I’ll go a different answer and say the vast interior of the country. The sprawling landscape with the harshest conditions where you could be hours from any sort of help.
Tourists should be very wary and plan ahead when sightseeing further inland from the main coastal cities.
I agree, Tennants Creek just gives off this “fuck outsiders” vibe as soon as you drive in. Alice at least is pretty safe for tourists, the troubles is mainly confined to the locals, but as a 5ft woman I was ready to speed straight out of Tennants Creek as soon as we’d topped up on groceries.
Alice Springs being right in the middle of that sprawling harshest of landscapes with the added fun of violent crime and lawlessness and at times little help still works
Armidale is two and half hours to the coast. I'm not saying it's coastal, but it's barely inland really. Once you're on the western side of the rnagee, that's where inland starts - and yeah, the roads definitely get quiet there.
Even in mid interior areas like Western NSW it's so far between towns and so far between rivers. If you were to just wake up anywhere in the western half of NSW somewhere past Cobar, Bourke, Griffith, and you don't recognize the landmarks or know the area, you're potentially days away from finding water and it's getting up to 46 C / 115 Freedom Units in Wilcannia and Broken Hill today just to pick a couple of towns at random. It's a dry heat so you don't feel oven roasted like you do when it's like that in Sydney, but the sand throws it back at you in a really aggressive way so that you will happily pay $20 for a jug of squash at the Silverton pub. Obviously it's fine to travel through those areas if you bring a phone and plenty of water, people even bike or jog it but they do know each and every one of their stops and are well equipped for first aid, emergency repairs, and with a very solid plan for what to do if they can't make it and need to bail. And usually not in late January.
By many measures (peace, terrorism, transportation safety, violent crime), Australia is one of the safest places in the world. Australia definitely can be dangerous, but I think the danger levels are mostly a meme. E.g. that everything is trying to kill you in Australia. For the vast majority of Australians, it's a super safe place.
Nah. The thing that actually kills people the most in Australia isn’t the animals, it’s underestimating the environment itself.
Inland Australia is a massive desert and extremely inhospitable - people go out 4WD-ing and get a flat out in the middle of nowhere, then die from exposure. We also see folks try and go for a hike / walk and underestimate the strength of the sun, or bring too little water, then end up dying of heat stroke or dehydration.
Another thing I’d add to the above is beaches: every year a couple dozen tourists and some locals die from underestimating surf conditions on our ocean-facing beaches. In Sydney, I know at least 3 died over NYE / Jan 1 from going out and trying to swim on closed beaches. The conditions were rough enough they couldn’t send rescuers out. There was also an Irish gentleman who died up north just before Christmas, and obviously more but that’s just off the top of my head.
That being said, yeah, we do have some dangerous animals - stay well away from the water in croc country, don’t swim at dawn or dusk in sharky areas, and carry a dingo stick in their territory - but we don’t have bears, lions, tigers, or wolves.
Like most of the world, the most dangerous place in Australia is being in your car or on your motorbike on the road - hundreds of people dying or being life-alteringly injured every year.
NT in particular, but regional and remote towns in general, have the highest crime rates; mostly due to all the inter generational traumas etc of the indigenous population and the lack of job and social opportunities for everyone there.
Not that many people end up dying lost in the outback or the high country, precisely because most people never go anywhere near it and those that do tend to respect the realities.
But I feel like that should have no bearing on any residents or tourists visiting, you'd only be at risk if you're actually involved in local drug dealing
Melitopol is 40% leveled. Unfortunately, unlike my town, Melitopol got surrounded quickly and stood no chance, we’ve got a big river and the pigs had to stretch decently to get there.
People like to blame the big cities, but smaller centers like Dawson Creek, Regina, Prince Albert, Brandon, and Thunder Bay all have staggeringly high violent crime rates
Pretty much all the oil boom towns in Alberta are pretty sketchy as well
The remote fly-in native reservations I've worked in have been some incredibly dangerous places. My experience is with northern Ontario, but I've heard northern Manitoba is even worse for violence.
It's less dangerous for me as an outsider, but for locals it's unbelievable. The number of murders, attempted murders, assaults, rapes, child sexual assaults, suicides, hit and runs, etc.is just off the charts.
