Hmmmm.  Now that you ask, the answer is: not as dangerous as the United States in some areas!
There's a lot of hype these days about how dangerous Mexico is.  Is the drug business doing well --- yes, probably not as well as it does in the United States because the stats don't include pharmaceutical abuse (which is quite high in the States)!

As citizens of the United States we are privy to all the various takes on crime in Mexico.  Lots and lots of people do not like Mexico or Mexicans.  The news we always hear about crime and the cartels in Mexico paints a picture that is very severe.  I'm going to include some links that you can look at to assess for yourself what the situation is really like.

Do we feel like we are in danger most of the time?  No.  But we live street smart just as we would in Miami, New Orleans, or any other large city or town.  See:  www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Mexico/United-States/Crime 

Sometimes we read so much of the bad and disturbing news about a place --- and Mexico is always in the news --- that we begin to believe that it must be terrible because there is so much published. 

When we lived in Uruguay, the students who were in my classes at the International school where I taught, studied what life was like in the United States and decided to study at a university located somewhere else.  What the United States looks like is that there is a lot of random crime, terrible drug use and abuse, and corrupt government just as there is everywhere else. 

Sometimes we become easily convinced because we don't take the time to look up actual facts.  It seems that using the facts these days is very out of style in the USA.  Therefore, when you are looking at any country, don't just look at the stats that you read about in news articles or that you see on the television.  Go do a deep research on the Internet and look at the comparisons between them all.  You will find that in most cases, Mexico has less crime in the very areas where the USA excells.  It's important to use something other than Homeland Security figures, as I wonder how skewed they may be considering the activities promoted by them such as ICE. 

We receive the alerts from the United States regularly, as do most Americans living abroad.  But what strikes us as strange is that the alerts are generally for certain states in Mexico, not simply a town or city in that state.  For instance, Jalisco is on that list of places not recommended for American tourists.  However, the majority of the crime takes place in Guadalajara, a city of over 4 million people, 50 miles north of where we currently live yet in the same state of Jalisco. 

In answer to the second question in the title:  No, I am not afraid.  Period.  I live here and I have no desire to move back to the United States at this time.  For one thing, Mexicans are not argumentative and always trying to force their view on me --- political, religious, or otherwise.  In general when you walk anywhere, they look you in the eye and acknowledge your presence on "earth", in the grocery store, on the boardwalk --- anywhere.  You are there and they acknowledge your presence with a nod and a smile, or a simple "good morning" or "good afternoon", and it just feels different (and way better) than it felt in the States.

Here are some links to get you started on your own research.  Some are directly from people who have lived here a very long time or have done the research to be able to speak with a good authority as to how safe it is here.  I'm going to include a couple of fun articles but that have good information.  We've enjoyed watching and following Lori and Jerry Brown's Travel videos for over 2 years.  They've been here a long time and their specific mission is to share accurate information with people considering Mexico either for retirement, investment, or vacations.  You can check them out on YouTube.

Here is another link to a post on another blog that gives several other links that take you to more information about the crime situation in Mexico.  This is really the only time I'm going to post about  crime here because the rest of life is so fabulous that I prefer to share it with you.  But here is the link to an informative post!  assetbuilder.com/knowledge-center/articles/is-it-too-dangerous-to-retire-in-mexico

And finally, this is a place I love to visit because there are so many options for comparisons.  Some have not had too many people reporting, but the fact is that all reporting is by people who are willing to research and send details to this website.
www.numbeo.com/crime/compare_countries_result.jsp?country1=United+States&country2=Mexico

Long blog today, but necessary due to the number of people who ask us this question or who doubt our sanity for living here!
Cheers all!

Question for you:  After you have done your research, let me know if you would consider a visit to Mexico!

Last night was so much fun --- well actually it all started in the morning for me!  I decided to take advantage of the water aerobics classes that are included with our club membership (included in our rent).  The pool area is so tranquil and the views are magnificent.  I decided not to take the photo with all of us in the pool, because I wasn't willing to get permission from the 30+ people who were in class!  The lake you see is Lake Chapala.  The mountains are part of the San Juan Cosala Sierra Madre mountains. 
When the rainy season comes, all those hills are completely green and look like broccoli!  Just wait.  You'll see!

After I came home from exercises, Kris reminded me that today was the day we were going to an afternoon Bach & Mozart concert featuring pianist David Fung.  Along with him were an outstanding violinist, a violist, a cellist playing a Mozart Quartet, followed by a small string orchestra for the harpsichord concerto No. 4 in A Major (played on the piano).  It was uplifting and very moving.  Perhaps my favorite was the encore which was another Bach composition.  It was a standing ovation event!  This group is just one of many that are performing in a 2-week-long Festival of music here in the Lakeside region.

Then we drove back out to our little town of San Juan Cosala to a very famous restaurant called Viva Mexico! owned and operated by the same man who is on the website here in the Operation Feed video --- Agustin. 

There were plenty of people there, but we found a nice table.

If you're a vegetarian or vegan, don't look at my dinner!  Look at Kris's dinner!  Mine was beef tenderloin with baked potato & sour cream, and a veggie medley of fresh cooked vegetables!  Delish!  Kris choose a Mexican meal called the "Juanita" that came with lots of veggies, tortillas with cheese, some enchiladas with chicken, guacamole, salsa and rice.  And we each had an ice-cold Corona beer!  They taste really good here.  I will share the price with you below our dinner photo!

It's been a long time since I did anything with my blog, but since I'm thrilled with our new life in Mexico, I wanted to get it up and going and change the look and feel of it.  So here's my best effort for today!

There is a link to the old photos I had up on www.lindawilsonsblogphotos.com, but I didn't have enough time today to build this blog and change out the old photos.  But never fear, I've got a ton of photos I've been taking here, and many that I wanted to post when we were in Uruguay.  As you go through this website/blog, you'll find there are many different aspects to it.  I want it to also be a sort of travel  blog as well as very personable and inviting.

Please let me know what you'd like to know that I may not cover.  We can even have discussions about things if you'd like.
If you find some odd or glaring mistake here on this site, please, please let me know.  Typos in the blog don't concern me at all, but I'd really like the website part to be perfect --- naturally! ha! 

Welcome again.  I hope this is as much fun for you to read as it has been for me to get started back up with it again!
Bienvenido.