El Salvador Safe To Travel
Whenever I travel to foreign countries, usually for cultural experiences and scuba diving, I like to visit multiple countries in any single vacation trip. I see where my flights connect and instead of choosing the shortest layover at a connecting airport, I extend the layover so I can spend some time in that country I’m connecting through. For my recent scuba diving trip to the Bay Islands of Honduras (Utila and Roatan), I took the opportunity to spend three nights in neighbouring El Salvador on my way back.
El Salvador has a reputation of being an unsafe country to travel to because of the gang violence. But after much research and due diligence about the country as well as its capital city San Salvador, I decided to give El Salvador a try. My research suggested that San Salvador was like any other big city where there are both safe and dangerous areas.
It’s a matter of being smart enough to stay in the safe areas and avoid the dangerous ones. And I hooked up with a knowledgeable local guide to show me around.
Safe Areas In San Salvador
I learned that the areas considered dangerous in San Salvador were to the north and east of the city. I stayed at a budget hotel called Happy House that was clean and safe minutes from the Metrocentral shopping mall and the Intercontinental Hotel. This area was pretty safe as I walked around where there were lots of locals in the area.
My guide Roberto from El Salvador Custom Tours showed me a few places around the city including the Santa Tecla area as well as the town of Santa Ana. We also did a day trip to the Copan Mayan ruins where we went across El Salvador, crossed into Guatemala and into Copan which is actually located in Honduras – a future blog article and video on my journey to Copan coming up in the near future. He was a wealth of valuable and interesting information.
Trying Out Local Cuisine In El Salvador
One of the things I like to do whenever I’m in a foreign country is to try the local cuisine. Although San Salvador had plenty of American food chains like McDonald’s, Starbucks and Pizza Hut, I steered clear of them. I did not come all the way to Central America to eat pizza!
Roberto showed me some local places to eat pupusas, the national dish of El Salvador and I loved them. To me, eating where the locals eat is a great way to experience authentic culture.
Here is a video of some of the sights I saw while in El Salvador.
So overall, El Salvador has a lot to offer in terms of culture, cuisine, natural sights like volcanoes, beaches and lakes. Touring the country with a guide like Roberto of El Salvador Custom Tours is definitely the right way to go and ensure that you stay in the safe areas and avoid the dangerous ones. El Salvador is indeed a safe travel destination if you travel safe.
Now that I’m back in Mississauga, Canada, I have a sudden craving for pupusas and baleadas (a dish from Honduras). My friend Janine (originally from Honduras) tells me that there are no pupusas nor baleadas to be found in Mississauga which is really unfortunate! That’s one drawback of eating authentic foreign cuisine — you might end up liking certain dishes so much that it sucks when you can’t find any near home!
