Is Mexico dangerous place to visit?

I am usually frustrated arguing this position. So here is a list provided without commentary. The poll is regarding Americans visiting Mexico. It is not about Mexican citizens.

State Department Deaths of US Citizens in Mexico lists 280 Americans that died in Mexico in 2010, here is the breakdown by cause

4 Execution
107 Homicide
2 Drug-Related
18 Suicide
32 Drowning
5 Air Accident
14 Vehicle Accident - Motorcycle
64 Vehicle Accident - Auto
4 Vehicle Accident - Bus
2 Vehicle Accident - Other
2 Vehicle Accident - Pedestrian
25 Other Accident
279

Here is the full listing of the locations of the 111 homicides and executions of Americans in Mexico in 2010 with running total
39 , Chihuahua , 39 (almost all in Ciudad Juarez)
28 , Baja California , 67 (6 Rosarito, 1 San Felipe, 1 Ensenada, 2 not specified, rest in Mexicali or Tijuana)
9 , Sonora , 76
8 , Tamaulipas , 84
1 , Coahuila , 85
1 , Nuevo Leon , 86
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End of Border States
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4 , Federal District , 90
2 , Durango , 92
8 , Jalisco , 100 (Guadalajara)
1 , Guanajuato ,101
2 , Guerrero , 103 (Acapulco)
1 , Michoacan , 104
1 , Morelos , 105
1 , Oaxaca , 106
3 , Nayarit , 109 (near Puerto Vallarta)
1 , Sinaloa , 110
1 , Quintana Roo , 111 (Cancun)

As your research shows, it's foolish to make any generalizations. I visit Cozumel every week, which is a very safe and prosperous resort city--far removed from any drug violence. Yet I'm sure they have their share of crime too, just like everywhere.

People from other countries might ask if the US is safe to visit, and you could legitimately answer "no"--but that's useless without clarification. Visiting Chicago is probably going to be a whole lot safer than visiting East St. Louis.

I would have voted for "Only if you ARE involved with drugs," if it were a choice. Everyone told me I was nuts when I sent to San Felipe, which I see makes the list, two years ago for spring break. The place had the police and the military everywhere. Personally, I didn't have a single problem. I have no statistics to prove it but I think if an American stuck to the touristy places his odds of anything happening would be quite remote.

Is that one poll question phrased "Only if you are NOT involved in drugs" the way you wanted it? Seems like an odd way to put it. I guess I would have been consistent with the prostitute question, but maybe you did that on purpose. * If you are involved in drugs.

I think if you keep your nose clean and stay out of the shithole places(as with places here in the states too) then you should be ok.

We went to Sinaloa and Chihuhua two-and-a-half years ago. This was before the whole scare had blown up, so to speak. That's not to say the drug war wasn't going on (there were posters up for a suspect of a wedding massacre in one of the towns), but it was not publicized in the American media yet. We walked home from a bar to our hotel as a gunfight was going on one street over. The next morning, we came back and saw bullet holes in a window of a shop we were in the day before. I think anyone would find that pretty scary. It was a tourist town, but even the locals were terrified. The "Federales" did not make me feel very safe, even though they were everywhere.

The next day I walked through Chihuahua city (including some non-touristy areas) by myself. In retrospect, this was probably unwise, but I didn't have any problems.

Like most tourist "scares," stuff is overblown, but that doesn't mean stuff isn't happening.

I'm amazed that 18 americans killed themselves in mexico in one year.

I think that for even a first-step analysis, one would need to know such things as how many Americans visit Mexico in a year, how long they stay, and how the deaths per (equivalent) year per 100,000 compares to the rate of deaths from non-natural causes for American's at home. If the sole piece of data I had to look at was the number of people who die of non-natural causes in a year in California, I might wonder whether that was a very dangerous place to visit. More info is needed to develop a proper opinion.

I agree with Doc, that the raw numbers need to be put into context, but my feeling is that Mexico is dangerous. How many other countries actually have a separate category for "Execution"?

As a point of comparison, how many "Executions" and "Homicides" of American's occurred in Canada during the same period?

There are a good many Americans who die in America in "touristy areas" and whose deaths are categorized as "missing person" or "suicide" or "accidental death" or something else that does not overly alarm the local chamber of commerce.

Mexico has quite a few touristy areas and police chiefs in Mexico tend to be very polite and not offend their local chambers of commerce or the Minister of Tourism.

Its nice to have "numbers" but sometimes one must look beyond authoritative reports and determine just how accurate the information is. A good many tourists go to Mexico, most come back unharmed.

Danger is everywhere. It strikes without regard to various innocent assumptions. Natalee Holloway in Aruba was an experienced traveler and was one of the more sober women in Carlos 'n Charlies that night. One woman in a Sacramento casino was around bright lights and zillions of cameras, but she got a date rape drug in her drink and so far her corpse has not been found. Its isn't always dimly lit low dives where the danger is greatest.

Sometimes hotel staff witness a departure from a room and think the "coast is clear" but there can be an unexpectedly prompt return and if so a thief will want to avoid capture no matter what the cost. In Mexico, the local police decided that a Canadian woman came to be murdered in her hotel room by some unknown enemy who had followed her from Canada through three airports, three passport control checkpoints and through the camera-riddled hotel lobby to kill her in Mexico. With crime reports like that, does it really matter too much what the official numbers are?

Mexico may or may not be more dangerous overall than some places, but when reports go on about soldiers moving into an area, wouldn't that be equivalent to our National Guard converging on a small town? It's not something I've heard about recently anyway.

I'm not going to say the U.S. doesn't have some serious crime incidents with multiple killings though because we do.