct answer is that it is on the extreme northern border of Mexico (northwest to be more accurate, but not a coastal town). Most responders also believe that the Mexico city of Ciuad Juarez is on the Pacific, the Caribbean or the Gulf of Mexico coastline. Ciuad Juarez is not on any coast and is also located on the northern border of Mexico (see previous post).

I specifically used those towns and cities (Nogales, Ciuad Juarez, Nuevo Laredo and Tijuana) in my quiz because they are the very locations of all of the violence in Mexico and they are all border towns with the United States. Another thing that they all have in common is that they are hundreds and even thousands of miles from almost every Mexico tourist destination (see photo). For example...San Francisco and L.A. are closer than Tijuana and Cabo San Lucas. Would anyone cancel a trip to San Francisco because of crime issues in Los Angeles? Here is another truth...the very popular Riviera Maya area of Mexico is over 1300 miles from the town of Nogales where a lot of the violence has occurred. So that would be the equivalent of canceling a trip to the State of Oklahoma because of some violence outbreak in a city in California. Imagine what we would think if we found out foreign tourists were deciding to cancel trips to Florida because they heard that there was a crime spree in New York City. We would think they just have no earthly idea of how far apart those two places are or we would think they are simply overreacting. Well...I wonder what the people of Cozumel or Cancun or Mazatlan think of us when we make similar decisions about visiting their part of the world because we hear that there is violence on the Mexico/Texas border?

I have posted the numbers in a previous post so I will not belabor you with them again, but the facts show that we have much higher crime rates in most of our large U.S. tourist destinations than they do in the actual tourist locations of Mexico.

So with that said...what are your thoughts about traveling to Mexico? Are you still concerned? If you are...why? Do these facts help you better understand where the trouble spots are? I would love to get your feedback or questions.

How Well Do You Know Mexico?

Mexico again is making headlines in our media. So before I devote another entire article to the subject of travel in Mexico, I thought it would be good to get a feel of what the general population knows about the Country and its geography in particular. Please take a moment and take the quiz in this post and I will then tally the results in my next post where I will also address the question..."how safe is it to travel to Mexico?"

Quizzes by Quibblo.com

Did You Get a Good Deal??

There are so many blog posts and travel news stories related to “getting the best travel deal” that it becomes a contest to see who can somehow find that magical “lowest price” and then brag to others how they paid far less than others who traveled to the same place. Everyone has an opinion (so many cliches are entering my mind right now). It seems that everyone also knows someone who proclaims they are the “ultimate authority” when it comes to how to get the best travel prices whether it is hotels, airfare, car rentals, cruises etc.

Just watch and see, the next time you plan a vacation, a friend or friends will come out of the woodwork to tell you how they always get the best deal by doing X...Y...or Z and tell you that you better do the same if you don’t want to look like a travel greenhorn or goober. The pressure is then on...you feel like you have to research every travel site, get quotes from every travel agent in the world to somehow be able to proclaim that you got the best deal available.

I see it happen a lot. A client will be about to make a decision and then here comes the call...”a friend just told me that they saw the same vacation $200 lower on XYZ site.” So let’s break down the process and make something abundantly clear...you will never know if you got the “lowest deal possible.” In order to know for sure, you would need to interview every traveler at your particular resort or on your cruise to know what they paid and what was included in their price. So unless you are willing to spend every minute of your vacation interrupting other’s vacations, then you will simply never ever know if you got the best deal or not. So throw that nagging question out the window and stay focused on the fact that you are on vacation and you probably paid less than some and more than others.

With that said, let’s breakdown why you will never know so you can have some more travel peace of mind. First, another person may have flown a red-eye flight into your destination which may have made their airfare portion less than yours because you were not willing to operate on 1 hour of sleep at the start of your vacation. You actually preferred to know where you were once you arrived.

Second, the other person may have chosen a transfer service that also hauls chickens round trip from the airport. Some travelers are not adverse to the smell of livestock permeating their luggage if they can save another $10 total off of their vacation price.

Third, the other person may have not read their fine print so they did not realize that their vacation price also included import, export, inter-port, transport and all sorts of other “port” fees and they are not telling you what the actual final price is. I hear that a lot...”hey did you see that my cruise is now advertised at $29.00?” So I have to tell them to hit “select” and then “continue” and then “continue” again so they can get to the actual “final price screen” and low and behold that $29 vacation is $599 once all of the fees are added in etc.

Am I exaggerating? Yes. Am I being a bit facetious? Of course. But I am trying to get you to see that sometimes those “great travel deals” are not that great. To make sure you are getting a GOOD deal and to make sure you are getting what you paid for, you just need to trust those who are in the business who plan travel every day of the week. Trust that they are finding you a good deal and one through a reputable supplier so you can go on a vacation without any worries. A good travel professional will make sure you understand all of the costs and logistics before you ever put your hard earned money down on any vacation package.

There are so many variables that go into travel packages like some of the ones I have mentioned; flight times, number of connecting flights, types of transfers, vacation insurance included or not, location of the hotel room or cruise stateroom and on and on. Those variables make it possible for some online travel sites to offer “price guarantees” because they know that the chances of you finding the same exact deal for the exact same dates with the same exact details etc are slim to none.

So again in summary...trust those in “the know” and let them help you plan a great vacation and then let the vacating begin. :)

Cruise Vacation 101-Part 6

My last installment in the travel educational series.."Cruise Vacation 101." I hope these videos have helped some of you who may be new to cruising. I welcome comments and questions.

Cruise Vacation 101-Part 5

Next video in the travel educational series..."Cruise Vacation 101." This edition addresses the costs that go into a cruise vacation. I will say that I have accidentally left out one of the incidental costs that need to be factored in to your cruise...specialty restaurant costs onboard. Most ships and cruise lines now have specialty restaurants onboard that offer a great meal and ambiance, but at an added cost of $20-$30 per person. The surcharge allows you to eat an excellent 3 course meal at a fraction of what that meal would cost on land, but you need to factor the cost in if you are thinking about taking advantage of one of those venues onboard. This is an option and can easily be avoided and it is not saying that the meals in the main dining room are of less quality. These specialty restaurants offer a more intimate atmosphere and "made to order" entrees. Thanks again for watching. Please leave comments or questions.

Cruise Vacation 101-Part 4

The continuation of the travel educational series..."Cruise Vacation 101." Today's topic..."which stateroom should I choose?" I hope you find these videos helpful and insightful and please comment or leave a question and I will get back to you soon.

Cruise Vacation 101-Part 3

This episode tries to tackle the question of "which cruise line do I go with?" There are so many choices and hopefully this will simplify things just a bit.