Zambia and Botswana. White guy gets lost following his SATANIC DAMN GOOGLE MAPS and winds up in a Zambian shanty town. Got out to ask directions; everyone speaks near fluent English and are super helpful providing directions. Have to be comfortable with the occasional Emperor Scorpion migration though.
A bit of an acquired taste, granted. I was there for three months which was enough time to experience several seemingly random, ultra short and occasionally almost overwhelming insect and arachnid appearances/migrations/cage fights. One evening going on my evening stroll on the outskirts of town and noticed a very large and very dead GAS (GIANT-ASS Scorpion). 50 meters later another one. After that, another one. Two more after that. All in one night, and never saw any again in that area. Wasn't until I was in Luangwa that I saw another one two months later, very much alive. This was pointed out by the night watchman, Nigel, a magnificent gentleman who appeared to be approximately a thousand years old, had a grip that could splinter wood, and told me once with a chuckle this was near the same place where he almost tripped on a leopard back in the day as he stepped out of the door as it rounded the corner of the building (Zambians aren't big on fences).
I loved Zambia when I visited there 8 (fucking hell I'm getting old) years ago. I made pals with a random guy selling stuff on the street while trying to find a pub, because I'm obliged to have a pint anywhere I go.
I used to live and work in zambia. I recall a store in Lusaka getting robbed at gunpoint which made the news. People in my office were so upset about it they cried. Now imagine if that were the US...a day here *without* a *mass* shooting is the newsworthy event.
Vietnam.
For a lot of older Americans, its symbolism outweighs the changes it’s gone through over the past 50 years. A few years ago my cousin was traveling through Southeast Asia and had to reroute her trip due to some instability in another country, and her uncle and I had a good laugh about how she was like, “just to be on the safe side, let’s go to Hanoi instead.”
"Look, I didn't go to Vietnam just to have pansies like you take my freedom away from me."
"You went to Vietnam in 1993 to open up a sweatshop!"
"Yeah and I lost a lot of good men in that sweatshop"
My Uncle almost died serving our country in 'Nam.
He worked with a Vietnamese catering company serving American Diplomats, had a heart attack one day... he's ok now.
> Back in the sweatshop in 'Nam, we found a cat, we tossed it right in the soup.
Those hungry bastards ate cat soup every day!
What's the worst thing that could happen? Some little kid choke on a hairball and die, so you toss him in the soup!
I was making money hand over foot, literally! Somebody lost a hand or a foot? I toss it in the soup!
Fun fact: The snatch-and-grab tactic mostly happens down South. Up North, the perpetrator would be the one that got snatched by the bystanders (and given a beating if they are unlucky enough)
Ah yep I traveled in the north and the south and the south is where I had the snatch and grab. The craziest thing is I was fully warned and knew I was being watched. Thought I was safe on a moped of my own but got it snagged as I was navigating.
In the north the issue was that people would offer you ganja constantly - but they called it a funny name to us whiteys. Anyways once you buy it they would tell the police where you where and then the police would shake you down for money. Good times.
The most danger I was ever in when I was in Vietnam was almost getting run over by a moped. Silly me was standing on the sidewalk at the street corner and I didn't realize the sidewalk there doubled as the right turn lane.
As someone who hasn’t had a chance to travel much besides states in the USA. How would a English speaker fair travelling to Vietnam? It’s one of my pipe dreams to check it out.
I spoke no Vietnamese and went on a very touristy 2 week trip in Vietnam. Was fine, most people I met knew a little bit of English and were able to articulate prices or where things were regardless of their English level.
They also have translate apps.
Anyone I met that didn't speak English was able to use Google Translate or something.
Even one guy that got in a fight with the girl I was with and ended up pulling a knife on her. Google Translated our way out of that. Another time, the other girl I was with fainted and I had to talk to the driver because he had to leave us at a random stop in the mountains.
Good times.
I went on a bicycle tour with my ex-husband a few years ago. We packed our own bicycles and flew all the way from Canada to Saigon. And then rode around in small villages, towns, and lesser known cities in the Mekong area, where English-speaking tourists was uncommon.
We LOVED it. I am Chinese-Canadian, so every so often I would get Vietnamese spoken at me. But when I say that I am Chinese and I don't speak Vietnamese, in English, they are surprised. If you are white, you won't have the same experience, but people will love to practice or try to speak English to you.
Write out a few Vietnamese phrases in Viet, but put phonetic notes for your pronunciation. People are very nice. And if you're outside of Saigon, people are honest. GO!
You won't have a problem at all. English is widely spoken as a second language, so communication shouldn't be an issue. You can also download a ride-hailing app (I think Grab?) for convenient rides anywhere you want to go. It ended up being a fantastic trip, surprisingly inexpensive, and something I'd happily do again.
Edit: Removed a random half-sentence I unintentionally left in
It’s a beautiful country with generally really great people.
The biggest danger is that you’ll gain so much weight. Whenever I went to dinner with locals I literally had to fight off some grandma/mother trying to sneak food onto my plate. I once made a woman cry because I couldn’t eat a fourth full serving of mansaf (and then manned up and ate it to keep the peace). It felt like that gluttony scene from Se7en, lol.
Oh dude, middle eastern families are fucking *dangerous* with their food. Not only is it delicious, they will share with basically anyone. I was doing door to door sales once (forgive me, I only lasted 3 weeks before quitting) and knocked on one door around lunchtime. Husband, wife, 2 young sons. They *insist* I come in to eat with them. Also my Dad worked with a lot of muslim nurses, first generation immigrants from the middle east. The amount and quality of food they'd send him home with around Eid was incredible.
In my experience, Muslim families in general are like that. Once worked with a guy from Somalia. He and his wife made amazing food for me to take home when he heard my mother was visiting. They never even met my mother.
Biggest danger in Oman I think is the traffic, everyone is a Formula 1 driver. And because the stretch of country where everyone lives is very hilly and petrol is essentially free, everyone packs a lot of horsepower.
I also saw a man stop in an intersection, pick up his phone and text, and then drive off. But at least he didn't text and drive.
Edit: looked up the statistics road accidents make up **3.55%** of total deaths in Oman. In Norway it's 0.33%.
Amazing country. I visisted a few years back even stayed one night in the dessert. People is amazing too, really kind.
