Yesterday I had the chance to ask some questions of a recent traveler to Cancun. She and her family were nervous before traveling to Cancun, but came here anyway and ended up having a great time. Here are my questions and her answers:

Why were you nervous about traveling to Cancun?

Stella: I was nervous about traveling to Cancun due to all the media coverage in the US and the travel alert that was in effect. Also, there were a lot of colleges warning their students not to travel to Mexico over spring break.

Why did you decide to come to Cancun and not go somewhere else?

Stella: This was our third trip to Cancun, we love the turquoise water and white sand. In addition, we have gone to other islands over Easter break and have not found the impeccable service that we receive in Cancun.

When you arrived in Cancun what were your first impressions?

Stella: When we first arrived, I felt a little nervous, but as soon as we walked outside and felt the warm sun and saw the palm trees blowing in the wind I actually began to feel at ease. Minutes thereafter we saw our service waiting for us with our name on a board and within 20 minutes we were at the front desk of our hotel.

How long were you in Cancun before you were able to relax and know that you would be safe here?

Stella: I actually felt at ease driving to Le Meridian. Our driver was so nice and kind.

What places did you visit while you were in Cancun? Did you go out and have fun?

Stella: We didn’t do any of the tours, because we have done them all before, we actually just wanted to relax. We did go out every night to a different restaurant and/or mall. We walked some of the time or took a taxi. We had no bad experiences.

Will you come back to Cancun again?

Stella: Yes, we will definitely be back.

What advice would you give other travelers who want to come to Cancun but are nervous?

Stella: I would advise other travelers to read your blog and be well aware of what is going in the country, but also to realize Cancun is some 2300 miles away from all that stuff. When traveling to another country you always need to be informed and aware. As long as you are respectful to the country and their people, I don’t see how you could have a problem. You were right, the only thing we came home with was sunburn.

Thanks again for putting my mind as ease prior to our trip.

Prior to asking the above questions of Stella she and I had an exchange of comments on my blog, I’ve shared that exchange here: Back Safe & Happy From Cancun.

Thank you to Stella for answering my questions and giving me permission to re-post our comment exchange.

The following comment exchange appeared recently on my blog. It illustrates the fear many travelers to Mexico have before they arrive and shows how unfounded those fears turn out to be. I thought it would be relevant to share this exchange here.

Comment #164 from Stella – April 1, 2009

Hey Rivergirl,
Glad I found this website. We are leaving 4/8 for Cancun, Le Meridian, by husband, myself and 2 kids. I am scared to death that we will be in harms way. My daughter can’t wait to go to Sr. Frog’s and I haven’t told her yet, that we probably won’t go downtown. I need your honest opinion as to whether or not we will be safe. I have arranged for the hotel concierge to pick us up at the airport, thought that was the safest way to go and figured we just won’t leave the resort until its time to head home, but that doesn’t give us many dining options. Please give me your honest opinion on all this. Also, if you know anything about the Le Meridian that you care to share, I would appreciate it.
Thanks so much for your time and info.

Reply from RiverGirl – April 1, 2009

Stella – First off Señor Frog’s is not in downtown Cancun it’s in the Hotel Zone. Second, even if it WAS downtown it would be perfectly safe to go there.

I understand your fears Stella but they are completely unfounded! I’m serious!

I wander around in Cancun all the time, alone as a white American woman. I’ve never been at all nervous for my safety and only once or twice (in large crowds) was I nervous that some purse snatcher would try to grab my purse (though no one ever did).

Le Meridien is a lovely hotel, it’s one of the nicest here. I don’t think the beach near it is very good right now, so you will want to walk north or south to a better beach.

But do leave your hotel and go out. Cancun is perfectly safe for tourists. When you get here and see everyone wandering the Hotel Zone night and day you will relax, I’m sure.

Comment #19 from Stella – April 15, 2009

Hey RiverGirl,
Just wanted to let you know you were RIGHT!! Cancun was more perfect than we remembered. We had a blast and were completely as ease once we checked-in and got in vacation mode. There were no signs of violence at all and actually the people, employees and everyone in general were much more pleasant and accommodating than you will find in Pennsylvania.
Thanks again for this website.

Reply from RiverGirl – April 15, 2009

Stella – I’m really glad you had a great time!

After this exchange of comments I wrote to Stella asking her for permission to re-post our exchange. I also asked her some questions about her fears and her trip to Cancun, a post with her answers will appear here soon.

