Where is it located?
El Salvador is a country located in Central America and is sharing borders with Guatemala and Honduras. San Salvador is with a bit more than 300.000 inhabitants the capital of the country.
It is the only country in the world who is using besides the US-Dollar the Bitcoin as the currency.
What were my expectations?
When thinking of El Salvador knowing it was known as the most dangerous country in the world and still considered as one of them, you have some thoughts in mind.
Is it smart to visit? Maybe it is naive to think, but I had a good feeling before visiting.
To know how it is in reality it’s important to visit it yourself, so let’s jump into my experience.
How did I experience El Salvador during my time there?
After arriving at the shared border with Guatemala, with a rental car, there was no issue with the crossing at all, the border patrol was friendly and we were able to cross quickly.
We were only in the region of Santa Ana and went to a popular maze (Laberinto de Apaneca) with hundreds of people without thinking of anything bad. The people were looking at us, but didn’t really care as much. Spending some time at the maze was great, people were having a lot of fun and laughing a lot.
The way to the hostel was long, due to bad road conditions, and it was also safe, directly next to a lake. After spending a great time with the owners, we were enjoying a peaceful morning next to and in the lake, before starting an expedition to the volcano near Santa Ana.
At the volcano there were for the first time “security warnings” by the national park that required a police officer to guide us the way up there. They said that there were many robberies on the way in the past, personally it seemed more that they wanted to earn some extra money that way but I don’t know.
How are the locals in El Salvador?
We encountered many locals during our short time there and they all were quite lovely. Smiling at us and sharing great meals together. Salvadorans who came across gave us a safe feeling, nothing to worry about.
From the young kids to the old grandmother all types of people were along our way and it was a good experience, can’t say anything negative to be honest.
Summary
Just because you are visiting a country which is listed as dangerous doesn’t mean it is dangerous. It also doesn’t mean that it is everywhere dangerous, maybe there is a region where you should not go. It all depends where you travel in the specific country.
In our case we went to a region outside of cities and were inside of local life, that made us see El Salvador in an unproblematic way and led us to enjoy our experience a lot.
Still I would consider you to be careful when visiting El Salvador or any other country in Central America, because something could happen everywhere.
