Mexico is once again splattered all over the news. “DON’T GO,” scream all the headlines. It’s so dangerous, people are being slaughtered. Tourists are prime targets. You’d be downright crazy to cross that border.

All that smack is coming out of every media outlet and as I sit here in my sunny LA kitchen, I just remember the smiles. The big, white, toothy smiles of every Mexican I came across in all my travels around that lovely country. In fact, I just got back from Mexico in February. 2 weeks of happy, pure bliss.

Last year, I traveled SOLO for months around the country with a solar trailer strapped to the back of my truck. I cruised down extremely dusty back roads, took precarious routes along the Sierra Madre’s, and swam along lonesome stretches of sandy beaches. Never did I fear for my life. Not once did I think I was gonna catch some trouble cause I was alone. If anything, it made me travel deeper, happier…

Oh yeah, there are those dozen times I’ve done all of Baja alone too. Up and down the Sea of Cortez, sleeping in my truck, cruising along tar black, two lane roads at midnight, and then coming upon a security checkpoint in the middle of the cold, star-filled desert. Only to skid to a stop, get out of my truck while they searched it…and laugh it up with the guards wielding machine guns. Again, HUGE smiles. Pretty smiles. Curious smiles. And, most of all, friendly smiles.

These aren’t trips that were decades ago. These are trips that happen 4-5 times a year for me. Stay away from Mexico? As if. You’d be crazy if you did.