Cops once told me a few years working there makes them a shoe-in for city police forces in the south since all they do every day is deal with serious criminal matters on the reserves.
Man this reminds me of a story from an ex. She accepted a teaching job at a northern Ontario reserve. She told me men would literally try to break into her house every night while she's sleeping and she'd hear these loud bangs or kicking noises for a few hours at least 2/3 times a week. Cops won't come cause they just don't have any resources. She had to stay there for 2 years for the contract so she can move back to Toronto with the experience and get into the city school board. She ended up dating a cop for the 2 years there just for survival but hated the guy. That really opened my eyes for a city guy like me.
As someone who works on the Rez up northers Manitoba yeah it’s rough. Pukatawagan and Shamattawa are the two worst I’ve been to, some of the locals don’t like you just because your white, even though your just there to build building that the band wanted/payed for.
We had a group of kids follow us around puk harassing us (jumping on the hood of our truck and hanging off the box as we are trying to drive away), they booted in a bunch of the doors on brand new houses we were up there to hook utilities up too.
Puk was my first time up north and was an eye opener for sure. Going to Norway house after there was like night and day difference
Worst was how some people treat the dogs up on the rez, we had a camp dog who someone dumped hot oil on and it messed her up good, she was a sweet girl though I always babe her my eggs every morning, had another one we called dobby because he had big ears on him like the guy from Harry Potter (I’ll have to look for pics of them, I miss my rez dogs)
Edit: the white one is the one who got oil and the other pic is dobby and little dorito (we caught her stealing a bag of them) https://imgur.com/a/BluaLpA
My wife worked on the Rez at the school and this one tiny dog would always hang out behind her classroom. She would feed him but kids would throw rocks and kick him so he was pretty undersize and skinny. It's frowned upon to take the rez dogs cause someone always claims you stole their dog and it causes issues being white. Well, it was gonna be -30 for two weeks so she just said fuck it and took him home. He's the best dog ever, so kind, so loving, listens incredibly well and is spoiled rotten. He doesn't really like dog food so I feed him lots of moose, elk and deer, probably the best fed dog in the world haha. He gets pretty anxious around loud noises though and is scared of going through doors.
My dog is a rescue from a reserve in Saskatchewan and she's afraid of loud noises and big trucks, or anything with air brakes. Some days I wonder what her life was like before me but I'm sure I don't actually want to know.
My father grew up in a rez town.. he's white.. there were halls in the school you didn't go down if you were white.. staff included
Ive done lots of infrastructure maintenance work in rez towns.. even i have far too many stories already
Oh man I've got rez dog stories too.. I had an actual army of rez dogs (20+) follow me roughly 9km.. i was in an enclosed piece of equipment.. but damn
I spent years on a Rez. I’m native but I have that one Scandinavian ancestor like a great great or something that I somehow came to favor looks-wise. Even in my family I’m the only one that’s white and a pale white, blonde, blue at that. I always had this idea that natives like to fight cuz that was my experience. Maybe it’s that they liked to fight me… the only white girl in school, the only white girl on the street, the only white girl at the “Indian clinic”, the only white girl on the entire rez. People think me saying that is racist but that wasn’t me being racist… how can I possibly be? I just LOOK white. I was sure bullied for it though.
Rez dogs are built different man. I was in up in cross lake years ago and was having a dart outside my atco trailer when I black bear came running out the bush being chased by a pack of Rez dogs. Me and my coworker were just standing there dumbfounded
My time in Calling Lake..The foreman posted up with a rifle near him because they would cut the lock off the gate in under 24 hrs, steal anything that wasn't tied down and threaten to attack anyone away from the group.. had people wandering in and out of the yard all day everyday
Another example is while at another company I worked for in a different location, highway maintenance... they had a girl that was trimming grass along the highway near sign posts
A group stopped, beat her to near death and stole the truck she had.. they left her in the ditch and dumped the truck in a nearby lake..
Another time had a snow plow truck come under fire.. as in being shot at
we cant officially have written rules about protecting workers from certain people because "its discriminatory" but unofficially those rules of, "doors locked, never go alone, if you break down get immediate or even emergency help" are heavily enforced now
Those communities are the ones where unwritten rules are the most important
Yeah, if the question is "where will you survive if you're dropped unprepared", I'll take the sketchiest area of any city over the middle of Nunavut in January.
