'Do not go to Mexico.' Security experts, former CIA warn travelers.

Analysts say cartel power struggles could create short-term instability for travelers and locals alike.

Safety while traveling is a non-negotiable. In the wake of a military operation in Mexico that resulted in a shelter-in-place order to travelers and locals alike, those with plans to head South may be wondering whether now's the right time.

Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, who led the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación and was known as "El Mencho," was killed during a Mexican military operation. His death spurred unrest in Puerto Vallarta and chaos at its airport, as well as at Guadalajara’s airport.

“The way that I have studied this organization, it’s like a franchise model … a crime group with a franchise model that has different leaderships depending on the territories that they control,” Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, a professor in the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, told USA TODAY. “So it’s not clear that just taking out the head of an organization of this type is going to cause, for a very long period of time, events that are very violent in different parts of the country. We really don’t know.”

'We were dodging burning buses.' Tourists still stuck in Puerto Vallarta.

Most airports in Mexico are now operating normally, the State Department said on Monday, Feb. 23, evening as it narrowed its shelter-in-place advisory for U.S. citizens. During an early news conference on Feb. 23, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo said the situation has "calmed down."