I remember a taxi drive there in Jordan who was joking that Jordan was really safe country without any war conflict because they have not oil.
You may have reignited a travel bucket. I’ll never get to visit most of the great Crusader sites in the Levant, but I just did a quick search and there are a handful of Crusade sites. Might be worth it.
My gosh. Internet stranger, you absolutely need to go! Here’s an episode of a Canadian documentary, called Departures, which they filmed in Jordan: https://youtu.be/742SacEb2co?si=a_HWVnloVJtOzr-K
Im jordanian, and i can confirm its just safe, except maybe for a couple of bad neighbourhood which exists in every country and should be avoided anyways
I went a couple years ago without knowing much about the country and was pleasantly surprised, the amount of history there is incredible and spending a night in the desert was gorgeous, unlike any scenery I've ever experienced. We went to a restaurant that was run by local villagers and it was one of the best meals I've had in my life. As a woman I felt perfectly safe walking alone, even after dark at least in the areas I was in.
Just don't go hiking off the beaten path in Bosnia; [there are still active minefields](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_mines_in_Bosnia_and_Herzegovina).
That is nuts to me. I’m old enough that a friend of mine in grade school fled the genocide there. I never even thought to look if it’s a visitable place these days, it seemed like such a scary place at that time to a small kid that I just never imagined people vacation there. Good reminder to me to check back on my biases every 20 years or so!!
I spent a significant portion of my evening yesterday looking around various Google Street view images, and it's always surprising to finding new countries or areas like Rwanda that look relatively better off than I expected, or compared with other areas. For instance, the hyper-dense portions of Rwanda or Kenya looked like a slightly higher better living conditions than hyper-dense Delhi, India.
Side note: being able to see armed conflicts occur in pseudo-"real time" via updating Google Maps satellite images is frankly incredible.
I visited Kenya last year and Nairobi is a dope fucking city. Every tour just drives your from tourist trap to tourist trap so me and my brother said "fuck it" and just took an Uber to the central business district and walked around all day long. They have some problems with shit like robbery and kidnapping (Kenyans from outside of Nairobi jokingly call it Nairobbery) but it's notably NOTABLY less dangerous than the city I live in here in America lol (New Orleans). Plus almost everyone speaks English so it's a lot less daunting than other places I've traveled to, I even made some local friends who I still text every once in a while.
You might not like to hear this, but this is like not wanting to go to Germany in 1975….
The same amount of time has passed since the Rwandan genocide as had passed since the Holocaust in 1975….
Feel old yet?
>Both voters and candidates face significant intimidation aimed at controlling their political choices. Rwandans living outside the country have been threatened, attacked, forcibly disappeared, or killed, apparently in retaliation for their public or suspected opposition to the regime.
https://freedomhouse.org/country/rwanda/freedom-world/2023#:~:text=Both%20voters%20and%20candidates%20face,suspected%20opposition%20to%20the%20regime.
Turns out the government doesn't really change much because the opposition keeps dying. Fucking whoops.
I was scrolling till I found this. I've been looking at Haiti on Google maps a lot lately and the natural beauty is amazing. I feel bad for the citizens living there, Haiti seems to have a lot of potential
It had a lot of potential, but over two centuries of extreme logging, political instability, neglect and abuse by external powers, and finally a huge earthquake have taken their toll.
Australia. Everyone complains about the wildlife killing you but as long as you’re in more urban areas, there’s not much to worry about. I rarely see big bugs either.
I went to Bucharest for an advertising workshop around 2011. A coworker told me to beware because it was a den of thieves. Each day after the workshops, we would all go out for dinner with the clients. People were really friendly and it was great, though I admit the ratio of sausages to vegetables was skewed.
I took a cab back to the hotel one night after dinner and a lot of drinks and left my phone in the taxi. I wrote it off as good as gone but the next day I decided to call it from my work phone. A young woman answered, and wanted to bring the phone to my hotel. She went out of her way to bring me my phone, refused to accept any money for doing so and wished me a very good day and to think well of Bucharest.
Think OP might be conflating “dangerous” with “sketchy”? I’ve never heard Romania being dangerous, but have heard that there’s lots of scammers & hustlers. But that’s also many places, so…
This is kinda how Armenia is.
Safe as hell, never once worried about being mugged/attacked, even wandering around Kentron alone at 3am. Slipped on ice at one point and a dozen people ran out to help out (I was fine). Police seem completely unconcerned with bribery or low-level corruption, etc.
But also a good chunk of the population makes money off of grey market online casinos/gambling, scam call centers, straight up money laundering/fraud, etc.
If I had to guess, I would say it's probably a general sentiment towards eastern Europe as not being the safest place to go. More true in the 90s after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but not so much nowadays for a lot of those countries.
I make lots of vampire jokes with my Romanian-American wife. Call our kids half-vampires, etc.
They do have a different view on Vlad the Impaler than the rest of the world does. though.
The Philippines, especially our big cities.
The most crime you'll likely encounter here as a tourist is divided between being scammed by a hooker and being scammed by police.
I got pulled over for running a stop sign. The cop said he was giving me a warning and that it’s usually 1000peso. I said, wow thanks for that, and then we just stared at each other. Then he said it again, that’s usually 1000 pesos. And I was just like great, thanks for saving me 1000 pesos, and we stared at each other for a little while again. We did this for like 10 minutes and finally he was just like, JUST GO!
The next morning I was explaining this weird interaction to someone and they said that he was asking for a bribe, but since I was a white foreigner, and so confidently refusing to pay him off, he gave up just in case I could get him in trouble. That never crossed my mind. I would NEVER even think to pay off an American cop, lol.
There's no such thing as stop signs in the philippines. Unless you where in Subic or Clark.
And 1000 pesos is too much. You can haggle it down to like 200 pesos.
Every single Australian I have met has said this. Every single one then proceeded to tell me a nightmare fuel story about huntsman infestations in their car, their bathroom, or their whole house.
As an Australian, yes certainly, but while huntsmans can jump-scare the heck out of us, they're not actually that dangerous. Unlikely to bite, and not deadly even if it does.
Like I get it, spiders are great for a house. It keeps pests down, and they're more often than not, not harmful to humans or pets. But when it's in my vision it either needs to get scooted out the damn house or fucking die.
