Miscellaneous Forum

How many times in the travel forums do people ask how safe is this place? To me it is ridiculous, it is as safe as any other place. People are people and there are good ones and bad ones, just use the normal precautions (ok in Montana you do not need to do so much)but still, why even go to a place if you are so worried about your own personal safety?

Hi Ellen
If you assure me that Montana is safe, I'll come and visit :-)
Jeannette

J we will probably scare you hehe but you are welcome anytime and with the boys gone have two extra bedrooms.

I can take you places which are not that safe..

so it would be like a ghost tour except it was places not that safe? Naples not that safe in the case of pickpocketers. Montana not so much. People always ask about the safety of a place....
hey I will one day come see you and you can show me the shady parts of your town or city

but you will be my defender, right?

Safemark.

I think people are concerned about safety in the respect of -- which neighborhoods should I not venture into? And I think that's a legitimate inquiry. If they're asking some too general question, such as "Is Naples safe?" then it's a rather naive question. Most every big city has its rather unsafe zones, and you'd like to know where they are. I know where mine are in Seattle, but Hamilton, MT, doesn't have any!

Hamilton, Montana. Home to the mountain men. Have any of you seen their weapon supply? Makes my three guns look like kids play. Safe, yeah, if you are on Ellen's good list. lol

Uh oh, better watch out for Ellen and her arsenal! I drove through charming Hamilton once, ate a picnic lunch there, and then was on my way to Idaho when I spotted the cop making sure everyone was going about 20mph. He was really watching.

Ah, you are talking about that wonderful old west town of Darby. Home of the 21 mph tickets.

Where's Darby?

Darby is 17 miles south of Hamilton, MT on US-93, heading to Idaho.

People ask such questions, I think, mainly because they have read/heard hearsay/horror stories/gossip etc which has worried them.

There are lots of areas in the UK I wouldn't fancy walking round in the daytime, let alone at night.

But if I was a visitor, I would never find them anyway: they are (generally) not usually areas one might come across on one's random wanderings. And one would know, almost immediately, that one was somewhere it was best not to be.

I suspect it is exactly the same in most other countries.

Touristy/crowded areas anywhere will draw petty thieves (and always have done so), seedy bars/red light districts will draw scammers of all types (not that I have personal experience of the latter!). One just needs to stay alert and use normal common sense, imo.

There are, of course, ome countries where the above does not apply. But they are unlikely to be places which are visited by random tourists.

I think it's a very valid question to ask if someplace is safe or not. Like most of the others here, I believe the question is more relevant to particular areas rather than specific cities.

I know that in my own small City there are certain places where you just don't go.

I think it's a very valid question to ask if someplace is safe or not. Like most of the others here, I believe the question is more relevant to particular areas rather than specific cities.

I know that in my own small City there are certain places where you just don't go.

I don't agree that a visitor to the UK would never find themselves in "dangerous" parts of town. Some UK city centres at night on weekends are intimidating and frequently dangerous, right in areas where tourists are likely to find their hotels.

That aside, I tend to groan when I read the "is it safe" question, but that may just be prejudice on my part. I tend to rank it with "how should I dress in Paris?" and "are (insert nationality here) anti-American?". It's a question that attempts to characterise large areas and large groups of people and is often derived from a misplaced view of the kind of crimes that are committed against tourists.

For example, "I am female - is City X a safe place for me?" may be based on a view that women are more vulnerable to attack than men, when statistics for all western countries show young men are the most at risk.

Naples was mentioned above. That's a city where theft is not unusual, but when the safety question is asked, what does it mean? Try an alternative version: "I am stupid and I like to carry credit cards, cash, phone and camera in a small pack slung on one shoulder. Is Naples a safe place for me?"

Everywhere carries some risk - the individual can do a lot to mitigate the risk.

Some of this can be hysterical funny. Like: "I heard about the bomb going off in [insert name of city at one end of Europe]. It is safe to travel to [insert name of city at the other end of Europe].
I remember people being worried of travelling to Bergen during the wars in Yugoslavia....

I grew up in Southern Ireland in a time when bombs exploding in Northern Ireland were a daily occurrence.

We always had people asking us if it was safe where we lived. In fact, some people still ask.

The safety and fear of crime questions come up often in central and eastern Europe forums. Some of these questions have got to be offensive to the locals who read them.

I think it's a good question. There does seem to be this idea that everywhere is as safe as everywhere else but it's just not true. Crime rates vary widely, as does road safety, the help you're likely to get from authorities, types of crime committed, attitudes to tourists, women, gay travellers and so on.

Pickpocketing would never put me off a place but high rates of kidnapping, etc, might well. I mean, I'd very much like to go to Sarajevo now but 15 years ago would have been a different story!

I think people ask questions because they genuinely don't know what risks there are. They're not scared necessarily, but want to know if they should be! I'm going to Albania soon, a total unknown for me, so I only decided to go after learning a bit about the conditions there. Safe enough, so I'm off, but I'm also glad to be aware that the roads are considerably more dicey than those in the UK. I can't see how not knowing about these things would be better.

Sometimes people ask these questions about places I know are relatively safe and I have to smile. But then they probably know as much about X place in Brazil or Italy as I did about Albania!

