Los Cabos Continues To Be One Of The Safest Destinations In Mexico

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Last Updated 1 year ago

INEGI, the federal organization responsible for the census and general data collection in Mexico, presented its updated rankings of the safest cities in the country. Los Cabos once again occupied a spot in the top 5 of the safest cities in the country. It actually dropped to the fourth spot in the updated rankings, having been named the third-safest city in Mexico in the previous list. Oddly enough, this drop in the ranking didn’t come as a result of people feeling less safe in Los Cabos. 

In fact, out of all the people surveyed, only 20% of them were registered as feeling “unsafe” while in Los Cabos. That number is down from 26% of people who felt unsafe in the region in September 2022. Los Cabos lost a spot because Los Mochis, a city in Sinaloa, one of the states in Mexico with a higher crime rate, actually improved its scores drastically. Only 15% of those people polled in the city said they felt unsafe.

How Do The Rankings Work?

Seeing that 20% of people living in Los Cabos say that living here is unsafe may not be overly comforting for potential travelers. However, it’s not as cut and dry as the numbers sometimes make it out to be. What INEGI does is that they select homes within a city at random, and then they either go to those homes physically or conduct a survey on the phone. 

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The survey includes direct questions such as: Do you feel safe living in this city? However, the rankings are not just based on the answer provided to that question. There’s a whole set of questions regarding places throughout that city that might feel unsafe. As well as others regarding whether the person being interviewed has been a witness to violent acts throughout their community.

Since this is a progressive ranking, what INEGI tries to do is ask the same families throughout the entire year to see if they feel safer or not as time goes on. That’s why there are typically changes within the ranking from quarter to quarter. As far as who is actually interviewed to provide these answers in the case of Los Cabos, it’s likely that expats living in Cabo are part of the survey. 

With the number of foreign nationals owning homes in the region, it would actually be unrealistic to think none of them are surveyed. The survey does not take into account the nationality of the person in question. However, the identity of those surveyed is confidential, so knowing exactly how many foreigners living in Cabo make up the survey is virtually impossible. 

Other Entities Agree That Los Cabos Is A Safe City

The US State Department also runs safety rankings on Mexican states. Throughout 2022 and into 2023, Baja California Sur, the state where Los Cabos is located, has remained at the second-best travel advisory level. The US state department warns tourists to “Exercise Increased Caution” while in the state. This inclusion of Baja California in this particular warning level and not at the lowest warning level is a bit of a mystery. Tourists are given a very general warning to beware of crime, which is something you should be aware of anywhere in the world.

Two lines below that warning, the official document states, 

“There are no restrictions on travel for U.S. government employees in Baja California Sur state, which includes tourist areas in: Cabo San Lucas, San Jose del Cabo, and La Paz.”

While most people who live or travel to Los Cabos express that they feel safe, it’s still a good idea to take certain precautions while you travel. To ensure that any type of unfortunate circumstance won’t ruin your Cabo vacation.