Does Mexico Feel Safe?

Answers to one of the biggest questions about Mexico.

Recently, another expat here on Substack named Nadine wrote about the questions asked of her during a recent vacation in her native England. One of the biggest was, “Is Mexico safe?” This is perhaps the most burning inquiry that exists about this country.

It’s impossible to think about Mexico without also thinking about danger and safety. Stories about killings, drug running, and cartel abductions run rampant, and portrayals of the country and its people disproportionally involve these themes. Mexico is described as if the places that tourists go are bubbles floating in a toxic morass, as if leaving your resort or designated safe area can only end with a swift and violent exit from this world. Because of this, even people who have visited Mexico multiple times—even people who have been born and raised here!—think of Mexico as a place that is, above all else, unsafe.

However, Mexico is a nation with more than 130 million inhabitants, making it the 10th most populous in the world. It encompasses 761,610 square miles, making it the thirteenth-largest country in the world by land area. This is a gigantic country! So what does it feel like to live here?

Does Mexico feel safe?

Does Mexico Feel Dangerous?

Mexico does not always feel dangerous. We live in Mexico, and there are places we would not go to, and places we would not drive, but we feel the same way about the United States. I worked in Baltimore, Maryland and we lived in Chicago, Illinois, two cities famed for being dangerous. Both of them felt far less dangerous than you’d expect based on their reputations, but they also had places we wouldn’t visit under any circumstances. There are also a great many U.S. states I would encourage you not to visit, especially if you’re a woman, identify as LGBT, or are an ethnic or racial minority.

There is an existential economic incentive to keep tourists safe, and Mexico needs the country to be safe for visitors. If you visit Mexico City, you can stay in a hotel or Airbnb and walk around during the day or at night and feel completely safe unless you behave in a way that any reasonable person would say puts you at risk.

Mexico is also a beautiful, diverse, and generally welcoming country. Here in Oaxaca the only criminals we know about in our town are gringos who are drug dealers, and their clientele is made up more or less exclusively of more gringos. We hate that, but it’s at least a self-contained problem.

Are Visitors to Mexico Safe?

The average visitor is unlikely to be meaningfully impacted by violent crime, and where you are in Mexico will significantly influence how at risk you are.

The New York Times reported that tourists are often not targeted by cartels because of the unwanted law enforcement attention it brings from the United States, but also addressed concerns that this type of immunity may be coming to an end. Many expats, and especially retirees here in Mexico, are rightfully concerned about this type of change. But it’s important to take everything in context.

The majority of murders that happen in Mexico are cartel-related, and sadly, the vast majority of the cartel’s victims are other Mexicans. The degree to which a visitor or expat will be exposed to cartel violence depends on whether they indirectly end up in the path of a cartel, or if they do something that brings them into more direct contact with a cartel. Unless your life in Mexico involves participating in activities which would put you in the path of a cartel (such as if you’re a drug user, drug dealer, or if you hire prostitutes), you’re unlikely to be subjected to cartel violence.

As reported by the Times, some visitors were killed in cartel-related gang warfare. But there were 655 mass shootings in the United States in 2023, taking place in schools, churches, nail salons, and any number of other, everyday places. In Mexico, on the other hand, mass shootings are so unusual they’re referred to as being “gringo style.” If you’re worried about being randomly murdered, you’re more at risk in the United States than you are in Mexico.

In the aftermath of an incident in 2024 in which some medical tourists were kidnapped and murdered, the cartel apologized and surrendered five of their members to the police. The surrender wasn’t due to actual grief or regret, but instead was an acknowledgment that hurting or killing tourists is bad for business.

When I asked our gardener Edgar if Michoacán is safe—a region with incredible art and tourism, and where the monarch butterflies migrate to—he said without hesitation, “No, it’s extremely dangerous.” But Michoacán can be quite safe if you go directly to tourist areas, such as the butterfly sanctuaries. So, whether or not you’re exposed to danger as a visitor depends a lot on where specifically you are.

Is Mexico Objectively Dangerous?

There is no doubt that, by the numbers, Mexico is more dangerous than some other countries. It has one of the highest murder rates in the world, and in 2023 recorded over 30,000 murders. Mexico is especially dangerous for women. A 2022 survey conducted by Mexico’s national statistics agency, the INEGI, obtained results indicating that 70% of women reported being the victim of some form of violence.

Comparatively, in the United States, 25% of women have been the victim of physical violence, while 33.3% have been the victim of sexual violence. In Europe, 31% of women experienced physical violence, while 17.2% experienced sexual violence. Sample sizes for all of these studies were nearly the same, at around 50 million subjects. This means that even in the United States and across Europe, hundreds of millions of women have been the victim of physical and sexual violence. But whether or not these places feel dangerous, seem dangerous, depends on where a person is and their particular circumstances.

Do We Feel Safe Here in Mexico?

Yes, we feel safe living in Mexico.

One of the things that makes Mexico feel so scary is how it’s portrayed. We always see Mexico as being just one way, unidimensional. But even just here in Oaxaca, we’re exposed to a kaleidoscope of variety and diversity. Being shown every single day that popular portrayals of Mexico are essentially incorrect helps to reinforce that a lot of the assumptions people have about this country are based on faulty data. And yes, this country is absolutely dangerous, and to deny that would do millions of people a huge injustice. Just because our own particular lives feel safe doesn’t mean that millions of other people don’t have that luxury. But it’s unfair to this country and its variety of cultures to insist that Mexico is simply, universally violent, and that it’s an unsafe place to live or visit.

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