If you've been closely watching the situation in Mexico this week. It is already cooling down, resorts are resuming operations, and airports are reopening: soon enough, it will be like it never happened.
Still, if you were planning a trip to Latin America this year, those dramatic headlines may have you second-guessing things.
To be clear: what happens in Mexico doesn’t automatically spill over into the rest of Latin America. We know it, and deep down, you know it too.
This is a vast continent we’re talking about, made up of countries with vastly different security standards, political climates, and on-the-ground realities. Beyond shared language roots and colonial history, many of them have little in common.
That said, given Latin America's uneven track record when it comes to regional stability, we can't exactly fault you for being cautious, especially when even in Mexico, widely considered to be on the safer side, the state of peace can be suspended overnight.
So where in Latin America have safety levels remained consistently stable? There are three countries in particular that have stayed in the U.S. Department of State’s good graces for several years now:
El Salvador
From the global murder capital, to the absolute safest nation-state in the Western Hemisphere, El Salvador has come a long way under Nayib Bukele's presidentship.
In power since 2019, the much-revered young leader has made it his Government's top priority to quash gang violence and street crime across the country, and though his iron-fisted methods have been routinely criticized by Human Rights Watchdogs, the results are clear:
From a mind-boggling homicide rate of 103 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2015, El Salvador saw the numbers decrease significantly already on Bukele's first year in charge (36 per 100,000), and as of 2025, it stands at a truly astoundingly-low 1.3 homicides per 100,000 residents.
Those are Switzerland-like figures, which is nothing short of impressive for a Central American country right in the heart of one of the world's worst regions for gang activity.
El Salvador is already reaping the benefits, as not only cities are much-safer, tourists are back en masse, and for the first time in recorded history, the U.S. Department of State has awarded it the Level 1 status.
In non-technical terms, it just means it's perfectly-safe for Americans to visit.
The only warning in place refers to the ongoing ‘State of Exception', enacted by Bukele in his relentless pursuit of criminals. As reported by U.S. authorities, ‘several constitutional rights' have been suspended, including the normal protections of a criminal procedure.
In all honesty? You have nothing to worry about as a foreign tourist with no involvement with local gangs.
Argentina
South America's crown jewel, Argentina is jokingly referred to as the ‘New Europe' across the pond, be it due to its notorious Spanish and Italian immigration trends, or purely the Paris-coded, end-of-century buildings in Buenos Aires.
Those are all fair observations, but there's another factor that draws Argentinians closer to their Europeans counterparts, than they are to, say, Brazil or Colombia: gratuitious violence and rampant petty theft aren't widespread issues here as much as they are in a city like Rio.
While pickpocketing can occur, Buenos Aires is not one bit less safe than your average European capital—nor less beautiful, if we may add—and the city simply doesn't have whole neighborhoods, or shanty towns where the rule of the land essentially doesn't apply.
Brazil's biggest problem is precisely its failure to reclaim control of large swathes of major metropolises like Rio and São Paulo, now under the full control of gangs.
Instead of tackling the issue, the Brazilian State has effectively decided to surrender sovereignty across parts of its own territory to organized crime.
In Argentina, drug trafficking exists, but it's more about transit and local distribution than, say, about full-blown paramilitary wars.
On top of that, it has proved to have long-standing state institutions, a professional police force, with far lower levels of corruption than their immediate neighbors, and a functioning judicial system. No, it is not bulletproof, but it provides a lot more stability than many Latam countries.
Unsurprisingly, Argentina also features as Level 1 in the U.S. Dpt. of State's Travel Advisories, with one side note added for the City of Rosario (in the Santa Fe province), due to elevated crime in that particular area.
Paraguay
A much-overlooked inland state that's risen to prominence lately as a digital nomad hub, Paraguay is the third-safest Latin American country after El Salvador and Argentina.
Its homicide rate usually sits around 6–8 per 100,000 people, considerably lower than Venezuela's, Colombia's, and even Brazil's. It's slightly higher than Argentina's or Chile's, though still at manageable levels.
In fact, the irony is that violence is mostly located near the Brazilian border, especially around Ciudad del Este, Paraguay's second-largest city.
In Asunción, albeit present in some level, urban violence isn't as prominent an issue, and the colonial-era Historic Center is pretty safe to walk. In general, Paraguay doesn't have giant homegrown gangs engaging in open street wars that impact locals and tourists:
It is a marijuana hub, and a transit country for cocaine, but any groups that are present operate there quietly. None of the usual gun battles or warfaring you see in suburban zones, or even downtown areas in large Brazilian and Colombian cities.
The lower-population density might have an understated role to play here. After all, the smaller the population, the lower the urban chaos, and Paraguay has only about 7 million citizens.
Even its largest city (the capital itself), feels like a small town when sided with megacities like São Paulo or Mexico City.
Equally at Level 1, the U.S. Department of State says Americans to exercise ‘normal precautions' in Paraguay, though it notes ‘some areas have increased crime risk'. Those are:
- Alto Paraná
- Amambay
- Canindeyu
- Concepcion
- San Pedro
