A common question that Kim and I have received over the years when traveling to new destinations is: Is it safe to go there? Our usual answer is yes. Obviously we aren’t looking to put ourselves in a dangerous situation especially with Lucas accompanying us. Before planning a trip we do our research. We usually refer to travel.state.gov and travel forums like Virtual Tourist.
Budget Travel has an article which should be of interest to many of us that love to travel. In the article, BT lists a few Surprising Kidnapping Hotspots & How To Stay Safe.
To select the destinations, Budget Travel selected a few places from an article on Vocativ, a new global social news network.
Budget Travel selected 4 Surprising Kidnapping Hotspots:
- Mexico– Had the most kidnappings, with over 1,500 last year. The article suggests sticking to the resorts to be safe.
- Brazil– The country doesn’t count “express kidnappings (the victim is kidnapped for a few hours and taken to ATMs to make lots of withdrawals) in its official kidnapping totals.
- India: Popular sites which are located in poor areas have kidnappings on the rise. BT suggests sticking to the well-traveled path and booking a private tour to avoid the risk of kidnapping.
- Kenya: Kidnapping is a problem at Kenya’s resorts on the north coast thanks to economic & social inequality, terrorist groups and criminals from Somalia. BT suggests booking packaged tours which have experienced guides.
Do you worry about getting kidnapped while traveling? If so, does it hold you back or do do you just go with safe booking places
Find out more by checking out Budget Travel’s article HERE.
Check out the article from Vocativ, The Places You’re Most Likely To Get Kidnapped.
Image Credit: Kidnapping Hotspots Map- Budget Travel from Vocativ
Levy Flight- I am guessing they aren’t since BT wrote about surprising kidnapping hotspots…
Andy- I’m not sure if you read my full post or not but I did not select these locations, Budget Travel did. In the article they did not say that resorts in Mexico are dangerous, they suggested visiting them. Why did I wrote about this article? Well I found it pretty interesting. And yes, I always need travel posts since I write a travel blog.
I am also not telling people not to go to these places or trying to scare anyone. We’ve been to many so-called dangerous places which we had great times at. Nairobi, the Colombian Amazon & Guatemala just to name a few.
While I understand you may be well meaning, or just in need of a random travel post, I personally don’t think it’s your place to post this kind of scare mongering misleading information. I live part time in Mexico and am originally from London, UK. I feel (and am) much safer in a beach town in Quintana Roo state than I do in my hometown. I suppose if I decided to set up my own little drug cartel or become a policeman in a trouble spot, I might have a chance of being kidnapped or kidnap someone myself. Mexico does have petty crime associated with poverty etc (like many countries) but I assure you, your chance of being kidnapped in or around almost any resort in the huge country is extremely slim. I don’t know gives you the motivation to write this stuff? Oh… And I have traveled the whole length of Mexico more than once to more out of way spots, and never had a problem also.
Surprized Somalia and Mali don’t feature.