Is anyone else unafraid to visit Tijuana?

[Kruel J]

I'll give you a cookie if it makes you feel better. When was the last time any of you were there?
I'll listen when people have recent relevant experience. Until then...

So you'll listen when people agree with you? OK, fair enough.

 

[Alexx1401]

While these were a few incidents of violence in Tijuana from 2006-2009, the Federales have pushed the Drug Lord operation to the east. The Tourist Police that covers the 71 mile stretch from Tijuana to Ensenada, generally dissuade the "bad guys" or "banditos" from victimizing the tourist population along the Northern Baja California Peninsula.

I just maintain a level of "situational awareness" that I would in any large metropolis. I'm anxious to go back and eat authentic Mexican food as it is prepared on the streets and in the great restaurants of the great city.

When young I used to LOVE going south of our border for fun. Cheap and it was fun. Now days you would not get me there at gun point. That country was nothing like it is now many decades ago. I know some who still go and enjoy it a lot. Just not for me. Same when Dad moved to Philippines. He loved it and enjoyed his last days there. He wanted me to visit and I declined. The country only allowed the criminals to have guns and they had plenty. Not someplace I want to be.

 

[No_Regerts]

I speak enough Spanish and enjoy the culture. What you have to understand is that the food, culture and the sights are something special. (You can't watch the bullfights in the USVI).

I think bull fights are evil.

 

[No_Regerts]

So you'll listen when people agree with you? OK, fair enough.

I think we crappered on his soon-to-be timeshare ad.

 

[Stomper]

I think bull fights are evil.

Not my thing, either.

 

[Medic!]

I plan on sneaking across the border and getting a job down there.

I'll get my vacation and ''I'll get Mexico to pay for it''!

 

[clearconscience]

If I get a hankering I'll just go drive through rockwood near gresham

 

[Dungannon]

I've been going to Mexico for the last nine years, for 2.5-3 month stretches, doing volunteer work at an orphanage. While I drive through Tijuana during daylight hours, I don't stop there or in any other border town.

I enjoy visiting other countries, but frankly I always feel a bit of relief when I get back into the states. I suspect people from other countries that come here for tourist reasons feel the same way when they get back home to a familiar culture/language setting.

 

[Dungannon]

I've been going to Mexico for the last nine years, for 2.5-3 month stretches, doing volunteer work at an orphanage. While I drive through Tijuana during daylight hours, I don't stop there or in any other border town.

I enjoy visiting other countries, but frankly I always feel a bit of relief when I get back into the states. I suspect people from other countries that come here for tourist reasons feel the same way when they get back home to a familiar culture/language setting.

BTW, pics of the new Ruger Mark IV 22/45 Lite on TBF.
NEW PISTOL: Ruger Mark IV 22/45 Lite - The Firearm Blog

 

[Captain O]

I think bull fights are evil.

This coming from a nation that can't tolerate the culture that they either don't understand or can't share. You can eat red meat, but can't stand to see man and beast face each other.

It's not about killing the bull, but about the dance of death that can go either one way or the other.

Football, basketball, soccer, baseball... No risk of death is involved. They are all about men dressing up in uniforms and playing with balls. Men being paid ridiculous sums of money for a little "rough and tumble" on the field, being paid tons of cash for endorsements. Pansies!

I have seen a Torero gored in the leg, and thrown into the air, only to arise, and dispatch the bull! (I doubt any football player would have the courage to take such a risk).

 

[teflon6string]

Living in San Diego on and off for 25 years starting in the mid-70's , I visited Baja Cali a lot and dated a girl in Tecate for awhile. Jai alai games in Tijuana were a fun show at night. Dinner dates down the coast for cheap Lobster in La Fonda and Rosarita Beach were eerie adventures (before street lights on the crummy little highway in a used BMW with Pink Floyd).

Visitors from Oregon enjoyed going to breakfast in TJ and then bartering in the markets for souvenirs, blankets and bottles of vanilla. It was a safe, colorful, noisy spectacle sort of like PT Barnum's roar of the greasepaint and the smell of the crowd.

But it lost a great deal of charm (for me anyway) by 1995 when a drunk dude picked a fight with one of my friends in Ensenada and I turned my hand into a swollen maraca on his right cheekbone. We hustled our girls to the car and beat a hasty retreat back over the border - rather than having to explain a public dust-up to the policia notorious for shaking down "rich" gringos.

From that point on, I recall seeing TV news at least weekly about street fights and stiff-arm robberies near San Ysidro and I stopped going there. Sure, the US Marines that were getting mugged in pairs and small groups were probably drunk with slurred hand-to-hand combat skills, but the blush was off the rose for me.

Can't say when my last visit was, and I certainly didn't take my family there in 2013 when we visited friends in San Diego.

It's sad today that all these loudmouth liberal celebrities are reneging on their promises to leave the US if Trump wins. I think Tijuana would be a fine place for those racist hypocrites - and a damn sight closer (than Canada) to Hollywood.

 

[Captain O]

We need to send these morons to Cuba and see how much they enjoy life in the "Socialist's Paradise".

 

[coop44]

Grew up too close to Mexico. No desire to go there and witness abject poverty just so I can feel superior. I have no use for those that do.

