Is El Salvador Safe? Should I Skip This Country?

May 9, 2022

Read the news about El Salvador and you’re likely to find mention of gangs like MS-13 and Barrio 18. Pictures of guys with shaved heads, covered head to toe in tattoos might flash through your mind. Maybe that’s all you know about El Salvador.

Let me tell you what I think of when I hear El Salvador. I see gentle old ladies standing behind their flat top grill cooking up pupusas made to order. I see the infectious laugh and smile of my host in Santa Ana with his long hair and hippie feels, coming in for a fist bump from a mile away. I see the incredibly helpful Mario transporting me to Nicaragua on his boat. I see the group of El Salvador fans that insisted on buying me beers and bringing me out after Canada beat them 2-0 in a World Cup Qualifying match. I see friendly people and good times.

El Salvador has a bad reputation, but their current president, Nayib Bukele, is making sweeping changes to the country. He’s cracking down on gangs, some might say too hard, he’s brought in Bitcoin as legal tender, and he’s changing the perception that Salvadorans have about themselves – he’s reigniting a sense of pride amongst the country.

From my experience, I never once felt unsafe, in danger, or needing to watch my back in El Salvador, despite the shotguns that abound in the capital. In Central America I found the Salvadorans to be the nicest and friendliest people.

I was only in the country for about 2 weeks, but I never encountered any gang violence or gang activity, even though the media would have you believe that there wasn’t much aside from that going on in the country.

Is it 100% completely safe? Well, no, but tell me a place that is. There are neighbourhoods of San Salvador that you wouldn’t want to be walking around alone in the middle of the night, but such is the case in most big cities. As with most Latin American countries, the small towns feel very safe and the big cities are where you’ll want to stay vigilant. You want to stick to the travel safety basics.

Let me share a quick story with you.

I was looking to buy tickets for the Canada vs El Salvador soccer match. I made my way to the stadium in San Salvador with another Canadian I had met at my hostel. Nearing the stadium, about 4 hours before kickoff, you could feel the excitement in the air. The density of vendors selling merch, people grilling food, beers being cracked, and ticket scalpers looking to make a sale all grew as you approached the stadium.

Chatting with one of these scalpers, he wanted to sell me a ticket that I knew was well overpriced. I was brushing him away when a local fan overheard our interaction. He stopped and made sure that we weren’t going to buy from the scalper because he was trying to charge us way more than face value. He showed us how to buy tickets through the app on our phones and made sure we weren’t getting ripped off.

We thanked him, wished him luck in the game, and went our separate ways.

Fast forward 3-4 hours and we were finding our way into the huge line to get into the stadium. As we walked towards the back of the line, we saw our man who helped us with tickets earlier and he ushered us into the line with him and his friends. That alone saved us a good 30-60 minutes of waiting in line.

We sat with him and his friends for the game, and afterwards they told us to come with them because they were heading for a couple beers where all the locals hang out. They bought us beer, an action we reciprocated a few minutes later, and brought us amongst the Salvadorans who I gotta say we’re celebrating pretty hard despite the 2-0 loss to Canada.

We joined the festivities, bobbed to the music, chatted about the best things to do in El Salvador, and watched men far bigger than I drop it low to popular Latin music – reggaeton.

The scene itself was unspectacular, but it felt like I was hanging out having some beers at a football game in Canada, not outside in the former murder capital of the world. I felt at home in that moment, everything felt normal.

That’s one of the things I loved about El Salvador. There was no bullshit, nothing pretentious. Maybe I like it because it kind of reminded me of my hometown Winnipeg, Canada. Nothing glamourous, but people are real – and real friendly.

The gang side of El Salvador, I’m not saying it doesn’t exist. The numbers are real and there are murders there, but it’s concentrated within itself. It’s mostly gangs fighting amongst each other. As a tourist, as long as you stay smart and follow the travel safety basics, you should be fine.

I wouldn’t label El Salvador as a must-visit country, though if you’re a surfer it might be – they’ve hosted world surfing championships here before. That said, this isn’t a country I’d skip based on safety concerns. Salvadorans all know the reputation their country has, and they want to make sure that visitors have a great time so they can work on improving that reputation.

Grab yourself a craft beer from Chero Brewing, a few pupusas, and enjoy the magic of the Pacific Ocean sunsets in El Salvador.

Safe travels!

Do you plan on sleeping in the San Salvador airport? Don’t make the same mistake that I did.

If you have any questions or want to get more travel ideas, you can find me on Instagram.