helvetic

I imagine you mean SoMa (south of market), which is where I live. I'd agree with you that people over-estimate the danger in foreign places and severely underestimate it in the USA. San Francisco is pretty sketchy. I personally never feel unsafe here; but I also know the are very well. That said, I have been the victim of random crimes in Oakland on multiple occasions (mugging at gunpoint; randomly getting attacked by crazy homeless people, etc).

OccasionalFlyerPerson

The UK Government's travel warning specifically mentions terrorism. https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/iran

As I described in my first post, I am from the UK. I only have the US citizens deaths overseas to work from. Though, I asked if anyone had statistics for UK citizens (I have tried to find them myself), and searched on European deaths. I believe that it was clear that I was asking this from a European perspective and that not only US travel warnings were relevant.

It is only recently that the UK declared Iran, in general, safe to travel to. Previous iterations of the travel advice (check wayback machine) are even more clear in their claims of risk in travelling to Iran.

It looked, from the way that you wrote, that you were disputing what I wrote in that section, not just following up a question. So, I will thank you for anwering that part of the question.

And once again you have created a straw man. I never said nor implied that the warnings were just about death. So, I don't know where that came from.

You want to go where?

My apologies. My confusion stemmed from the fact that you only cited travel.state.gov and didn't explicitly say that you were criticizing the UK's foreign travel advice. Many non-Americans have criticized the US State Department's advice to travelers in the past and I have on occasion criticized the UK's foreign travel advice, so I hope that you will excuse my assumption that it was US travel warnings you were criticizing and that your interest in UK statistics was for a greater understanding of whether the risks perceived by the US also applied to Britons.

I do continue to think that there are significant risks in traveling to Iran (especially for Americans). However, I do not include terrorism or violent street crime among them.

I thought the context might be important. The circumstances of migration (and return) of recent American citizens to Central America make it difficult to get a picture of the risk to non-Americans from statistics of crimes against American citizens. That said, my understanding from colleagues who have been to the area that in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, there is a significant risk of crime to business travelers and tourists. My organization did not allow its staff visiting Guatemala City for work to leave the hotel without an escort from the local office.

It was not my intention to create a straw man. It just seemed (admittedly partially because of my misunderstanding) that you weren't acknowledging the possibility that a warning might be issued for a reason other than the risk of violence or death.

Back to the broader subject at hand, while I think it is wise to read government warnings for travelers, I also think it is wise to take them with a grain of salt. I tend to read the warnings from several countries as they often have a different perspective. I am also mindful that they tend to write them assuming that their audience is both very naive and quick to criticize if harm should befall them. I have been to many countries with warnings, some of them quite dire. The exercise of common-sense prudence prevents a lot of problems. The greatest harm that I have suffered is paying a couple of questionable 'speeding tickets' and giving a pen (yes, an ordinary plastic ballpoint) to a customs official because he said he liked it.

OccasionalFlyerPerson

Thank you for your constructive reply. I was worried that this was becoming one of 'those' discussions.

I'll reply in more detail once I'm finished for the day. But, I wanted to say thanks first.

blueferrari

big touristy place such as Paris and Venice usually make me uncomfortable. always feel like a lot of people keep their eyes on you.

helvetic

Paris is sketchy as hell… I think the romanticization of the city is entirely misguided. There's aggressive scammers everywhere, a lot of ghettos, and people are quite rude unless you speak French. It's my first language so I'm fine there; but my (then) girlfriend when we went was not a fan.

HomerJ

...happened twice in Itaewon....once I was on my own...they assumed I was US military and 3 or 4 guys were set to jump me, until I produced my Canadian passport.
Same place but with a local girl, these 2 guys started hassling her as we walked.
One guy really got in her face, then I got in his. Bystanders had a decidedly anti-white guy looks about them. Girl I was with flagged a cab and we got out of there quickly.
Used to happen in the Phils all the time.
You'd be at a bar and some d-head would start berating the girl. When you have a 1/2 foot of height advantage on the guy you figure he will back down....but he gets support pretty quickly.
I prefer local places cuz they are cheap and sometimes had really good bands, but many times I'd just end up going to the expat places cuz you had some back up.

invisible

There is specific warning about this as well in wiki article:


Correct

My wife's manager got caught in drive-by shooting and shot at broad daylight around Pier 15 couple of years ago.

I only once ventured in West Oakland back 20 years ago - when I moved to Bay Area and that was because simply got lost (no GPS in your phone in 1998) after exiting the 880. Based on surroundings I thought that somehow got transported in some kind of central-american country in the middle of civil war there...

