Anonymous wrote:FYI, the State Department does not list the Cancun area as one where one should be concerned about kidnapping, express or otherwise.
"Express" kidnapping is defined as being held at gunpoint and brought to an ATM, then released. Given the number of drunk American teens and twenty-somethings wandering around Cancun late at night and in the wee hours of the morning, I'm really surprised that there isn't a warning that this occurs in Cancun. There's probably more risk of this in D.C.
According to the State Department, 4 million Americans go to just the Yucatan peninsula every year. I just googled around looking for incidents of Americans kidnapped in Cancun and the only one I could find was an Australian kid kidnapped after he tried to score drugs and then failed to pay in full for the "sample" lines of coke that he was offered and accepted. I'd say you should generally avoid that.
+1000 I have friends who do not want to visit the DC area because they're convinced they'll get shot in the former murder capital of the world. Yet somehow most of us here on DCUM are alive and well despite this being a "dangerous" city. The occasional crime in the Riviera Maya does not mean that it's a dangerous destination.