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.”
Mexico safer than headlines indicate
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.
Travel Safety In Mexico vs. USA
