My Dad and I were warned at a tourist information kiosk in California that hundreds of tourists were beheaded in Baja recently!
I discovered one of those victims on the beach.
The beheading warning stems from news that Police officers near Tijuana were beheaded after they attempted to investigate a party being held by arrested drug kingpin Javier Arrello Felix in 2009. Beheading is a terror tactic used against law enforcement.
The last time I was here, Baja was considered safe, mellow … but too much like California.
… Then came the great drug wars, with the first gruesome headlines coming out of Tijuana. Suddenly, anyone contemplating a trip across the border was placed on suicide watch.
Leave aside for the moment that the drug cartels aren’t targeting tourists, that their internecine battles rarely break out anywhere near tourist districts, or that crime has actually declined around Tijuana recently as the field of combat shifts to northeastern Mexico. For some travelers, those early headlines will remain indelible.
That doesn’t mean Baja is off the itinerary. …
read why – San Francisco Chronicle – Don’t write off Baja just yet
Your biggest danger in Baja is hitting a cow while driving at night. Or going broke. It’s just as expensive as Canada or the States though quality and reliability of goods and services is far inferior.
There are plenty of valid reasons not to travel to Baja: wind, dust, litter, dogs, bad roads. No need to exaggerate the risk of being killed in a drug shoot out.
I wouldn’t travel to Mexico ever … except that dentists are an exception. They charge about 40% of the price in Canada for the same job. My first appointment is Tuesday in La Paz.
Rick McCharles 
Maybe that beheading rumor was started to get even with our grandmothers, whose favorite disciplinary threat is to sell unruly children to the gringos!
While people from North America have traditionally come here for dentistry, the medical industry in general is experiencing phenomenal growth. Tijuana now offers ground-breaking diagnostics, geriatric ophthalmology, and tissue regeneration, for a few examples, as well as ISO9000-quality services such as plastic surgery and assisted living at less than half of what they cost north of the border.
We will be detailing each of these areas in the coming months. The Real Tijuana is a blog that describes northern Baja California from the inside. People who actually live in the Tijuana-Tecate-Ensenada triangle address issues of local culture, recreation, cuisine, health care, travel, real estate, retirement, and history with the goal of making fronterizo tourism less intimidating and more rewarding.
The place is surprisingly peaceable, nothing at all like the bad press it receives.