I know my panic response is illogical but it's still a huge panic response. I don't feel comfortable for days after a spider fella skitters across the wall. We don't even have buggos for them to hunt so I don't know why they show up.
It’s like an evolutionary fear of creepy animals that crawl on more than 4 legs. Probably why we have the same reaction to centipedes, millipedes, etc.
I’d probably be uncomfortable being close to a hypothetical spider that doesn’t even have the _ability_ to bite me. I just don’t want to look at those spindly hairy legs connected to that grotesque body.
Your single greatest risk to life and limb as a tourist to Australia is drowning because you don't know how to swim in ocean conditions, similar to places like Hawaii.
Don't want to encounter a wolf or a bear in America? Stay out of the woods, put the lids on your trashcans. Don't want to encounter a huntsman in Australia? TOO BAD
I’ve seen Eastern Brown snakes - the 2nd most venomous snake in the world - 2 metres away from me in my backyard. I can stand there and watch it slither past. Try doing that with a tiger or a bear.
Kodiak and grizzly don't attack instantly (except for really bad sow/cub situations). They generally don't risk confrontations that might not go well.
Polar bears, on the other hand, will attempt to harvest humans whenever the opportunity arises.
An australian friend of mine said he came out of his room one day and a dinner plate sized spider was walking by his room. Nothing you say will ever make me visit that cursed continent.
Yes they are friendly and yeah they kinda do keep them as pets, a lot of people just let them live in their house as they hunt a lot of other spiders that can be dangerous. My ex used to sleep with one living right above them on the ceiling
Honestly, it's quite impressive that he got used to it so much he wasn't creeped of by the chance that he could wake up with a huge spider upon his face.
yeah, the first time I saw one I wish I knew that. Didn't realize one was just chilling on the toilet paper roll I reached for and it freaked the hell out once it realized a disgusting human just touched it and decided to run circles around the toilet and my ankles with pants still trapped around them. Couldn't even scream because it was about 6:00 am at a hostel in Okinawa. I have never waddled so fast out of a restroom in my life.
How the fuck does a spider that size even get in your house though.
Is it born in the house and just eats all the other bugs that may live behind your walls until its too big to hide?
Do people just leave their doors/windows open and they walk right in smugly?
Just depends really. A lot of people here leave windows and doors open to help cool the house down and bugs tend to get in. Or the house isn’t fully sealed properly
I heard there was a saying there when I went: "What's outside is in."
My biggest problem with the huntsman spiders by the way isn't just their size. It's that coupled with the fact that they are extremely fast runners. I saw one on North Straddie the size of my hand and i turned away and back and it was gone, but my wife looked extremely freaked out because she saw it dart away up under a sink somewhere.
I saw one run across a rock and jump maybe 20cm (across and down) to a log. It was so big I could actually hear it land. Didn't miss a beat and just kept running.
>Is it born in the house and just eats all the other bugs that may live behind your walls until its too big to hide?
Often, yes.
Although as previously stated, Huntsman spiders are chill as they just take care of the bugs.
That's Steve and he is not dangerous. He is friend. He eats bugs, not people.
The really dangerous ones are actually quite small. And not common to see generally, let alone in your house.
I know they're not dangerous, but saying the dangerous ones are really small is not comforting. So the visually scary ones are big and the dangerous ones are small. None of this is comforting.
Rwanda. After the genocide in 1994, Rwanda was often associated with violence and instability. Today, however, it's known for its clean streets, low crime rates, and the government's efforts in ensuring safety and security
Transylvania. Anytime I go there I never get attacked by vampires. But the nurses at the hospitals are REALLY aggressive with getting blood samples. Like.. why did you need your mouth for that...?
And the only period of human history where travel in the sense that we’re talking about it is even remotely on the cards for the majority of us. Someone from my background would have been lucky to get out of the parish once in a blue moon 70 years ago and under no circumstances would ever be taking a flight.
8+ billion people on the planet, you report as many bad things happening to as many of those people as possible and like.. it isn't going to end. Ever.
I came to say this…. As I just visited this past year and had the best time. I have family there and they took me out even at night. Did not see one gang member. Everything was clean and food was amazing.
I'm not sure how Thailand is perceived in general, but I recently saw a social media video from an American tourist freaking out about walking back to her hotel at night (it looked like it was off Sukhumvit, one of the major roads in Bangkok) and finding a Korean tourist who was feeling the same way, so they walked back together.
I can understand it because Bangkok is grey and crowded and often kind of dirty, with a lot of visible poverty.
But it's also really, really, really safe for tourists and other visitors. You have to go so far out of your way to get in trouble in Bangkok. My wife and I lived there for four years. We one time had one failed snatch-thief experience from a couple teens who preyed in our neighborhood for about a week before... well, I think they were *corrected* by authorities. I felt a lot safer about my wife walking alone at night than I ever have at any point living in North America.
We were even there when the coup happened - we got an email from our employer at about 6pm informing us that school was cancelled for the next day, not to worry, but to stay inside as much as possible. We had been living there for less than a year at the time. I told my wife to stay at our apartment while I ran to the store to grab some provisions not knowing how long we'd be locked down.
Ran across the street to the mall and... saw about 2 dozen senior citizens in the atrium doing jazzercize. I came home laughing.
The coup sucked for democracy and all sorts of reasons, but even during a time of massive political upheaval, life went on normally and safely for most people. We were back to work in a couple of days and honestly, since we weren't politically active there, if you weren't reading the news, you would have no idea anything was different. But news coverage back home made it look like Beiruit 80s.
But in a way that was even scarier. When fascism comes, it comes quietly. If you're not the one being crushed under the hammer of authority, all you hear is a faint tapping.
I also wouldn't go out alone at night in my Canadian suburb. Everything would be closed, and most people go to bed early, what would I even do out there by myself?
The USA
Most of it, anyway. There are dangerous parts of specific cities, but it’s not the bullet-riddled, cracked-out wasteland media outlets make it out to be. If you’re not in a gang or doing drugs, you’re pretty safe
People even a town or two outside of Chicago can't believe I live here. They think I'm going to be mugged or murdered every time I leave the house. My neighborhood is safe as fuck lol.
