On one side, I [selfishly, unfairly] like that Americans are conditioned by the media to be so scared of Mexico. I almost never see other Americans here. I meet a lot of people day to day who just haven't spoken to an American that wasn't a Mexican-American. Those experiences are some of the most interesting you can have when traveling.
But on the other side, that's not healthy for the people of either country. For example, I regularly meet Mexicans that think Americans hate them. And comments from the people who post in /r/the_donald regularly have me shaking my head muttering "poor sheltered bastard."
Even HN commenters will talk about how they want to pull the trigger on leaving their boring office job and move to Chiang Mai, but that's a pretty incredible move. It's far away and with a much different culture and language, which is a cool thing but increases the chances that you just won't do it.
Meanwhile I'd say I have a pretty exotic lifestyle living on nothing and I'm just a 2 hour flight from my family in Austin.
Mexico, which is not part of NATO and not subject to Russian hegemony, is by definition part of the Third World [0].
Colloquially, judging by its per capita GDP [1] and intentional homicide rate [2] it seems to fit right in with what people think of when they use the term "Third World".
We just hear a disproportionate of news from Mexico because of how close it is.