"There's A Big Gap Between Perception And Reality,"

The Seattle Times carries a Washington Post article about safety for tourists in Mexico.

Without a solid understanding of the geography (761,606 square miles) and the nature of the drug wars (internecine fighting), many foreigners assume that all of Mexico is a war zone. But it isn't.

"The episodes of violence are in very specific pockets," says Rodolfo Lopez-Negrete, chief operating officer of the Mexico Tourism Board, "and are unrelated to tourism."

For proof, Lopez-Negrete rolls out the statistics, derived from a combination of government and non-government sources: Of 2,500 municipalities (what we call counties), only 80, or fewer than 5 percent, have been affected by the drug war, which accounts for only 3 percent of all crime. Mexican cities are also safer than some urban centers north of the border: Mexico City, for example, has 8.3 homicides a year per 100,000 people. That's fewer than Miami (14.1) and Chicago (16.1). On a global scale, Mexico is safer than many of its neighbors. In 2008, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime reported Mexico's homicide rate as 11.6 per 100,000, significantly lower than Honduras (60.9), Jamaica (59.5) or El Salvador (51.8).

Bottom line: check the news daily in any city in America or watch the late night news and you will see evidence that people are dying violently every day. Many of those people are killed in areas that I wouldn't go into in the daylight. When traveling anywhere, keep your eyes open, don't flash your wealth and stay out of bad neighborhoods.