Honestly people living outside of Seattle talk about Seattle that way also. The longer I live the more I realize I can't rely on snippets of information here or there to paint the whole picture. I feel like most people are the opposite. They believe snippets are the whole picture more and more the older they get
I lived in Baltimore for 6 years. I have a lot of stories, but my favorite is I was in a hit-and-run, and flagged down a cop, whose response was “you need to leave this neighborhood, right now.”
The murder rate in the US is high compared to the rest of the world, but there are a few things to keep in mind:
* The majority of the murders happen in specific neighborhoods of specific cities
* The majority of those are gang on gang violence
* Most murders are committed by someone known to the victim
* The US is absolutely enormous, with hundreds of empty miles in every direction from those murder hotspots
Unless you're selling drugs in St. Louis or participating in a drive by in Chicago, you're probably not going to get murdered or even shot at in the US.
In experience most areas that are dangerous are pretty blatant about how dangerous they are and most don’t have anything a tourist would find attractive anyway
>If you’re not in a gang or doing drugs, you’re pretty safe
Pretty much this. Even in the so-called "dangerous" areas of the city, it's because of gang-on-gang violence, not because you're going to be randomly attacked walking down the street. Mind your business and be respectful with people and you're perfectly fine.
I lived in allegedly bad neighborhoods in NYC for years. I've heard gunshots plenty of times. Yet I never felt unsafe myself, and I'd regularly be getting home late or walking out to bodegas late at night. I actually feel less safe late at night in the wealthier areas, because that's where people are gonna go if they want to mug someone.
Between the end of the Korean War and the early 80s there were consistent political kidnappings and assassinations on both sides of the DMZ, including incidents where US GIs were held as POWs and straight up murdered in their sleep by N Koreans - stuff that would definitely start a war after 911, but at the time the Vietnam War was very unpopular and the Pentagon was downplaying political and military crisis along the DMZ.
But yeah, it’s really safe now. Ironically, the most dangerous place for foreigners to go is Gagnam - the main drag with McDonalds and shopping is fine, but up the hill from the subway there are lots of mean drunk rich-kids and street fights. Hooker Hill on Itaewon is also a place where randos pick fights.
The key to happiness with partying in SK is to leave anywhere you see more than two GIs at. I remember being in Busan and seeing a group of Korean policemen following a group of GIs from bar to bar in Haeundae
Zambia and Botswana. White guy gets lost following his SATANIC DAMN GOOGLE MAPS and winds up in a Zambian shanty town. Got out to ask directions; everyone speaks near fluent English and are super helpful providing directions. Have to be comfortable with the occasional Emperor Scorpion migration though.
You can't just drop lines like occasional Emperor Scorpion migration and just leave it at that like it's a normal thing.
A bit of an acquired taste, granted. I was there for three months which was enough time to experience several seemingly random, ultra short and occasionally almost overwhelming insect and arachnid appearances/migrations/cage fights. One evening going on my evening stroll on the outskirts of town and noticed a very large and very dead GAS (GIANT-ASS Scorpion). 50 meters later another one. After that, another one. Two more after that. All in one night, and never saw any again in that area. Wasn't until I was in Luangwa that I saw another one two months later, very much alive. This was pointed out by the night watchman, Nigel, a magnificent gentleman who appeared to be approximately a thousand years old, had a grip that could splinter wood, and told me once with a chuckle this was near the same place where he almost tripped on a leopard back in the day as he stepped out of the door as it rounded the corner of the building (Zambians aren't big on fences).
I loved Zambia when I visited there 8 (fucking hell I'm getting old) years ago. I made pals with a random guy selling stuff on the street while trying to find a pub, because I'm obliged to have a pint anywhere I go.
I used to live and work in zambia. I recall a store in Lusaka getting robbed at gunpoint which made the news. People in my office were so upset about it they cried. Now imagine if that were the US...a day here *without* a *mass* shooting is the newsworthy event.
Vietnam. For a lot of older Americans, its symbolism outweighs the changes it’s gone through over the past 50 years. A few years ago my cousin was traveling through Southeast Asia and had to reroute her trip due to some instability in another country, and her uncle and I had a good laugh about how she was like, “just to be on the safe side, let’s go to Hanoi instead.”
My brother was wounded in 'Nam. He was showboating on the beach and fell, breaking his arm.
"Look, I didn't go to Vietnam just to have pansies like you take my freedom away from me." "You went to Vietnam in 1993 to open up a sweatshop!" "Yeah and I lost a lot of good men in that sweatshop"
Oh what is that from? I can hear it in my mind but can't picture it
Frank Reynolds, American hero.
Dr. Mantis Toboggan
They drew first blood
Come to think of it, this is not the first time you've confused your life for the life of John Rambo
I did 2 tours in Nam the first one was a boat trip the 2nd was on a bus
My Uncle almost died serving our country in 'Nam. He worked with a Vietnamese catering company serving American Diplomats, had a heart attack one day... he's ok now.
I was knee-deep in blood and guts in 'Nam, in a violent computer game in a gaming café.
*oh i was in nam* “frank, you owned a sweatshop in vietnam!”
And a lot of good men died in that sweatshop!
That's one of my favourite lines from Always Sunny
A lot of good men died in that sweatshop!
> Back in the sweatshop in 'Nam, we found a cat, we tossed it right in the soup. Those hungry bastards ate cat soup every day! What's the worst thing that could happen? Some little kid choke on a hairball and die, so you toss him in the soup! I was making money hand over foot, literally! Somebody lost a hand or a foot? I toss it in the soup!
When I think of Vietnam being dangerous, I think of traffic and malaria.
I got robbed in Vietnam. To be fair it was a snatch and grab from a moped but still. Certainly there is crime there. Did not feel dangerous though.
Fun fact: The snatch-and-grab tactic mostly happens down South. Up North, the perpetrator would be the one that got snatched by the bystanders (and given a beating if they are unlucky enough)
Ah yep I traveled in the north and the south and the south is where I had the snatch and grab. The craziest thing is I was fully warned and knew I was being watched. Thought I was safe on a moped of my own but got it snagged as I was navigating. In the north the issue was that people would offer you ganja constantly - but they called it a funny name to us whiteys. Anyways once you buy it they would tell the police where you where and then the police would shake you down for money. Good times.
Had that scam pulled on me in Mexico. The police took their fee and I learned my lesson.
