Perhaps you’ve already heard about the travel advisory issued from the U.S State Department, warning travelers not to visit cities such as Playa del Carmen and Cancun. As a consequence, your vacation plans or your idea of living in Mexico may have been affected.
However, with everything going on in the world right now, with all the confrontations between countries and severe changes in others, it’s hard to believe that you can be safe somewhere. The media paralyzes us, making us believe that the best thing we can do is to stay home. But, is it really the best we can do?
Let’s start by taking a look at the differences between Travel Warning and Travel Alerts.
Travel Warning
According to the State Department, a travel warning happens when the government wants travelers to reconsider whether to visit another country or not. These warnings may be due to governmental complications, continuous violence, terrorist attacks or a civil war.
Travel Warnings tend to last longer than Travel Alerts. Namely, a warning is drawn back whenever the situation changes. This could take weeks, months and even years.
Travel Alerts
Travel alerts are issued when some specific one-off events occur. According to the State Department, an example of these events could be strikes that end up in violence, health alerts such as H1N1 or high risks of terrorist attacks. These alerts expire in weeks or months in the near future.
It’s important to highlight the fact that both alerts have the same level of importance. Each of these advisories offers a word of caution to different situations; one of this being a short-term event with risk of repercussions and the other one a longer-term with high risk to travelers.
Travel advisories for Mexico
Mexico has had a travel warning for some time now, informing U.S. citizens about the risk of traveling to certain parts of Mexico. This travel advisories are due to the activities of criminal organizations. Recently, the government of the U.S issued a travel advisory for the state of Quinatana Roo.
Of course that this event has had a lot of coverage in the international media. However, it has also brought up a certain ‘local pride’ among the citizens of the State of Quintana Roo. What most of us think is that the picture created by the media doesn’t really reflect our daily life. Admittedly this is our point of view. We want to share with you some resources that you can review to find out more about the travel advisory and how it affects this area.
Here you can see the opinions of a reputable Latin journalist, an expat from Florida living in the Riviera Maya, and an American home sitter who spends time in Mexico often and who has been in Playa del Carmen several times.
Check out what they have to say about the reports; they have interesting points of view and their backgrounds are similar to yours.
If you are planning a trip to the Riviera Maya and you’re not quite sure about how serious is the situation, it is a good idea to take some time to research. Find out more info directly from the locals. Think if traveling to the Riviera Maya means a real danger to you. Basically, you must consider if it is safe for you to travel, taking the right precautions. Exactly the same precautions you would take back home.
Visit Mexico and share your good experience
Nowadays, traveling to any other country in the world is risky, and people will always speak based on their own experience, whether they had or not a great time. Some travelers will highly recommend you to visit a country and some others will tell you to never go there. However, visiting or not another country is your decision, and cancelling your trip or not is up to you.
Due to all the travel advisories that have been issued this month concerning Mexico, we recommend to always have a second opinion from someone who is actually living in the area that you want to visit; as well as always taking reasonable precautions.
Mexico is a wonderful country with amazing landscapes, beaches and beautiful cities. Mexicans will always open their arms to foreigners. Rather than watching bad news, come and live in Mexico and share your good experience, living it by your own.
You can make your dreams come true! Visit our website and start looking for your dream house in Mexico. Remember, at Top Mexico Real Estate… We make it happen!