Belize by land

msmith1199 wrote:
"One other thing, I'm sure other posters on the forum are well meaning but I would recommend you listen to those who routinely travel in Mexico. Nothing wrong with reading the news and travel warnings but keep it all real. Just to put it into perspective, the Capitol of the USA Washington DC has a murder rate 9 times higher than the Capital of Mexico, Mexico City...and yet we will be visiting it in two years. Travel smart and be aware."

I'm pleased you are happy with Mexico, but I need to comment. First of all, I wouldn't take the RV camping in Washington DC either. Secondly, do you really think the murder rates reported for Mexico City are accurately tracked and reported? Not to mention most of the violent crime in Mexico tends to happen our in the rural areas, or at least that's where most of the bodies turn up.

If you want the best reason not to travel in Mexico it's because of the government corruption and the fact that they will not cooperate with our law enforcement to extradite violent criminals. If a Mexican national comes to America and kills and American citizen and then flees back to Mexico, Mexico will routinely refuse to extradite those criminals back to the US. There have been a few, but most they do not. That simply is not a Country I want to travel in.

Good afternoon. I certainly respect the wishes of anyone not wanting to travel outside of their own country. Everybody has comfort zones and those should allways be respected by others. I think you will find that many countries that don't have a death penalty won't extricate someone to a country that does. That is a whole other debate and beyond the scope of this forum but it brings up an interesting point as Canada, United Kingdom, much of Europe and so on are in this category and it does limit where one would travel to if one won't travel to a country with death penalty extrication laws.

Re the statistics and government corruption. Without a doubt Mexico among other countries have had corruption issues but without a doubt this is one area we citizens of Canada or the USA should not be casting stones. But in regards to specific stats on Mexico City I have no reason to doubt the stats. Having said that I would recommend caution when visiting any large city. You are obviously cautious on travelling in Mexico (good on you) and maybe for specific reason. I would be interested in hearing more of your experience in Mexico. Benefiting from others experience is always handy. We do it wherever we travel. We just returned from almost ten weeks in Europe and did exactly that. Pickpockets in France and Italy and gypsies in Spain. We knew about them before we arrived so we were less likely to be a victim.

Happy trails and stay safe.