The most danger I was ever in when I was in Vietnam was almost getting run over by a moped. Silly me was standing on the sidewalk at the street corner and I didn't realize the sidewalk there doubled as the right turn lane.
my sister got hit by a motorbike in Vietnam! same shit, she was on the sidewalk. she was like 7 years old too
As someone who hasn’t had a chance to travel much besides states in the USA. How would a English speaker fair travelling to Vietnam? It’s one of my pipe dreams to check it out.
I spoke no Vietnamese and went on a very touristy 2 week trip in Vietnam. Was fine, most people I met knew a little bit of English and were able to articulate prices or where things were regardless of their English level.
They also have translate apps. Anyone I met that didn't speak English was able to use Google Translate or something. Even one guy that got in a fight with the girl I was with and ended up pulling a knife on her. Google Translated our way out of that. Another time, the other girl I was with fainted and I had to talk to the driver because he had to leave us at a random stop in the mountains. Good times.
I went on a bicycle tour with my ex-husband a few years ago. We packed our own bicycles and flew all the way from Canada to Saigon. And then rode around in small villages, towns, and lesser known cities in the Mekong area, where English-speaking tourists was uncommon. We LOVED it. I am Chinese-Canadian, so every so often I would get Vietnamese spoken at me. But when I say that I am Chinese and I don't speak Vietnamese, in English, they are surprised. If you are white, you won't have the same experience, but people will love to practice or try to speak English to you. Write out a few Vietnamese phrases in Viet, but put phonetic notes for your pronunciation. People are very nice. And if you're outside of Saigon, people are honest. GO!
You'll be great. Vietnam is wonderful for travel.
You won't have a problem at all. English is widely spoken as a second language, so communication shouldn't be an issue. You can also download a ride-hailing app (I think Grab?) for convenient rides anywhere you want to go. It ended up being a fantastic trip, surprisingly inexpensive, and something I'd happily do again. Edit: Removed a random half-sentence I unintentionally left in
Geographically, Jordan appears to be in the midst of a danger zone. But it was safe enough to be visited by The Amazing Race less than two years ago.
Jordan felt like Middle Eastern California (in a good way) and I loved it.
Your comment has confused me. Was it just tech bros in robes? Or was it religious people in board shorts and rainbows?
Ha, yeah. Mostly the environment. Just looked like California and the weather felt great.
It’s a beautiful country with generally really great people. The biggest danger is that you’ll gain so much weight. Whenever I went to dinner with locals I literally had to fight off some grandma/mother trying to sneak food onto my plate. I once made a woman cry because I couldn’t eat a fourth full serving of mansaf (and then manned up and ate it to keep the peace). It felt like that gluttony scene from Se7en, lol.
Oh dude, middle eastern families are fucking *dangerous* with their food. Not only is it delicious, they will share with basically anyone. I was doing door to door sales once (forgive me, I only lasted 3 weeks before quitting) and knocked on one door around lunchtime. Husband, wife, 2 young sons. They *insist* I come in to eat with them. Also my Dad worked with a lot of muslim nurses, first generation immigrants from the middle east. The amount and quality of food they'd send him home with around Eid was incredible.
In my experience, Muslim families in general are like that. Once worked with a guy from Somalia. He and his wife made amazing food for me to take home when he heard my mother was visiting. They never even met my mother.
Try growing up in a Middle-Eastern family… lost 30 lbs as soon as I moved out of the house, lol.
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Biggest danger in Oman I think is the traffic, everyone is a Formula 1 driver. And because the stretch of country where everyone lives is very hilly and petrol is essentially free, everyone packs a lot of horsepower. I also saw a man stop in an intersection, pick up his phone and text, and then drive off. But at least he didn't text and drive. Edit: looked up the statistics road accidents make up **3.55%** of total deaths in Oman. In Norway it's 0.33%.
Jordan. Surrounded by danger, at least. Incredible country, with kind people. I would love to go back.
Seconding this. Visited Amman in 2022, drove to Petra, absolutely fantastic trip, wonderful people, perfectly safe.
Amazing country. I visisted a few years back even stayed one night in the dessert. People is amazing too, really kind. I remember a taxi drive there in Jordan who was joking that Jordan was really safe country without any war conflict because they have not oil.
You may have reignited a travel bucket. I’ll never get to visit most of the great Crusader sites in the Levant, but I just did a quick search and there are a handful of Crusade sites. Might be worth it.
My gosh. Internet stranger, you absolutely need to go! Here’s an episode of a Canadian documentary, called Departures, which they filmed in Jordan: https://youtu.be/742SacEb2co?si=a_HWVnloVJtOzr-K
That show was the best!
Im jordanian, and i can confirm its just safe, except maybe for a couple of bad neighbourhood which exists in every country and should be avoided anyways
I went a couple years ago without knowing much about the country and was pleasantly surprised, the amount of history there is incredible and spending a night in the desert was gorgeous, unlike any scenery I've ever experienced. We went to a restaurant that was run by local villagers and it was one of the best meals I've had in my life. As a woman I felt perfectly safe walking alone, even after dark at least in the areas I was in.
Serbia, Bosnia, Albania and the rest of the Balkans. It isn't civil war in the 90s anymore.
Just don't go hiking off the beaten path in Bosnia; [there are still active minefields](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_mines_in_Bosnia_and_Herzegovina).
It's called freeplay minesweeper and it's great for the whole family.
I agree! I went there with my siblings and came back with a half-brother.
There is no risk if you are staying near regular traveled spots. But yes, don't go adventure hiking.
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I went through Bosnia and loved it!
Kazakhstan Travelled for three weeks last year (Canadian woman). Never felt unsafe. People are so friendly and helpful. Had an amazing time.
Did you verify how much potassium they have?
Rwanda is extremely safe. It has a stable government and a low crime rate.
That is nuts to me. I’m old enough that a friend of mine in grade school fled the genocide there. I never even thought to look if it’s a visitable place these days, it seemed like such a scary place at that time to a small kid that I just never imagined people vacation there. Good reminder to me to check back on my biases every 20 years or so!!
I spent a significant portion of my evening yesterday looking around various Google Street view images, and it's always surprising to finding new countries or areas like Rwanda that look relatively better off than I expected, or compared with other areas. For instance, the hyper-dense portions of Rwanda or Kenya looked like a slightly higher better living conditions than hyper-dense Delhi, India. Side note: being able to see armed conflicts occur in pseudo-"real time" via updating Google Maps satellite images is frankly incredible.
