Travel To Safe Cities
June 19th, 2008. Filed under: Thursday's Travels.Mercer’s gives us some highlights from their 2008 Quality of Living survey. The five safest cities worldwide are:
I’ve spent a fair amount of time working in Helsinki for a former job and I never once felt unsafe. It didn’t matter if it was during the white nights or the dark. I always felt safe. We would take trams from the Kvaerner Masa yards into the downtown area, but if we were out very late they wouldn’t be running when we were ready to go back to our ship. It was not unusual for a bunch of us to go to Casino Ray at the Hotel Presidentti and walk back to the yards any time between midnight and 3:00 a.m. We might walk back in a bunch, or just a couple of us or sometimes I would walk alone. I’m not sure how many miles it was, but I never thought twice about getting out there and walking home. If my steps happened to get a little faster before I got back to the yards, it was only because it gets cold there.
The top five cities in the Americas for personal safety are:
- Calgary, Canada (tied for 22nd)
- Montreal, Canada (tied for 22nd)
- Ottawa, Canada (tied for 22nd)
- Toronto, Canada(tied for 22nd)
- Vancouver, Canada (tied for 22nd)
There’s not a safe United States city until Honolulu at 28. Next are Chicago, Houston and San Francisco all tied for 53. I’ve never been to Honolulu, but I know you wouldn’t catch me walking around Chicago in the middle of the night by myself.
And the city with the honor of bottom place at 215 is Baghdad. I don’t think you should consider vacationing there.