Retiring in Yelapa--Will I be safe?

Safety and security should be discussed, and early on. There exist perhaps one hundred and fifty ex-pats or repeat long-term visitors who not only feel safe in Yelapa, but who acknowledge that they feel safer here than they do from wherever they departed. Puerto Vallarta is a city of nearly one quarter of a million inhabitants. The airport on any given day during the high season will process more than eight thousand passengers. Now, those are significant numbers. In contrast, Yelapa has neither cars nor airport, and “processes” perhaps one hundred visitors per day. The bulk of these limit their stay to a few hours.

The Gato Institute (spoiler alert, I’m about to get creative) has identified that your chances of experiencing felonious activity here in Yelapa are less probable than your life being snuffed by an errant descending coconut. Unsubstantiated accounts worldwide place the annual frequency of that event around 15,000 times versus a worldwide population of 7,000,000,000. You do the math!

Tell any family member living outside of your direct household that you are planning a trip to Mexico and be prepared to defend your current, as well as historical sanity. What about the murders, drugs, kidnapping, squalor etc. etc. etc.? Turn to them calmly and ask if they are familiar with similar issues in the zip code in which they currently reside. Do a little homework and then unload the salient data. End of conversation. Unless they are life-long devotees of FIX NEWS and then they will dispute the source of your data (Bureau of Labor Statistics, FBI).

Let us return to Yelapa. A feeling of safety and security should not be an excuse to relinquish your logic or intelligence. You would not scatter your valuables in full view in any hotel room in the States, why would you do it here?  Many local lodging managers have installed security boxes or have a common safe available for your items, most of which should have remained at home in the first place. Dining and entertaining here is an exercise in casual. Leave the “glam” at home, those are the people you bought it for anyway, right? When you stroll the streets of Yelapa appearing to have exited Neiman Marcus followed by a quick dash through Tiffany’s, you’ll only look foolish. If you stroll the streets of any large city in the world sporting the regalia mentioned above, then you’re establishing yourself as a target. Gender has no bearing.

Physical safety is no less important than your personal security. I repeatedly alert visitors that Yelapa is not a destination for anyone with mobility or respiratory issues. Paths are constructed of concrete and rounded river rock. A small dose of sand renders the dry surface slick. An extended walk will require that you summit one or multiple hills. Rental properties owe spectacular views to the fact that they have fifty, or more, steps to ascend prior to unlatching your front door.

Keep your wits about you whenever or wherever you travel. If you feel uncomfortable in a situation back home, you retire to safety, ditto for when you travel. You ventured to Yelapa to enhance your list of great experiences. Avoid some personal lapse of intellect which allows your friends to gush a giant “I told you so.”