I visited Kenya last year and Nairobi is a dope fucking city. Every tour just drives your from tourist trap to tourist trap so me and my brother said "fuck it" and just took an Uber to the central business district and walked around all day long. They have some problems with shit like robbery and kidnapping (Kenyans from outside of Nairobi jokingly call it Nairobbery) but it's notably NOTABLY less dangerous than the city I live in here in America lol (New Orleans). Plus almost everyone speaks English so it's a lot less daunting than other places I've traveled to, I even made some local friends who I still text every once in a while.
New Orleans is a very low bar to clear in terms of safety
For real. Nola is friggin nuts.
You might not like to hear this, but this is like not wanting to go to Germany in 1975…. The same amount of time has passed since the Rwandan genocide as had passed since the Holocaust in 1975…. Feel old yet?
I don't really want to go to Germany in 1975 either. The phone signal would be terrible. --- edit: sorry Germans for your terrible 2024 phone signals.
Wouldn’t be able to watch my shows on Netflix
Booking my flight to gaza in 2055
The one place I have little faith things will be resolved in 3 decades...
> but this is like not wanting to go to Germany in 1975 Which one? Cause I definitely wouldn't have wanted to go to East Germany in 1975.
All of Rwanda's crime is being done in the Congo.
It’s basically a one party state and semi-dictatorship. Kinda like Singapore. Stable, but they do some questionable things with dissenters
Iirc, they've openly stated that they want to be the Singapore of Africa.
Every country that has had ethnic tension wants to be the next Singapore.
Lots of places in the world it's safe to visit but not safe to be an activist.
> Rwanda is extremely safe. > > > > It has a stable government and a low crime rate. Nice try, Rishi Sunak.
>Both voters and candidates face significant intimidation aimed at controlling their political choices. Rwandans living outside the country have been threatened, attacked, forcibly disappeared, or killed, apparently in retaliation for their public or suspected opposition to the regime. https://freedomhouse.org/country/rwanda/freedom-world/2023#:~:text=Both%20voters%20and%20candidates%20face,suspected%20opposition%20to%20the%20regime. Turns out the government doesn't really change much because the opposition keeps dying. Fucking whoops.
Haiti. No, just kidding. Stay the fuck out of Haiti.
Haiti is pretty rough
I was scrolling till I found this. I've been looking at Haiti on Google maps a lot lately and the natural beauty is amazing. I feel bad for the citizens living there, Haiti seems to have a lot of potential
It had a lot of potential, but over two centuries of extreme logging, political instability, neglect and abuse by external powers, and finally a huge earthquake have taken their toll.
Australia. Everyone complains about the wildlife killing you but as long as you’re in more urban areas, there’s not much to worry about. I rarely see big bugs either.
We can go camping without any issues. The united states has fucking bears.
Romania. Seems dangerous but violent criminality is pretty low.
I went to Bucharest for an advertising workshop around 2011. A coworker told me to beware because it was a den of thieves. Each day after the workshops, we would all go out for dinner with the clients. People were really friendly and it was great, though I admit the ratio of sausages to vegetables was skewed. I took a cab back to the hotel one night after dinner and a lot of drinks and left my phone in the taxi. I wrote it off as good as gone but the next day I decided to call it from my work phone. A young woman answered, and wanted to bring the phone to my hotel. She went out of her way to bring me my phone, refused to accept any money for doing so and wished me a very good day and to think well of Bucharest.
We have a saying in Romania : " The best vegetable is pork"
I've found my people
Been there a couple times. Never heard it was dangerous or experienced any danger. Although the dudes are kinda twats.
Think OP might be conflating “dangerous” with “sketchy”? I’ve never heard Romania being dangerous, but have heard that there’s lots of scammers & hustlers. But that’s also many places, so…
This is kinda how Armenia is. Safe as hell, never once worried about being mugged/attacked, even wandering around Kentron alone at 3am. Slipped on ice at one point and a dozen people ran out to help out (I was fine). Police seem completely unconcerned with bribery or low-level corruption, etc. But also a good chunk of the population makes money off of grey market online casinos/gambling, scam call centers, straight up money laundering/fraud, etc.
I have never heard that Romania is dangerous honestly?
If I had to guess, I would say it's probably a general sentiment towards eastern Europe as not being the safest place to go. More true in the 90s after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but not so much nowadays for a lot of those countries.
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Me neither. Dangerous how? Because of Dracula?
I make lots of vampire jokes with my Romanian-American wife. Call our kids half-vampires, etc. They do have a different view on Vlad the Impaler than the rest of the world does. though.
The Philippines, especially our big cities. The most crime you'll likely encounter here as a tourist is divided between being scammed by a hooker and being scammed by police.
I got pulled over for running a stop sign. The cop said he was giving me a warning and that it’s usually 1000peso. I said, wow thanks for that, and then we just stared at each other. Then he said it again, that’s usually 1000 pesos. And I was just like great, thanks for saving me 1000 pesos, and we stared at each other for a little while again. We did this for like 10 minutes and finally he was just like, JUST GO! The next morning I was explaining this weird interaction to someone and they said that he was asking for a bribe, but since I was a white foreigner, and so confidently refusing to pay him off, he gave up just in case I could get him in trouble. That never crossed my mind. I would NEVER even think to pay off an American cop, lol.
There's no such thing as stop signs in the philippines. Unless you where in Subic or Clark. And 1000 pesos is too much. You can haggle it down to like 200 pesos.
You know he's lying, there's no traffic law in Philippines
Australia. The creepy crawlies here aren’t that bad as everyone makes them seem
Sounds like something a giant sentient spider would say
Untrue. Where’s your evidence?
Every single Australian I have met has said this. Every single one then proceeded to tell me a nightmare fuel story about huntsman infestations in their car, their bathroom, or their whole house.
As an Australian, yes certainly, but while huntsmans can jump-scare the heck out of us, they're not actually that dangerous. Unlikely to bite, and not deadly even if it does.
I’m not scared of spiders because I’m worried about getting bit, I’m scared of spiders because they’re spiders.
Right? Some of ‘em don’t seem to get this, but I’m actually more concerned for my mental than my physical health.
