Safest feeling place you’ve been to/lived in?

[Howcoldjesus]

I found the thread on here about the places people have found unsafe very interesting.
Where are the places you’ve visited/lived that have felt the safest?
I live in Portugal at the moment and feel v safe in most areas. I also felt safe staying in New South Wales in Australia and Cornwall and Abersoch

On my barge on a dangerous tidal river in South East England. It's a small community, we all know each other and although we have some "interesting" people amongst us, there's always someone who'll give a hand if anyone is in trouble.
I've been on this river for forty years, so I know the background of most of the other people.

Where I live now which is a very genteel village. But apart from that - years ago, Glastonbury. A friend moved there and I went to visit her. I was just walking down the street and people smiled and some said, 'Oh you must be J's friend.' Then I lost my purse and realised I must have left it in a phone box (this was before the days of mobile phones) I assumed it would have gone. But It was still there and on my way back from collecting it someone stopped me and said, 'Are you J's friend Owl, because I think you left your purse in a phone box . I didn't move it in case you came back looking for it!'

It just felt like a small town full of alternative, gentle, smiling, kind people with really good souls. It may have changed since then!

Me too. I've spebt a lot of time there abd always felt safe. If you Google safest countries in the world, Portugal is always in the top ten. They have very low crime rates.

I've felt safe everywhere I've lived, including various parts of London. The very safest I've felt was probably in the Home Counties village I grew up in and in the rural village in NW England where I live now. Tbh I haven't barely even been anywhere where I've really felt unsafe. Maybe a couple of bits of London occasionally. Brixton felt a little bit dodgy, but that was a long time ago.

Echoing what otgers have said. I lived in the heart of St Pauls in Bristol for years. We had a fair few murders and other serious crime on our doorstep. I always felt safe as I wasn't involved. I thought the worst that might happen was being mugged. I'm much more afraid of being overpowered, taken away at night in an isolated place. In St Pauls there are always people about, so I walked around quute happily.

The village I grew up in, in rural Lancs. If you've ever read Good Omens, it's like Lower Tadfield was based on it.
Occasional gnome theft, that was it. Like it hadn't progressed past the 50s...

Bruges and Boston.

I felt safe when I studied in Barcelona but in hindsight as 4 out of my 9 flatmates were pickpocketed or mugged I probably wasn't!

I’ve spent a lot of time in Lisbon and feel safe there. My favourite city

Central London felt very safe to me because of all the people out and about til late hours.

I would hear sirens going off every 5 minutes though so clearly not as safe as I imagined.

Shetland! No one locks their door. Staying with a friend on one of the islands she told me to take any car at the ferry terminal to get to her house-“ the keys will be in the ignition and we’ll return it later.”

(The TV series is fiction! 😄)

Safe in London, Central.

Unsafe in the country side areas and parts of the world are no go areas to wander about after dark imho

London is the only place in England I'd be out after dark, maybe cause I grew up here but safety in numbers and all that etc.

Shetland

Interesting difference between where you 'feel' safest and when you 'are' safest. Statistically you are safest alone in an isolated house in the country miles from anywhere. Add a vivid imagination and you don't 'feel' safe.

Statistically if you are involved with drugs/gangs/violence you're not safe anywhere. Diito anyone living with domestic violence :(

Luxembourg. Tokyo. Felt really safe in bith.

The worst place where I felt constantly on edge was Manila. I hated it.

I live in the lower north shore in Sydney and feel very safe. Previously lived in east London and although I personally never felt threatened I certainly had to have my wits about me more than I do in Sydney and definitely more conscious about decisions (would never run early morning or late at night in London for example)

Did a year abroad at uni split between Switzerland and Spain. Switzerland was a dream, but I think that was because they didn’t seem to speak to strangers very much. I’d prance along in my going out clothes at all hours of the morning down dark streets (19 year old immortality complex) and wouldn’t worry at all. In Spain, I really felt the difference and was constantly watching my bags, walking with keys between my fingers, and didn’t like going out at night on my own.

We are currently in NE Scotland, but I grew up in Glasgow and it’s like night and day. Largely because there’s literally nobody here to make me feel unsafe I reckon 😅 our neighbours are at least 800m up the road.

It's funny how people are using UK cities but then saying whole countries - like Cardiff followed by Singapore as in the whole of Singapore 🤭.

@AllProperTeaIsTheft Which rural village is that, if you don’t mind me asking (I’m originally from the North west)

This is such a great point. Also add being a minority and being chronically online me and you couldn't pay me to visit certain safe places.

Interesting difference between where you 'feel' safest and when you 'are' safest. Statistically you are safest alone in an isolated house in the country miles from anywhere. Add a vivid imagination and you don't 'feel' safe

I was going to say this! I’m sure I read a book saying that people feel safe when others are around (eg late at night) but that is actually less safe so it’s a bit of an illusion.

It's funny how people are using UK cities but then saying whole countries - like Cardiff followed by Singapore as in the whole of Singapore

For Singapore, it’s a city state. I think the whole country is about the same size as Greater London!

I lived in St Andrews for a while and felt so safe it was like going back to a simpler time. Makes total sense that the royal family sent William there for a quiet life.

Also agree that the Nordics feel very safe, especially Denmark in my experience.

Agree very much with @venusandmars .

It also depends which statistics you look at. Only this week at school we were looking at various "top 10 most dangerous" and depending which crime/population group you feed into the parameters, Sweden (for example) came out as not safe at all. Both Spain and Italy came out as statistically safer from being the victim of most types of crime.

That said, in the UK I feel perfectly safe in Bath and central London.

Abroad, nowhere in the last 20 years have I felt actively unsafe. But I lived in Brussels in 1986 and 1987 and was attacked 3 separate times at 3 separate railway stations. Pervs galore. (I've been back since and found it completely changed)

Rural Pembrokeshire where I grew up. I still feel safest in the countryside.

Brixton in the 1980s/90s. It was very lively and we were burgled a few times, but it had such a lovely community feeling. I was even verbally abused by a homophobe once and me and my abuser and a passer by all ended up laughing at the stupidity of it all.
Great times.