Been many times when my brother lived and worked there for three+ years. We are gringos. Never felt unsafe. Sure, he talks about a time at Xochimilco where him same some work colleagues perhaps drew the ire of some locals, but really the worst part of the trip was the few times we needed to get in a taxi.

I'm that vein, that was the one rule we tried to adhere to at the time, make sure, if you take a taxi, to take the sanctioned ones or whatever.

Now, we drove to Oaxaca once, and some of the towns en route to were sketchy looking. Didn't have any bad experiences but also didn't bring the car down under like 15mph either.

Enjoy! Bring Pepto. I got Montezuma's revenge every time. I'm starting to think it was the altitude (couldn't have been the many michelladas, certainly not).