Don't write off Baja just yet

Remember when we treated Baja like a suburb of Southern California, when you only had to point your compass south to quickly bask in sunny climes, otherworldly scenery and a tinge of the exotic? 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. Baja California is just one of the peninsula’s two states; to get your Baja fix, keep going south. Baja California Sur is as distant from the drug wars as San Francisco is from Denver, and it’s just as safe as Anaheim. Southern Baja’s tourism numbers have suffered by association, but the region hasn’t been idle. And if you’re not into time-share pitches, raucous clubs and gridlocked traffic, there’s plenty beyond Los Cabos. Here’s what’s been going on in some of our favorite places.
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