I know a TUGger (rarely posts) who told his story once here. I don't know if he posts on TUG anymore. He had a scary experience. He was in Cancun, he and his wife and another couple. They chose one of the private bus excursions to see some ruins (don't remember what exactly), and the federalis stopped the bus and walked up and down the aisles of the bus with guns and rifles, asking people for their identification. Scared the pee out of him.
He never went to Mexico again and bought two more weeks on Maui.
His story didn't scare me off from Mexico, but a friend of ours went to Mexico two years ago and was sitting at a table in a bar. There was a gunfight in the bar. Several people were killed. It made the national news.
Cindy- anyone can post stores like that about any locale. One or two stories doesn't define anything.
You like Hawaii. So let me tell you a personal story. Our son was in a group of kids who were assaulted on Anahola Beach. they were singled out specifically because they were tourists and though no one was hospitalized some of the kids received medical attention and several of the women had some of their clothing ripped off of them. Kauai police blew it off; didn't do anything because they were haoles on Anahola after dark. Essentially told them that they should have known better.
But that doesn't stop us from going. But it took about ten years until my sone was willing to return to Hawaii. But now he's come back.
I have another son who absolutely refuses to return to Hawaii. He was with us one time, but got a bunch of stink-eye and he won't return. So he and his wife go to Cayman every year.
Then about a year there was the situation of two tourists from Great Britain who were in Miami Beach, and decided to walk about a mile to a nearby 24-hour restaurant. They made a wrong turn, and both of them were assaulted and killed.
And about ten years ago there was a group in Florida, around Orlando if I remember correctly, that seemed to be targeting German tourists for robberies and assaults. Set off the kind of hysteria in Germany about going to Florida that we usually see about violence in Mexico.
Then in the last couple of years there have been several cases in California of tourists going to stadium to cheer on their home town who was the visiting team, and those have been brutally assaulted by local fans. If a person is going to hold to that kind of logic, they should never go to an out-of-town stadium in the US as a fan of the visiting team because not just once, but at least twice now, such fans have been assaulted.
Still not sure I am afraid of going. I just love Hawaii, and we go twice per year fairly cheaply. I haven't felt a need to go to Mexico.
We love Hawaii too, and we've been going there almost every year for fifteen years now. Then about six years ago we started going to Mexico in February. And we've started going back almost every year. For both trips I use our Alaska Airlines companion fares, and we do our timeshares.
But one of the things I love is that the week we spend in Mexico costs us about one-third of what it costs us in Hawaii. The air fare is cheaper. The food is cheaper. When we do activities it's cheaper. We skip car rental.
The people are gracious and hospitable. And on top of all that,
it's safer than Hawaii!! Downtown Puerto Valllarta vs. Waikiki??? No comparison.