 

[BlackRyder]

I know tijuana is a different story than where I went in Mexico (I did a 2 month jaunt, driving from Puerto Vallarta area down to southern Michoacan state, basically camping on random beaches the whole way down) but I have to say that my time there was one of the best trips I ever did in my life. Everyone told me that I was crazy to do what I wanted to do, that Michoacan is unsafe for mexicans much less foreigners, I would get kidnapped raped and beheaded, the cartels, so on and so forth...
As long as you aren't an idiot and exercise good situational awareness I believe you can pass through almost anywhere in the world unscathed.
I did this trip about 6 years ago, and have nothing but fond memories of mexico. i wouldn't hesitate to visit TJ. Just don't be an idiot - don't try to buy any drugs off the street, don't get too drunk and obnoxious, don't drive at night, etc.. the obvious, simple things that one would do to stay safe in a foreign country. It's amazing how often people ignore common sense and then question why they end up in trouble. You'll be fine.. just don't be an idiot!

 

[Ura-Ki]

I for one have always enjoyed visiting Mexico, but I have never been to TJ. I prefer Augua Perita, and going on the train through the Copper Canyon. Baja for Deep Sea Fishing is the shiznit, and Cabo is pretty cool, just keep your wallet in the front pocket and all is fine! I love the Mexican Peoples I have met through all of my travels down there, never had any problems with any of them, and all were hard working, give the shirt off their back folk that would rather feed you a nice meal then take advantage of your generosity! Having been all over this planet, I can say I feel safer in Mexico then many other "modern" places in Europe, or the middle east, or the Orient!!!

 

[Alexx1401]

Not my thing, either.

I always like the clips where the Bull wins on you tube.

 

[Captain O]

I know tijuana is a different story than where I went in Mexico (I did a 2 month jaunt, driving from Puerto Vallarta area down to southern Michoacan state, basically camping on random beaches the whole way down) but I have to say that my time there was one of the best trips I ever did in my life. Everyone told me that I was crazy to do what I wanted to do, that Michoacan is unsafe for mexicans much less foreigners, I would get kidnapped raped and beheaded, the cartels, so on and so forth...
As long as you aren't an idiot and exercise good situational awareness I believe you can pass through almost anywhere in the world unscathed.
I did this trip about 6 years ago, and have nothing but fond memories of mexico. i wouldn't hesitate to visit TJ. Just don't be an idiot - don't try to buy any drugs off the street, don't get too drunk and obnoxious, don't drive at night, etc.. the obvious, simple things that one would do to stay safe in a foreign country. It's amazing how often people ignore common sense and then question why they end up in trouble. You'll be fine.. just don't be an idiot!

There's real truth in what you say. So many people visit the city and act like fools, throwing caution to the winds. I was there in 2010 as well. I'll go again and enjoy the food, the museums (and the Tijuana Museo Cera too). There are so many things to be enjoyed and in clean, respectable ways. You are 100% correct. If you don't act the fool and violate the law, you can have a ball at about 1/4 the cost that people pay in the US for a vacation.

If you go to Rosarito Beach, you can play and eat at a cost that will make everyone in your neighborhood jealous. Right now the exchange rate is 20.46 Pesos to the US Dollar. This makes Everything in Mexico a better value.

 

[Captain O]

I always like the clips where the Bull wins on you tube.

It's the risk that puts the "spice" in the sport! Death is the specter that haunts every Torero. That how it works.

 

[Alexx1401]

Okay, we'll put you in the ring and see how well you fare. Ole!

NO THANKS!!!! When I was a kid we were around cattle a lot. I had a HEALTHY respect for the Dairy bulls. They had those special made pens for a reason and I stayed the hell out of there.
I just never like to watch them torturing an animal like that for sport. Why I always laugh when I see one of them get the horn.

 

[Captain O]

Living in San Diego on and off for 25 years starting in the mid-70's , I visited Baja Cali a lot and dated a girl in Tecate for awhile. Jai alai games in Tijuana were a fun show at night. Dinner dates down the coast for cheap Lobster in La Fonda and Rosarita Beach were eerie adventures (before street lights on the crummy little highway in a used BMW with Pink Floyd).

Visitors from Oregon enjoyed going to breakfast in TJ and then bartering in the markets for souvenirs, blankets and bottles of vanilla. It was a safe, colorful, noisy spectacle sort of like PT Barnum's roar of the greasepaint and the smell of the crowd.

But it lost a great deal of charm (for me anyway) by 1995 when a drunk dude picked a fight with one of my friends in Ensenada and I turned my hand into a swollen maraca on his right cheekbone. We hustled our girls to the car and beat a hasty retreat back over the border - rather than having to explain a public dust-up to the policia notorious for shaking down "rich" gringos.

From that point on, I recall seeing TV news at least weekly about street fights and stiff-arm robberies near San Ysidro and I stopped going there. Sure, the US Marines that were getting mugged in pairs and small groups were probably drunk with slurred hand-to-hand combat skills, but the blush was off the rose for me.

Can't say when my last visit was, and I certainly didn't take my family there in 2013 when we visited friends in San Diego.

It's sad today that all these loudmouth liberal celebrities are reneging on their promises to leave the US if Trump wins. I think Tijuana would be a fine place for those racist hypocrites - and a damn sight closer (than Canada) to Hollywood.

Things have changed in 21 years. I don't go into bars and I don't use street drugs. The "powers that be" in the city had lost business from 2008-2009. They lost so much that they couldn't afford to lose any more so they clamped down on the "lawless" element in the city.

Take my word for it, the Tourist Police take protecting the tourist population very seriously!