President and CEO of Softtek, Blanca Treviño writes in the Huffington Post A Fuller Picture: México’s Many Layers.  We heartily agree!

Ron Erskine of the Gilroy Dispatch wrote a piece titled “San Miguel de Allende a safe, scenic alternative to the “Mexico of CNN.” We hope you enjoy seeing San Miguel through his eyes.

I live in Mazatlán, and I know what a wonderful place it is.  Today I read a piece by Darren Parkman “The Traveling Canadian” about his visit to Mazatlán.  It sounds like he loves it as much as I do.  Here is his article titled A Taste or Real Mexico. 

International Living reports that Mexico is the Worlds Second Best Retirement Haven in 2011. We think it’s the first best, of course, but it’s a great article!

Here’s an excellent article from the Seattle Times travel writer Carol Pucci: Is Mexico Safe?

The CSM’s reporter for Latin America, Sara Llanes, visited Merida a few weeks ago to find out if what she suspected was true… that expats who live and work in Merida Yucatan feel a lot safer here than most media is reporting. Sure enough, she found a lot of us who felt that way. And it wasn’t just the two of us who escorted her around to show her the sights. We stopped to talk to some expats who were renovating a home on Calle 53. This was unplanned and unannounced. Sara talked to the two of them, and to a Yucatecan couple who just happened to be walking down the street. Her planned meetings with Dan and Martha went expectedly well too. And, as a result of her weekend here, which she and her husband (who both live in Mexico City) thoroughly enjoyed, we have this article: American Expats Feel Safe South of the Border

I just ran across this post on AOL Travel by Anne Johnson. It is a must read for anyone planning to travel to Mexico or to calm fears of friends who think you shouldn’t visit!

Drug-related violence in cities south of the United States-Mexico border has caused the U.S. State Department to issue a travel warning for Mexico — but did you know most of Mexico is as safe as ever? Read More…

… just ask the New York Times! Travel writer Brooke Barnes wrote a piece for the January 24, 2010 issue that is titled 36 Hours in Mexico City. The article touches on some of my favorite places in the Big Manzana. Article is here.

The San Francisco Gate published a piece titled Swine flu fallout: Great deals on Mexico trips. The article includes individual deals in Mazatlán, Los Cabos and the Riviera Maya, and a lot of information about how the country is working to reassure visitors. One of the most important quotes from the article is:

Mexico’s ultimate hurdle is not room rates, flu or even drug violence, but perception. You’re three times as likely to contract H1N1 flu in the United States as in Mexico. And the drug war’s front lines still occupy just five of the country’s 2,400 counties; most Americans caught in the fray were in the border towns of Tijuana, Ciudad Juárez and Nuevo Laredo. Read more here.

A writer/blogger for Conde Nast Traveller writes about why it makes so much sense to invest in (and live in) Mexico, despite the news about the drug war, the swine flu and whatever else comes next. http://jeffmusto.com/blog/the-new-global-economic-reality/

In today’s New York Times, the reporter says there is evidence it didn’t start in Mexico at all. So just forget everything you’ve read over the last few months…

Andrés Martinez, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, wrote an opinion piece titled Be Neighborly, Go to Mexico for the Los Angeles Times today.

Your neighbor needs your help. Do you have it within you to lend a hand? Will you book yourself a week on the beach in Cabo or Puerto Vallarta, or explore Mexico City or one of the colonial cities in the heart of Mexico? You know, for the common good. This has been a banner decade for empathy tourism — many Americans flocking to New York after 9/11 and to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina did so with a sense of public service. Mexico now needs a similar surge. Read More…

The New York Times video entitled War Without Borders – Fueling Mexico’s Drug Trade is an eye opener for anyone looking for a balanced take on what fuels the drug trade, where the guns used in Mexico come from, and what is being done and needs to be done on both sides of the border. A Mexican official says in the video that the person in the US who is a casual marijuana user doesn’t even think for a moment that their use is helping maintain the Mexican cartels. But it is. Watch this 9 minute video, it will explain a lot.

A few days ago the New York Times ran this very realistic appraisal by Larry Rohter of Mexico today as compared to Mexico twenty years ago. Rohter was NYT Mexico City bureau chief from 1986 – 1990.

Journalist Linda Ellerbee wrote about her love of México in Puerto Vallarta’s Banderas News. Read the entire article here.

The Washington Post reports on the Mexican government’s taming of Ciudad Juarez, just across the border from El Paso, TX, using Mexican military forces. Incidentally, I have decided that “organized crime” is less evocative, and thus, more appropriate than are the loaded terms of “drug gangs” or “cartels” in describing those in involved in drug and human trafficking in Mexico, or elsewhere for that matter. Those involved are criminals and they work within organizations, just as did the gangs which operated in Chicago and other cities during the prohibition years in the USA.

CNN’s Anderson Cooper and his ilk roll into El Paso and tell the world how horrible it all is. Here’s the straight scoop from a reporter for the Texas Observer. As Melissa del Bosque puts it, all those fences and guns look sexy on television but she and her fellow El Pasoans have to live with all of that…

The American Frozen Food Institute joined with 140 other companies to urge Obama to end the cross-border trucking dispute with Mexico. It’s good to see that there are a lot of people who are beginning to speak out to end the injustice…

Our friend Jon Tevlin just came back from a trip to Merida… and he filed this report in the Star Tribune in Minneapolis-St.Paul. He found himself eating ice cream in a sunny central plaza in Merida, wondering what all the fuss was about…

Ana Maria Salazar, host of “Imagen News”, the only nation-wide radio news program in English broadcasted from Mexico, interviewed US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during her recent visit to México about the issues currently facing both Mexico and the US here.

Mexico, beset by a rising tide of drug violence, is nevertheless in no danger of becoming a “failed state”, U.S. spy chief Dennis Blair said on Thursday. “Mexico is in no danger of becoming a failed state,” Blair, the U.S. national intelligence director, told reporters at a briefing. Blair was asked about Mexico’s stability in light of concerns raised by investors, lawmakers and intelligence officials about the drug cartels. (Reuters)

Hilary Clinton said today that the United States shares the blame for drug trafficking and the attendant violence. She added that the U.S. needs to stop the flow of guns and other supplies into Mexico… and she mentioned that she honeymooned here.

“Despite heightened anxiety about the escalation of violence and organized crime activity, Mexico does not fit the general profile of countries identified as failed states,” Moody’s said in a report released today. “The general foundations of its investment-grade rating remain solid.”

NY Times article about Mexico by Enrique Krauze, author of the famous Mexico, Biography of Power.

The Miami Herald reports: “It is as safe to vacation in the tourist part of Mexico today as to go to any city of the United States or Canada.”

The Bakersfield Californian says, “yes.”

A survey of over 900 tourists to Mexico revealed that 90% felt safe, and 97% would return to Mexico. Read the full survey here.