It is very hard for us to come in the US. Things are better and safer here. When I got here I discovered that people travel to poor and unsafe countries for fun.
Wow, it looks like you probably haven't been around these places in the world, so let me tell you that while we like to discuss about bad experiences, these places are 100x safer and more enjoyable than the US, which is why we travel there in the first place :)
Coming from Eastern Europe, which used to be dangerous in the days following the fall do communism, and coming to the US, the richest country in the world, you expect it to be safer than your poor European country. The reality however is very different.
A lot of my friends did not want to move USA, but security is a major concern. 3x more likely to die on road, 10x violent crime, 20x from overdose. Most people will encounter accidents, crime and other problems in their lives. It is not an anomaly.
I lived in Mexico City for a couple of years and visited around 20 cities. Not only did I never feel uncomfortable or scared, I discovered many beautiful places I could see myself retiring in. When your expectations are very low about a place, you are swept off your feet when you see the amazing reality.
After my travels in Mexico and Latin America, I feel like statistics without proper context and sensationalist news do a big disservice to people. It's a lot more exciting and interesting to focus on pockets of areas where gang-on-gang violence is occurring. People would rather click on article to read about drug related news rather than a piece discussing the many great festivals coming up in Mexico City and around the country.
However, the reality is that life in the majority of the country is just like anywhere you'd imagine, sometimes fun, sometimes normal, and sometimes boring. The only danger being from purposefully looking for trouble or being very unlucky by being at the wrong place at the wrong time.
To put it in another way, someone can also ask why would anyone want to visit the US after all the news about gun violence? Why would anyone want to visit the US after reading about the crime in Detroit, Memphis, South Chicago, Baltimore, etc.
I've been to the US (including Detroit and Chicago) enough to know what it's really like and now understand the context better when reading news articles about crime and violence there.
Honest question.. why do you go to countries like these ?
To me it looks like the risk is not worth at all..
Is being in danger part of the attraction or people really underestimate the dangers of third world countries ?
To avoid broad generalizations, I will just talk about countries I have personally visited, in the last 5 years. If you think the rest of the world is more fucked-up than the US, you are incorrect.
There are much safer and cleaner, less stressful places to live in the world. A few I have seen with my own eyes are Denmark and Japan. I am sure there are others.
It's interesting that a place that has such overwhelmingly friendly people gives the impression of being a terribly dangerous place to visit to so many Americans.
There's a lot of dangerous cities in the world. Lots of countries have weak governments unable to keep the peace, with social life disrupted by crime, strife, unrest, distrust. But there are also lots of countries that are much, much safer than the US.
Crime rate in the US is not an issue, but when talking about travelling in to the US advice like leaving your phone at home etc is quite common. That does influence some people, not to a big degree yet, but it's not getting better atm is it?
It's not a bad place for a tourist with a US passport on an ample budget. It's a bad place with dire job prospects for anyone trying to start a life there. Instead of "travelling the world in your 20s", these people travel across Europe drug trafficking just to be able to stand on their feet.
Sure, you can be unlucky and get into bad situations in every country. Strangely these things happen to me only in the US.
I would compare the feeling of safety when walking the streets of major American cities like San Francisco or Pittsburgh with the feeling of safety when walking around in Rio de Janeiro. You feel much safer in London, Paris, Berlin, or Munich.
> I definitely understand people's concern about not wanting to be subject to the dark death dealing of hammer, knife, and machine gun toting drugged Americans, but we're really like any large country. Things have to do with the city that is visited, since the country is vast with many cultures and differences throughout.
I understand that things depend a lot on where you are within a country but as someone speaking about the safety of a country as a whole, the average is pretty important. It's also worth pointing out that many of the places a tourist would consider visiting are places with above average crime rates.
I have traveled all over europe ON FOOT, which usually means i walk trough all sorts of hoods, never ever even once i was in place where i would say its a No-Go, then i visited my aunt in florida for a month and experienced robbery at a gun point, prostitute harassing me, and 'what u looking at' comments, from my experience usa is worse than third world as iv been to morocco and mauritania and senegal and had great experience with free hospital care.
It isn't all peaches and cream in the US. You guys have some pretty rough areas too, it's just they're known as ghettos. And of course there's Mexico right next to you, which even I felt unsafe in many areas (and I grew up near Soweto).
I can understand your unease with visiting the US, and I certainly don't wish to dismiss your valid concerns, but I think tragic and hateful events like this can also serve to highlight the good in people.
It should be noted that one of the injured was some random white dude who tried to pursue the gunman.
Again, I understand why you feel the way you do and I'm not dismissing those concerns, but there are a lot of wonderful people in the US as well.
These things happen, but they are incredibly unlikely to happen to you. They're trumpeted in the media and discussed on HN because they are so outrageous to our sensibilities, not because they are common, everyday occurrences. They're very rare in a country of 300 million - but still too common on the grounds they should never happen.
In reality, you would be much better off and safer visiting the US now than you would have been in the past - especially the 60s and 80s.
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