The most common question we get from friends and family back home is in regard to how safe it is for us to be here.

The short answer is, if you are not involved with drugs or other illegal activities, you’re unlikely to encounter any heightened safety concerns compared with the US. After more than two months here, as far as we can tell there’s no heightened danger to us here.

Even in the US, people concerned about safety will avoid certain activities and neighborhoods. It’s the same here. We follow basic safety guidelines.

The biggest one is not traveling at night. That’s one of the most common travel tips you’ll read. For us, we haven’t heard of any specific dangers with traveling at night, it’s just common wisdom. However, one big reason for us to not travel at night has to do with another safety issue – the roads are in very bad condition in some areas. There are large potholes, crumbling sections of road, and roads that slump on the sides. Also, the infamous speed bumps. During daylight, these obstacles are generally visible, but it’s much more difficult to spot and avoid them at night, especially when we aren’t as familiar with the area.

Also keep in mind that when we are in our neighborhood, it’s a very small community. Everyone knows what everyone else is doing, and people watch out for each other. Especially us, for now, since we’re still new here.

Before we came to Mexico, one of the concerns we read about was that interstate buses had stopped traveling through our state because of safety concerns they had experienced. I’m happy to report now that the buses are running again. I don’t know what changed, but I interpret it as a good sign.

The bottom line is, we take common-sense precautions as much as possible, and enjoy our life here.