I’ve got this white middle class guilt situation going on with regard to Mexico.

Or, more specifically, resorty, Mayan Riviera-type Mexico, which perhaps I ought to refer to as “Mexico.”

I have never in my life been the kind of person who would stay in a resort.  Having never been to a resort, I guess I’m not exactly sure what that kind of person is, since I’ve never seen them in their natural habitat, but I imagine them as people who want to visit an exotic land without ever seeing any poverty or doing anything slightly inconvenient.  I was all about “authentic” travel, which I defined as doing things like staying at small, locally-owned hotels or renting apartments in actual neighborhoods, making a valient attempt at speaking the language, that kind of thing.

One time I even went to actual Mexico, as opposed to “Mexico.”  My cousin and I went with a person we knew from Cuernavaca and stayed his family.  It was super fun.  We went places a couple of güeras probably wouldn’t have gone, ate interesting things, and had a generally good (and informative) time.

I was extremely conscientious about not drinking the water.  I never had drinks with ice in them, I kept my mouth clamped shut in the shower, and I even rinsed out my toothbrush with bottled water.  I still got the runs.

For that reason, I’ve kind of avoided Mexico since then.  There are so many other places in the world to see with so much natural and cultural splendor.  Many of them would require similar vigilance for my tender gringa gut, but many of them do not (c.f., all of Europe, Puerto Rico and many other parts of the Caribbean, Costa Rica).

I need a beachy-type vacation.  The last time I saw the ocean was a year and a half ago at my cousin’s wedding in Sarasota, and while that was lots of fun, it didn’t scratch my itch for tropical fish viewing.  I am also for the first time considering a resort.  Adventure travel is great, but now that Miles is in my life, everything is about twelve times more complicated.  I suddenly feel a lot less stuck-up toward people who want to take the easy route and just relax on their vacations.  I did some research and was feeling good about the Cayman Islands.

But then I read about and saw pictures from a friend’s trip to Mexico.  She assured me that she didn’t get sick.   It’s so close by, it’s so reasonably priced, it’s so easy to fly there.  There are some resorts that have gotten really good reviews and purport to be family-friendly.  But is it exploitive to go to Mexico and just do lite travel?  Miles is probably still too young to really be swayed, but I don’t want to give him the impression that the world only exists for white people with enough money to insulate themselves from the challenges these countries face.

I don’t know.  Ponying up for a resort is a pretty swell thing for the local economy.  When Denny and I went on our honeymoon to tiny Nevis, we stayed at a locally-owned property and avoided the Four Seasons, but when we talked to locals, they kept bringing up the fact that the Four Seasons has been a huge boon to their island.  They say if they get one more resort hotel, they’ll finally be able to secede from St. Kitts.  I’m not sure if they’re joking or not.

What to do?