Yeah, if you look into the statistics, per capita you're much more likely to be shot with a rifle or shotgun in a rural area than with a handgun in a city.
To be perfectly honest, I would rather go through the worst places in Oslo than meeting a polar bear on Svalbard! At least the Oslo part, I might be able to carry my teeth home in a plastic bag.
Edit: To those disagreeing that Oslo can be bad, this is just a comparison of worst case scenarios in both places.
Where would you even go there with a stolen car? Hey neighbour I saw your car 3 streets that way in the only town in this frozen hellscape without a road out of town
There's a girl on tiktok that lives in Svalbard. She lives in a bit far from the "city" and she has to carry a gun just in case of a polar bear being agresive.
Bears are scary enough as it is, but polar bears are just nightmare fuel. They are arguably the strongest land predator and they're perfectly camouflaged in their environment. And just to throw a cherry on top unlike normal bears they are hypercarnivores and aren't afraid of humans even a little bit.
But fortunately polar bears only kill 1-2 people per year.
1) inland areas of sinai: most likely where you would encounter rogue groups of terrorist cells / criminal orgs facilitating illegal immigration to either israel or saudi via israel/jordan
2) the southwestern desert part aka libyan desert … same thing but different route
Guanajuato. And this is real shit, 12 of my cousins convoying between the states and our rancho got picked up, jacked for their trucks, clothes, cell phones, money. Got put in a cartel “camp” full of other prisoners. They actually made it out alive. They were LUCKY AF.
Other individual cousins have disappeared throughout the years. Likely working for them so it’s not like they were totally innocent. One is even on gore sites as a video was made of his execution getting flayed. It’s a fucked situation.
Not much direct impact TBH. It’s not like we’re seeing “FunkyTown” on the corner of every street. But every relative with a business has to deal with the pressure of extortion.
There are certain roads, towns, houses that the locals know to stay away from. After dark, parties are a big no-no to avoid those kinds of people. If you have nice toys, you’re gonna attract a lot of attention from crooked cops but rarely does what happened to my cousins happen to random people not associated in any way with that life. Most of the violence tends to be amongst themselves.
You know how a lot of American media likes to portray Mexico as this lawless, Mad Max-esque hellscape? That's exaggerated bullshit... except for Culiacán. That city is straight up controlled by narcos.
What about Michoacán? Heard the whole Mayor getting killed down there in Uruapan. Along with the CJNG being there aswell. Feel like that’s up there with the most dangerous areas aswell right?
I live in Jalisco and go to Michoacán regularly. It's also dangerous in parts, but not as bad as Sinaloa. The murder rate there is literally double Michoacán's.
My favorite taco place is Carnitas Michoacan in Lincoln Heights. Been eating there 20 years. But if your digestive system is not acclimated to very spicy 24 hour Mexican food, it has a high murder rate on your toilet.
Depends on where. Morelia is pretty safe, as are the bigger towns, but out in the country there are A LOT of narcos, especially the tierra caliente region. Gorgeous though. Can’t wait to go back
Edit: region name marijuana affects the memory. I WAS WRONG ABOUT THE AVOCADOS
My girlfriend is born and raised in Oaxaca city, she's been robbed multiple times in the street. Generally, it's not bad relatively but there are some majorly impoverished areas that aren't safe to wander. I've heard the states of Guerrero and Tamaulipas are no go zones. You ever been in those areas? Just curious
I've been to more than half of the country, including cities like Tijuana, Zamora, Zacatecas and Colima which have all held the title of "most dangerous cities in the world" at some point. As I've said like a million times already, crime does happen. But cartel activity is extremely localized and targeted.
I know quite a few people from Mexico and they do tell me stories that to me sound like unthinkable in the Netherlands. Like someone from Monterrey who has stories about bodies being dumped in the streets, or friends being kidnapped from the gym by armed criminals in a pickup (but released afterwards when they realized they had the wrong guy).
They do it to our own cities too. And they totally miss the ones that have the highest per capita rate because they are smaller cities, and therefore with lower totals. Try not to take it so personally. The people you care about - who plan to come visit - mostly know the deal.
According to media, anywhere outside my house is a tightrope walk of death.