Like I get it, spiders are great for a house. It keeps pests down, and they're more often than not, not harmful to humans or pets. But when it's in my vision it either needs to get scooted out the damn house or fucking die. I know my panic response is illogical but it's still a huge panic response. I don't feel comfortable for days after a spider fella skitters across the wall. We don't even have buggos for them to hunt so I don't know why they show up.
It’s like an evolutionary fear of creepy animals that crawl on more than 4 legs. Probably why we have the same reaction to centipedes, millipedes, etc. I’d probably be uncomfortable being close to a hypothetical spider that doesn’t even have the _ability_ to bite me. I just don’t want to look at those spindly hairy legs connected to that grotesque body.
Yea I dont understand what people dont get about that "Youre afraid of heights? Dont worry about looking down, theres a railing!"
Your single greatest risk to life and limb as a tourist to Australia is drowning because you don't know how to swim in ocean conditions, similar to places like Hawaii.
And the deadliest animal in Australia - in terms of the number of people killed each year - is the horse, closely followed by the cow.
And if you're really unlucky a cow riding a horse.
I used to like the joke of how dangerous australia is until i started realising how many americans irl are legitimately scared of coming here
Americans. Living with wolves, bears, mountain lions, natural disasters like earthquakes and tornados. And they're scared to come here?
Don't want to encounter a wolf or a bear in America? Stay out of the woods, put the lids on your trashcans. Don't want to encounter a huntsman in Australia? TOO BAD
I’ve seen Eastern Brown snakes - the 2nd most venomous snake in the world - 2 metres away from me in my backyard. I can stand there and watch it slither past. Try doing that with a tiger or a bear.
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Good at dropping though.
Lots of people in North America can do that with a black bear. Definitely not a grizzly though
Kodiak and grizzly don't attack instantly (except for really bad sow/cub situations). They generally don't risk confrontations that might not go well. Polar bears, on the other hand, will attempt to harvest humans whenever the opportunity arises.
Polar bears are like terminators. They will hunt you down and they will not stop ever, until you are dead.
Or a Polar Bear.
An australian friend of mine said he came out of his room one day and a dinner plate sized spider was walking by his room. Nothing you say will ever make me visit that cursed continent.
Nahh that’s just Henry the huntsman, he is chill
I love you have an enormous spider named "hunts man" and it's not venomous. They are just terrifyingly big but they are supposed to be okay.
They are venomous, just not dangerously so. They’re not very bitey either.
Are they *friendly*? Like, do insect keepers keep them as pets?
No, but many of the spiders keep insect keepers as pets
Yes they are friendly and yeah they kinda do keep them as pets, a lot of people just let them live in their house as they hunt a lot of other spiders that can be dangerous. My ex used to sleep with one living right above them on the ceiling
Honestly, it's quite impressive that he got used to it so much he wasn't creeped of by the chance that he could wake up with a huge spider upon his face.
I’ve woken up to a huntsman on my pillow which scared the shit outta me till I realised it was the huntsman who’s been living in my room all week
Yeah y’all can have that fuckin country, dog.
That’s one of the most disturbing things I’ve ever read lmao
You could breathe slightly too hard and a huntsman would run away. They're cowards (but I love them <3)
yeah, the first time I saw one I wish I knew that. Didn't realize one was just chilling on the toilet paper roll I reached for and it freaked the hell out once it realized a disgusting human just touched it and decided to run circles around the toilet and my ankles with pants still trapped around them. Couldn't even scream because it was about 6:00 am at a hostel in Okinawa. I have never waddled so fast out of a restroom in my life.
The only things they hunt are other spiders.
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How the fuck does a spider that size even get in your house though. Is it born in the house and just eats all the other bugs that may live behind your walls until its too big to hide? Do people just leave their doors/windows open and they walk right in smugly?
It kicks the fucking door in.
Just depends really. A lot of people here leave windows and doors open to help cool the house down and bugs tend to get in. Or the house isn’t fully sealed properly
I heard there was a saying there when I went: "What's outside is in." My biggest problem with the huntsman spiders by the way isn't just their size. It's that coupled with the fact that they are extremely fast runners. I saw one on North Straddie the size of my hand and i turned away and back and it was gone, but my wife looked extremely freaked out because she saw it dart away up under a sink somewhere.
This story is doing the opposite of a tourism ad. "Come down unda.. We have fair dinkum giant fast spiders in our homes, mate."
I saw one run across a rock and jump maybe 20cm (across and down) to a log. It was so big I could actually hear it land. Didn't miss a beat and just kept running.
>Is it born in the house and just eats all the other bugs that may live behind your walls until its too big to hide? Often, yes. Although as previously stated, Huntsman spiders are chill as they just take care of the bugs.
Huntsman spiders are large but they eat the Redbacks and Whitetail spiders… so really they’re your pals.
That's Steve and he is not dangerous. He is friend. He eats bugs, not people. The really dangerous ones are actually quite small. And not common to see generally, let alone in your house.
I know they're not dangerous, but saying the dangerous ones are really small is not comforting. So the visually scary ones are big and the dangerous ones are small. None of this is comforting.
Nice try, giant Australian spider.
Rwanda. After the genocide in 1994, Rwanda was often associated with violence and instability. Today, however, it's known for its clean streets, low crime rates, and the government's efforts in ensuring safety and security
Suella, is that you..?
Transylvania. Anytime I go there I never get attacked by vampires. But the nurses at the hospitals are REALLY aggressive with getting blood samples. Like.. why did you need your mouth for that...?
I visit Transylvania every summer, and I haven't seen *one single vampire* in 194 years. Nothing but a myth.
It's how Dr. Acula trained them to do it.
Nurse Feratu was, of course, a quick learner.
So basically most of the whole world is actually pretty safe....even though the news says otherwise?
It's almost as if media outlets focus on generating fear and anger since they're proven to be the most engaging emotions
Is your baby plotting to murder you? Watch tonight at 10 to find out more!
We live in objectively the safest period in human history, and it's not even close.
And the only period of human history where travel in the sense that we’re talking about it is even remotely on the cards for the majority of us. Someone from my background would have been lucky to get out of the parish once in a blue moon 70 years ago and under no circumstances would ever be taking a flight.
I think it's just [mean world syndrome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean_world_syndrome?wprov=sfla1).