After 5 years in Singapore my wife says that she has no intention ever to live in US... And we lived in Sunnyvale for 8 years, considering it the best place to live in in Bay Area in terms of price/performance/affordability...

DesertNomad

No question for me: Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo in 2005.

OccasionalFlyerPerson

Thanks for this reply.

I attempted to find past US travel warnings concerning Iran, but my google-fu has failed me. The most recent one seems reasonable. There are a number of dual citizens who have been arrested on what seems to be sketchy reasons..

In my own case, I do intend to travel to Iran. For reasons of seeing the reality there an visiting ancient sites. If I did so, then I'd travel on my NZ passport which makes things easier than my UK passport; on the NZ passport I qualify for visa-on-arrival.

There is a big gap between the relations between governments and the attitudes of the people, as reported by people who have visited. E.g. travel writer Rick Steves produced a documentary on his visit: I don't expect anyone who spend a whole hour of their time watching this, but watching him talk to students from 14:30, and talking about people's reactions to his being American from 4:50. Note that to really understand parts of that you need to watch his lecture too. , But, that's another hour. The reactions in the first video when people say 'America? NO!' were because Rick Steves would ask people to guess where he came from and nobody would ever guess, and then be surprised when he told them. As one of the students says 'The governments have a lot of war with each other, but the people should be friends.'

Here's another American who has visited Iran, and found people friendly and welcoming. In it he says (paraphrased) that he found Iran to be a normal country except that women have to wear (as he says) a scarf on their head. Though, in another part of that video he says that he was 'weirded out' when a guy held his hand while directing him somewhere.

Here's a Swedish ultra-runner who ran across Iran in 44 days. She talks about the attitudes people have to travelling to Iran, and how '<redacted> scared' she was at the beginning: watch her nostrils when she says that!
When I go to Iran, I will follow all rules, e.g. the dress code. Which applies to me too. I can't go during the summer as it's too hot for me to not wear shorts. It does help that I don't do most of the things that are banned: I don't drink alcohol, eat pork (vegetarian), etc.

I'm not going to mention areas where I disagree with the authorities, e.g. my support for full gay rights and that I don't agree that religion should play a part in government. However, if I went to some places in the southern USA and went around with a 'NO RELIGION GAY EQUALITY NOW' t-shirt, is it possible that I might experience conflict with some locals?

Getting back on topic: While there are things I need to watch out for, there are many, many, countries that I consider more risky than Iran. Many of which have had very few travel warnings issued. The American travel warning is in some ways more accurate than the UK one. I'm not aware of any tourist having been injured or killed through terrorism in Iran, or kidnapped. The American warning mentions the traffic: chance of death through traffic accident is ten times the risk in the UK. (The USA has a higher traffic death rate than the UK, but still a lot less than Iran.) The US warning also mentions natural disasters which is comparatively more a risk than it is in the UK. But, when I read up about Peru, there were all sorts of examples of warnings of dodgy taxi drivers, kidnappings, etc. Similar for many other countries, e.g. Central America.

teddybear99

I go to the Philippines often, and never seemed to have a problem with the locals, even in the provinces outside of Manila. The main thing, though, is I will not step into anyone's arguments as it is not my place to do so. If it involves my family (my wife and son are Filipinos), I will then get involved.

I get approached often by locals, but if you ignore them, and show you are confident in your attitude, they will leave you alone. That said, it is a good thing to have a nephew who works for the PNP.

OccasionalFlyerPerson

Thanks for this. I've never had anything like that happen. Once when I was dating a Japanese woman in Japan, I had a feeling that there had been some needle between my girlfriend and other people in a restaurant when I visited the gents' toilet. When I came back, there was an unusual atmosphere, but she wouldn't tell me what was wrong.

Badenoch

She probably got accused of being a "Gaijin Hunter" for being out in public with a bata-kusai.

invisible

Comparing to Korea, going out with a foreigner is more acceptable in Japan, especially at big cities.

You want to go where?

My guess, for what it is worth, is that you will be perfectly safe there, barring a traffic accident. I do think it is wiser to travel on the NZ passport. Less political baggage there. (I do assume that you are not of Iranian heritage). I do envy your trip. Iran has some amazing things that I would like to see and I have a number of friends who are of Iranian heritage. I think you will find them an interesting people.

I would like to see what countries would write if it gave frank travel warnings for themselves. While there is a political tinge to some of these warnings, I do think that many are just cya so that if something bad happens, they can say "we told you so." Other times, I think they are pretty realistic.