Thank you to Stella for permitting me to re-post her comments here.

Lately I’ve been getting a lot of email from people who are concerned about the safety of traveling to the Cancun, Mexico area on vacation. I thought that it might be helpful to others if I share one of these email exchanges publicly. Here is a typical email, my response is below it:

RiverGirl,
Thank goodness I found you, my wife and I are planning to visit the Cancun area soon. But because of recent news reports about violence in Mexico our families are scared and have asked us to cancel our trip.

What can we say to them to calm their fears and convince them that we will be safe while on vacation in Cancun, Mexico?

Thanks,
Jack in Seattle

Dear Jack – The data simply doesn’t support avoiding tourist areas of Mexico. There have been exactly ZERO tourist deaths in the Cancun area due drug cartel violence.

In 2008 more than 4.5 million international tourists arrived at the Cancun Airport. The vast majority of these tourists went home with nothing worse than sunburn and a hangover. Tourists do die here, just like they do in every tourist destination, but if you look at the statistics you see that they die from drowning (usually because they swim while drunk) or from heart attacks or sometimes they die in car accidents.

If you read the US State Dept warning carefully you will see that it warns people away from the border areas, primarily Tijuana and Juarez. Those areas are 1200+ miles from Cancun. Would you avoid going to Miami, Florida because of violence in Detroit, Michigan? I wouldn’t.

It would be a shame for you to cancel your trip because of worry over violence toward tourists here. Tourists need to use common sense here; there is the normal petty crime you find in any tourist destination. But there simply isn’t violence against tourists here in Cancun.

Hope this helps,
RiverGirl

Ok, people, enough’s enough. Too many people are finding Heather in Paradise by researching “crime in Playa del Carmen,” and the US media has been going on a frenzy trying to sensationalize crime in Mexico in an effort to deter Americans from traveling here.

Here is the most recent travel advisory from the US State department. Read it for yourself and then come back.

Ok, they’re warning you that there has been drug cartel violence as well as some robberies, etc. in some of the border cities like Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez. They recommend restricting travel to Durango.

Have any of you seen a map of Mexico? Here you go:

Quintana Roo, which is Playa del Carmen’s state, is the grey/purplish state that is on the far right, curled up little Yucatan peninsula. In other words, it’s really, really far away from the border.

Click here to read more.

If you are a regular in the Mexican blogosphere, you know that Rivergirl wrote of this topic today and Gabatcha shared her thoughts on this matter yesterday. We were all set off by a recent article found on Associated Content written by Julia Bodeeb that is inaccurate and obviously written without any real knowledge of what is happening in Mexico. The article was posted on a Cancun information forum and we soon discovered that attempting to comment on her piece was futile. Several of us have posted comments that dispute her statement that tourists should avoid Cancun, we’ve asked her for evidence that Cancun is unsafe for tourists and she is consistently (and rapidly) deleting the comments that disagree with her blatant lies and misinformation. One poster contacted the writer directly to challenge her about deleting comments and she replied with a delightfully courteous “You blow”. You would think that a professional “journalist” would be able to engage in debate and support her arguments, but apparently she has nothing to back up her claims that tourists are in danger in Cancun. Why? Because they are not.

Click here to continue reading this article on my blog!

With the apparent hysteria in the media about the dangers of Mexico and the anxious emails I’m receiving about upcoming trips, I thought I would touch on this subject one more time (see previous post here). In Cancun and Quintana Roo, at this moment in time, all is peaceful, all is calm and tourists are safe. According to today’s local paper “El Periodico”, the US State Department released a letter stating that their warning was intended to urge people to exercise caution in the border areas of the country, not to prohibit travel or imply that resort areas are unsafe. There have been no tourists killed in Cancun as a result of the war on drugs. Do people die here? Why, yes they do, car accidents, heart attacks, drownings, suicides, of course people die here, but random murders just don’t happen. The entire city of Cancun had only 65 murders last year, none of the victims were tourists. For a city of about 700 000 residents with millions of tourists visiting each year, that is not a scary statistic. Does crime against tourists happen? Yes, this is not Disneyland (and I am sure there are pick pockets there too), robberies occur, credit card fraud, rape (usually of the “date rape” variety, not random assaults on the street), all things that happen in any major city. Use your common sense and don’t put yourself or your things in dangerous situations.

Click here to read the rest of this post on my blog!