It’s almost spring break. You’re in your early 20s, and you are lucky enough to be in good health. You have had the incredible fortune of being able to afford a comfortable lifestyle, a postsecondary education and the occasional vacation. You are mere dozens of credits away from a college degree. Your whole life is ahead of you.

Now, you wonder, thinking about the way to best enjoy your week of leisure in the middle of a tenuous, stressful semester, where your spring break should take you.

The options are plentiful.

There’s Lake Havasu City, a small city in a state that has so many financial issues, its legislature has taken tens of millions of dollars from your school and will likely cause your tuition and fees to increase. The northwest Arizona municipality, rich with binge-drinking, fun-loving college students to party it up with, would seemingly be thrilled to host you and your sales-tax-paying ways.

Not a bad option, eh?

If that doesn’t strike your fancy, you could wave at the Lake Havasu crowd as you make your way further north to a veritable paradise for the 21-and-up crowd, Las Vegas. Whether Sin City appeals to you for the “what happens here, stays here” mentality, the potential to develop a gambling addiction, the vibrant nightlife in and around the Strip, the shady fellows handing out naked-lady advertisements or the possibility of a Britney Spears and Jason Allen Alexander-esque impulsive mistake wedding, it seems that a week of indulgences could find no better host.

But hey, maybe that’s not your scene either.

So then you look south of the border — and not in a latent sexual suggestion kind of way or an old Taco Bell advertising campaign kind of way. Indeed, Mexico is sure to pop up on your radar screen for the ideal gratifying spring break.

But it is a country that, for every beautiful beach and facet of typical spring-break atmosphere, has an ominous warning from various officials to match.

In response to a culture of increased violence tied to gang wars, the U.S. State Department issued a cautionary travel advisory that had some severe language. UA officials strongly urged their students not to go. ASU President Michael Crow told The State Press editorial board on Monday that he wasn’t going to take an official stand, but that he was glad his daughters wouldn’t be going to Cabo.

We can promise you that none of us will be partying in Cancun next week.

To us, it seems like common sense to avoid Mexico at all costs next week.

The other possibilities are endless and equally befitting to a good time. Sure, other places aren’t all necessarily going to be safe and Mexico isn’t necessarily going to be unsafe, but why would you really want to take a chance?

If you are unable to resist the lure of Mexico, we certainly hope you exercise great caution. There is a big difference between traveling with your wits about you and traveling in a drunken stupor.

The stories are frightening, and the dangers are real, so ask yourself again: If you don’t have to go, why should you?

You’re young, alive and well. Is it really worth putting that at risk?