The State Department is advising people not to travel to certain destinations in Mexico.
Travelers are currently advised to exercise increased vigilance when visiting more than a dozen Mexican states and to avoid some locations altogether due to crime and kidnappings. The warnings have been issued for some of the most popular states, such as Quintana Roo, where Cancun is located, and Baja California Sur, where Los Cabos is located.
Although travel advisories for Mexico are not uncommon, awareness is more important now than ever after four Americans on a road trip last week were involved in a shootout with a drug cartel that left two of them dead and two kidnapped before being released, according to The Associated Press. On Friday, the Americans came under fire shortly after reaching the border town of Matamoros, located south of Brownsville, Texas.
The U.S. Embassy and Consulates in Mexico issued a warning after the shooting, advising government employees to stay away from the area and warning “U.S. citizens that Tamaulipas is classified as Level 4: Do Not Travel in the State Department’s travel advisory for Mexico.”
The State Department has issued some form of warning for most states in the country, but stated that people should “exercise normal precautions when traveling to” the states of Campeche and Yucatan, where the famous monuments of Chichén Itzá are located.
This is not the first time the State Department has issued a travel warning for Mexico this year. In January, the agency warned tourists in Quintana Roo against using app-based transportation services such as Uber after a series of cases in which U.S. tourists were injured.