In terms of North America-Italy, asking such questions does give us the opportunity to discuss the differences in the type of crime. Most North Americans who live outside the largest urban areas are totally unaccustomed to dealing with the pickpocketing and petty thievery found in Italy's tourist centers (since, as noted, the pickpockets go to where the tourists are, not to residential neighborhoods).

We have heard stories here about North American men who were sure that they would be fine in Italy, only to have their wallets stolen within a matter of days or even hours. These guys know how to spot and avoid bad neighborhoods in North America, but have no experience with being in a good neighborhood yet losing their wallet to someone with incredible stealth and skills at picking one's pocket.

So, in a way, some tourist areas in Italy are NOT safe for these visitors, until they learn the life skills that every Italian child develops on the street. We all say, "well, be careful and you'll be fine", but they have no idea what "be careful" means...be careful of what? In North America, we are more likely to be mugged (armed robbery) rather than pickpocketed, so if we rely on instinct, we'll be watching for the wrong thing, since muggings are very rare in Italy (thieves prefer finesse).

This is why the discussions on money belts (which I don't use), deep front pockets (which I do use), and the New York face (glare, ready to kill ;-) ) are all to the good. We don't want people to be overly frightened, but we also want them to understand that Italy is not exactly like home...since I had to shepherd 2 semesters of North American students (nearly all of whom were in Italy for the first time), I got to see first hand how some people (those from large urban cities in the US) felt right at home in Italy, and others (from smaller cities and rural areas) had serious culture shock...

Bill

I've noticed that it's quite easy to guess the nationalities of the posters who ask about 'is it safe'. There are a few frequent candidates.

I remember one man from turkey asking about how long it was safe to stay out in Copenhagen -Well he got the answer that it was safe all day and night. Regardless of this he wrote back that he no matter what would only be out when there was still daylight. Sad for him as he was to visit during the winter, where the daylight hours are very limited. I just wonder why he was asking for advise when he was not going to use it anyhow.

Are you kidding, Ellen? One of the most frightening hours of my life was in Montana! :-)

It really is a legitimate question but should be asked more specifically such as "what areas should I avoid day and night" and "what areas should I avoid at night". Locals know this type of stuff and tourists have no way of finding out. Tour books are generally of no help and if they say anything, such as "best to stay out of this park at night" - you better stay out of that park.

An interesting, entertaining way to spend free time is to read warnings by VT visitors about your own home town. While I appreciate & understand apprehension of the unknown by outsiders, I seldom agree.

Last year suburbanites of the sort that seldom get out of the car except to relieve themselves complained about the South Park Blocks. Astounding! Increased police patrols were promised. I never saw a cop thereafter, or the need for one.

Well, it is a concern for me. I was attacked and mugged in Spain last year so I'm scared it might happen again on my travels (I guess some people don't really understand until it actually happens to them). I hate it when people blame the victim and say stuff like "you should/shouldn't have done this instead" or "some tourists are just asking for it", or "only stupid people who aren't careful get robbed" all it does is make it feel like it was my fault that it happened. I never asked for someone to hurt me like that, and I don't want to go through that again so to me, it's normal to ask about crime rates, ways to reduce the chance of it happening, etc. I'm not going to avoid a certain city because it might have a high crime rate, but I do want to know which places are more dangerous, which types of crime are more common, etc.

And it's not just tourists who get targetted. Even in Seville, several locals told me they had been robbed in town too - my landlady was mugged, my dance teacher had her camera stolen twice, and another lady who works at the flamenco school was mugged too. Spanishguy also told me that his roommate's friend (foreign student living in Spain) was mugged on the night before me, on the same street, same type of attack (it was probably the same thief). There is no such thing as an "easy target" or "difficult target" - when weapons are involved and/or when a thief is desperate enough, everyone is an easy target.

I'm not going to let that prevent me from ever returning to Seville, but I am going to warn people about things like this and avoid doing some things that I used to feel confident about before.

It is not true that only stupid people get mugged. Unfortunately, sensible people who take precautions can be unlucky. It is true that some victims do lay themselves open to attack, simpy by being careless. That doesn't mean they are to blame for being attacked. Nobody is resposible for another's criminality, but we are all responsible for our own behaviour, so is we don't behave safely, we ask for trouble.

Bill's use of the "New York Face" is a good point. I use something similar myself. I have been checked out by one or two miscreants on my travels, but have been able to give the impression they'd be more successful looking elsewhere. Learning how to say "I'll cut his ear off and take it to the cops" in the local language is useful.

I was using the "New York face" and walking with confidence when I encountered the thief. I knew my way around and had gone that way many times in the few weeks before (didn't need a map even in the Barrio Santa Cruz), and looked at the guy straight in the face and kept on walking when I first saw him. It was when I turned the corner into the next street that he ran up behind me, grabbed my purse and tried to pull it away. He also had a gun, and like I said - anyone (even a confident person with a New York face) is an easy target if the attacker has a weapon.

Also, robbery is not the only crime that is a concern for travellers. When people claim that people who dress a certain way, do certain things, or go to certain places are just "asking for it", would you say the same about a rape victim?

Interesting and good analysis Bill. On a side note to that, I might ad that the pickpockets are mobile and we even have had them visiting "innocent" Bergen. I don't know if our own criminals will ever be smart enough to master that particular skill, but along with all the visiting tourists we get travelling pick-pockets. Usually they originate from eastern Europe...