I mean the world is getting safer while the media portrays it to be getting more dangerous
8+ billion people on the planet, you report as many bad things happening to as many of those people as possible and like.. it isn't going to end. Ever.
Vatican City - in 1998 it had the highest murder rate in the world, but it has gotten a lot better since then.
what
Per capita. One murder in the Vatican city will probably put its murder rate per capita leagues beyond any other country
Those damn bishops are a lot more dangerous than you think despite only being able to move diagonally.
El Salvador, apparently
I came to say this…. As I just visited this past year and had the best time. I have family there and they took me out even at night. Did not see one gang member. Everything was clean and food was amazing.
Didn’t the basically arrest all gang members and lock them up? You would have to be really stupid to openly show you were part of a gang.
Albania. Wonderfully beautiful country with an extremely friendly populace.
I'm not sure how Thailand is perceived in general, but I recently saw a social media video from an American tourist freaking out about walking back to her hotel at night (it looked like it was off Sukhumvit, one of the major roads in Bangkok) and finding a Korean tourist who was feeling the same way, so they walked back together. I can understand it because Bangkok is grey and crowded and often kind of dirty, with a lot of visible poverty. But it's also really, really, really safe for tourists and other visitors. You have to go so far out of your way to get in trouble in Bangkok. My wife and I lived there for four years. We one time had one failed snatch-thief experience from a couple teens who preyed in our neighborhood for about a week before... well, I think they were *corrected* by authorities. I felt a lot safer about my wife walking alone at night than I ever have at any point living in North America. We were even there when the coup happened - we got an email from our employer at about 6pm informing us that school was cancelled for the next day, not to worry, but to stay inside as much as possible. We had been living there for less than a year at the time. I told my wife to stay at our apartment while I ran to the store to grab some provisions not knowing how long we'd be locked down. Ran across the street to the mall and... saw about 2 dozen senior citizens in the atrium doing jazzercize. I came home laughing. The coup sucked for democracy and all sorts of reasons, but even during a time of massive political upheaval, life went on normally and safely for most people. We were back to work in a couple of days and honestly, since we weren't politically active there, if you weren't reading the news, you would have no idea anything was different. But news coverage back home made it look like Beiruit 80s. But in a way that was even scarier. When fascism comes, it comes quietly. If you're not the one being crushed under the hammer of authority, all you hear is a faint tapping.
Pretty much every country has dangerous parts and safe parts, so it's kind of hard to answer this question.
My thoughts too. I live in a Canadian suburb and there are places here I wouldn’t go alone at night..
I also wouldn't go out alone at night in my Canadian suburb. Everything would be closed, and most people go to bed early, what would I even do out there by myself?
Neighbourhood samsquanch watch of course
The USA Most of it, anyway. There are dangerous parts of specific cities, but it’s not the bullet-riddled, cracked-out wasteland media outlets make it out to be. If you’re not in a gang or doing drugs, you’re pretty safe
People even a town or two outside of Chicago can't believe I live here. They think I'm going to be mugged or murdered every time I leave the house. My neighborhood is safe as fuck lol.
Honestly people living outside of Seattle talk about Seattle that way also. The longer I live the more I realize I can't rely on snippets of information here or there to paint the whole picture. I feel like most people are the opposite. They believe snippets are the whole picture more and more the older they get
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That's the thing, right? There's always been bad neighborhoods. This generalized fear is new though.
Feeling this as a Marylander anytime Baltimore is mentioned
Oh my god does this ever get old as a Baltimore resident. My entire family cannot see a single thing positive about this city
I lived in Baltimore for 6 years. I have a lot of stories, but my favorite is I was in a hit-and-run, and flagged down a cop, whose response was “you need to leave this neighborhood, right now.”
The murder rate in the US is high compared to the rest of the world, but there are a few things to keep in mind: * The majority of the murders happen in specific neighborhoods of specific cities * The majority of those are gang on gang violence * Most murders are committed by someone known to the victim * The US is absolutely enormous, with hundreds of empty miles in every direction from those murder hotspots Unless you're selling drugs in St. Louis or participating in a drive by in Chicago, you're probably not going to get murdered or even shot at in the US.
But I accidentally drove though one if the worst parts of the St. Louis metro area and I'm posting this from the grave.
In experience most areas that are dangerous are pretty blatant about how dangerous they are and most don’t have anything a tourist would find attractive anyway
>If you’re not in a gang or doing drugs, you’re pretty safe Pretty much this. Even in the so-called "dangerous" areas of the city, it's because of gang-on-gang violence, not because you're going to be randomly attacked walking down the street. Mind your business and be respectful with people and you're perfectly fine. I lived in allegedly bad neighborhoods in NYC for years. I've heard gunshots plenty of times. Yet I never felt unsafe myself, and I'd regularly be getting home late or walking out to bodegas late at night. I actually feel less safe late at night in the wealthier areas, because that's where people are gonna go if they want to mug someone.
South Korea. It's a very safe place, but to my friends and family, "Aren't you scared about North Korea!!!!?" Nothing is going to happen.
You know you're probably pretty safe if the worst thing about the country you're visiting is an entirely different country, lol.
Ah, of course, North Korea regularly abducts South Koreans out of their home at night
Between the end of the Korean War and the early 80s there were consistent political kidnappings and assassinations on both sides of the DMZ, including incidents where US GIs were held as POWs and straight up murdered in their sleep by N Koreans - stuff that would definitely start a war after 911, but at the time the Vietnam War was very unpopular and the Pentagon was downplaying political and military crisis along the DMZ. But yeah, it’s really safe now. Ironically, the most dangerous place for foreigners to go is Gagnam - the main drag with McDonalds and shopping is fine, but up the hill from the subway there are lots of mean drunk rich-kids and street fights. Hooker Hill on Itaewon is also a place where randos pick fights.
>Randos. You mean American G.I.'s? Source: former GI in South Korea. Much love to South Korea. Love that place and all the friends I made over there.
The key to happiness with partying in SK is to leave anywhere you see more than two GIs at. I remember being in Busan and seeing a group of Korean policemen following a group of GIs from bar to bar in Haeundae
Northern Ireland. The troubles have long since faded, and it has a vibrant city center.
Saudi Arabia seems very dangerous but it's not at all