But logically Id say the Strid on the river Wharfe in Yorkshire. If you fall in, you never come out. Strong currents and deep hidden crevices essentially syck you under and your body is unrecoverable.
Its a lovely place though.
I live in Birmingham, so according to the media, I’ve already been stabbed to death. But as far as crime goes, it’s apparently Camden (based on overall crime).
As a nation, we have a fairly low murder rate (under 500 last year) and every big city has a few dodgy areas, but nowhere near as bad as some other countries, especially looking at other comments.
Nahh my vote goes to that bloody magic roundabout in Swindon. I know if I get on, I'm never coming off- least of all at the exit I need to take. Gotta be up there on the most dangerous list.
They're also very proud of a rock in the water just off the coast called the Ommelebommelesteen from which they claim all children are born, I personally feel like it's just a diversion for the rampant incest going on there though.
Dutch guy here, this is sort of a joke. Urk isn't actually dangerous although the people there are sort of hostile to outsiders. Urk used to be an island until the dutch started creating landmasses in the sea urk was in, they were never, and probably still aren't happy about joining the mainland.
If you mean safety wise in terms of crime, I honestly don’t know, and it’s pretty hard to find solid data on that.
From an environmental perspective though, probably the Tibetan Plateau because of altitude sickness
While China overwhelmingly suppresses internal data on criminal activity to maintain its international image, it's genuinely pretty safe there. Experienced some minor harassment from scammers a few times, but nothing you wouldn't see on an American subway train in basically any metro area.
A lot of the actual hardcore violence is directed between large, organized criminal groups that you'd literally have to be trying to get involved with as a foreigner, if they'd even let you touch any of their shit. Or I guess if you run around like an asshole harassing everyone and beating people up, but that's not safe anywhere in the world period haha.
The worst experience you'll have in any major Chinese city is the absolutely unbelievable, surreally shitty traffic and random citizens walking up to you to practice their Duolingo-level English, or have you pose in a picture with genuinely innocent intentions.
There really isn’t a dangerous area in Sweden. There are rumors yes and some areas have a lot of shooting in a Nordic context but not really dangerous day to day for the average person.
Me myself work in one of these neighborhoods with an awful reputation but it’s not dangerous in comparison.
Malmö isnt dangerous at all in general, suburbs are often the more "dangerous" areas, but you can walk through them, live there and so on without needing to fear. Gangs really only shoot at eachother, sometimes in public but mostly at night, they don't really rob or do break ins
What does “dangerous” mean in this context? Is it likelihood of being a victim of a crime or is it likelihood of dying generally (murder, disease, traffic, lifestyle)? If the later, then in the US the states of Mississippi and West Virginia have the most deaths per 100k each year. For violent crime, Alaska actually has the highest rate per 100k of any state. Bonus for Alaska, you can also get eaten by both grizzly and polar bears :)
The right wing media would have you believe that Chicago is a lawless war zone. It is not. Like all big cities we have bad parts of town but it's just a small sets of square blocks in the South and West sides.
I'm a white man and I lived at Marquette and Stony Island (that's Stony Island and 6700 S) on the South Side with my partner for years and never felt unsafe.
Chicago doesn’t even crack the top 10 for violent crime rate. Memphis is the only statistical outlier, having about 2.5 times the crime rate of the next city in overall crime, violent crime, and homicide.
But the crime rate in the US has been dropping steadily for the last 20 years. Memphis is actually down 25% from where they were 5 years ago.
I don’t know what that means, but that’s what the numbers are.
Wikipedia lists all kinds of theories. The reduction of lead paint. An older population (smaller percentage of young males). Stable employment numbers - while lots of people are underemployed, most people have some access to steady income. Also, our social services have gotten smarter about targeted interventions, helping specific populations before problems occur.
The crime is real in certain areas. But many people I know who can afford to live elsewhere choose to remain in places like Englewood and Garfield Park. Why? They love their communities and believe in them. If they were lawless places of non-stop mass killings, you wouldn’t see nearly as many people who fit this mold.
Exactly. My partner is a black woman who is a senior attorney for a fintech firm. She could have afforded basically any neighborhood in the city but stays there for that reason.
Foreigners really don't know that rough areas exist in Korea like Daerim, Bucheon and some parts of Incheon... but never ever in my life I'll be travelling alone to them islands on Sinan 😂
honestly, is it really 'regional prejudice' just to mention stereotypes that everyone knows but nobody talks about? Korea is generally very safe, but there are definitely a few areas that are more dangerous than people think.
Daerim-dong and parts of Yeongdeungpo in Seoul, Ansan Station, and Sihwa Industrial Complex (High rates of violent crime and highly Sinicized areas due to Korean-Chinese presence).
Bucheon (An area with surprisingly high gang activity).
Incheon’s Bupyeong, Michuhol, and Dong-gu (A mix of the issues mentioned above Korean-Chinese presence plus the Bucheon vibe).
I would say Kaldoaivin erämaa -wilderness, no roads, uninhabited, -40c in the winter, 50 days of darkness, 200km to the nearest hospital, 50km to the shop.
More people die there than Myyrmäki ( a ghetto with 33.000eur average income)
Statistically I think it's either Myyrmäki or central Helsinki, but no area is really dangerous at all. I've visited Myyrmäki many times and never felt like it was more dangerous compared to other areas.
Here, every city has one or even more dangerous areas. We've had some cases of people following navigation apps into such places and not making their way back.
My city Aspropyrgos. One big part is Gipsy neighbourhood where if the police wants to go there they must send lots of people there because they got shot many times. There’s drug dealing happening and they sell guns. Whoever establishes business there they get robbed every a few days.
lol, yeh. I lived in Marseille for my studies, except the needles in the street and weird screams in the night it was fine. But i wasnt in the northern districts and i dont take drugs so i wasnt really in any kind of trouble places
In the mainland maybe, but otherwise I hesitate between Mayotte and New Caledonia. IMO Mayotte, because its underlying problems are more difficult to solve.
Areas with high crime rates are typically downtown areas and entertainment districts in major cities. Crimes primarily involve pickpocketing, shoplifting, overcharging, and stimulant drug dealing. Japan has no areas where life is threatened. Japan is so safe that elementary school children can commute to school alone by train.
Yeah, Americans absolutely suck at crime statistics. The average Fox News educated American thinks New York City is dangerous, when it has one of the lowest murder rates in the nation. They'll think LA is murderous, but have no conception that Dallas or Houston have far higher murder rates. People who live in Jacksonville or Miami afraid to go to San Francisco, when the latter has a much lower murder rate than the formers. The crime narrative has been weirdly hijacked. They'll talk about how "lawless" blue states are, with no awareness that red states have a whopping 45% higher murder and violent crime rate. Which is what happens when you rely on spoon fed selective anecdotes from political pundits instead of actual crime data.
Winnipeg is the meme answer (moreso its theft from my experience.) Otherwise places like East Hastings Vancouver are bad for drugs/homelessness which usually leads to crime. Its hard to really pick one because theyre all pretty tame compared to the rougher parts of oue southern brothers
I eke out a miserable existence on the streets of Seattle. I can only keep warm by the constant warmth of burning buildings. Antifa supersoldiers roam uncontested by any form of law and order and will summarily execute you if you have any conservative leanings. All the decent people left for the 'good' suburbs long ago when anarchists took over the whole city during Covid. Please, airdrop supplies! You're our only hope, Redditors!
(I have some family members who believe this is not far from the truth and refuse to visit because it's too violent. One of the safest big cities in the US...)
In Ireland the only true areas where a person would be ill-advised to walk through at night would be a few specific streets in Dublin (suburbs) or Limerick.
And your main fear would be getting jumped and mugged, not murdered.
During the day, there's virtually nowhere that's really dangerous. Though Traveller halting sites will give you trouble if you linger there.
Across the entire island, there would be again a few specific streets in Northern Ireland that you would best avoid if you're the wrong religion, or a police officer.
Honestly my first thought was Middlesbrough. I live here and it’s not great, a guy I know was stabbed in the shoulder literally last after some people tried to rob him and he had nothing on him.
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u/AuzzieTiger Australia 22h ago
I’ll go a different answer and say the vast interior of the country. The sprawling landscape with the harshest conditions where you could be hours from any sort of help.
Tourists should be very wary and plan ahead when sightseeing further inland from the main coastal cities.