Thailand ranked as top-10 safest tourist destination: and it's true

One of the things that worried me when I first came over to visit Thailand years ago was the fact that I was rather inexperienced as an international traveler and as such, I was a little worried about the stigma surrounding the dangers that exist outside of my home country. In films and according to my own government, foreign countries, especially poorer ones like Thailand, these countries are filled with dangers that don't exist in my home country.

This notion was terribly wrong and I realized this very quickly when I arrived in Thailand. I consider Thailand to be one of the safest places I have ever been in my life and now I have some sort of media confirmation of this.

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The survey was conducted by Berkshire Hathaway Travel Protection and I guess this can be trusted to a certain degree since they are in the business of charging you a certain amount based on the safety levels that they determine. I don't have a whole lot of love for insurance companies but if they are going to charge you less for travel insurance based on whether or not they think your cell phone is going to be stolen or not, they probably have a good reason for feeling that way. They stand to gain very little by lying about this.

Other countries that made the top 10 include South Korea, Switzerland, Japan, Ireland, and New Zealand... among others. I have only ever been to one of those other countries and can confirm that I felt very safe in it as well.

In the years that I have spent in Thailand I have never felt that I was ever in any danger even when I was in unknown situations and even felt at times as though I was in the "wrong part of town" and was terribly lost.

I have never been in a violent situation other than when a bar fight broke out that didn't involve me and sadly, all of these situations involved drunken foreigners that were probably arguing over something stupid. It's kind of a tradition back in my home country for this to happen and I would imagine that it is common in other western countries as well.

I have never had anything stolen from me in this country even though the house that I currently live in does not have security of any sort. In fact, there was one time that I had to break into my own house because I lost my keys and it was remarkably easy for me to accomplish this despite the fact that I am by no means a mechanical guy or someone with breaking and entering experience of any sort.

I have never had a run-in with dangerous people on the street and unfortunately this is all-too-common in my home country of USA. It seems as though it is a sport of sorts with certain people, primarily the youth, to harass, attack, rob, or intimidate strangers on the street.

I have been overcharged for a taxi here and there but that is the extent of the crime that I have had directed at me in the years that I have been here. This is a quite minor thing because this has happened to me in my home country as well but in a more covert way where the person intentionally drove the long way in order to get the meter up as high as possible. I would be willing to bet that this is kind of a predatory scam that is done by unscrupulous taxi drivers the world over. It is less of an issue today than it was when I first arrived or even when I lived back in America because these days almost everyone uses some sort of taxi app in order to get where they are going.

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Although it is unfair to lump all of the people into the same category, the one piece of advice that I give to people when they are visiting Thailand is to be VERY careful whenever riding in a tuk-tuk like the one pictured above. For some reason, your chances of being ripped off is much higher with these guys, particularly in tourist areas.

At the end of the day it is ultimately your fault if you do get ripped off by these guys because you really aught to have some sort of idea about how much it should cost to get to your destination before sitting down and it is common knowledge that you should always negotiate a price before setting off to wherever you are going.

After more than 3 years of living in Thailand and traveling all over the place - although admittedly my travels have been almost exclusively to heavily traveled tourist locations - I can say that I feel much safer in Thailand than I do in my home country.

Right now Thailand is still a rather difficult country to travel to because of all the requirements they have based on Covid fear, I still think that this is a very easy choice to make for anyone considering visiting South East Asia. It is incredibly safe here and this is pretty amazing to me considering the fact that the police don't really seem to enforce anything. Perhaps it is Buddhism, perhaps it is the rather subservient upbringing that happens here. I'm not sure. All I can say is that the conclusions of this report are true and Thailand is extremely safe and people, especially Americans, can visit here with a calm demeanor because I am yet to meet anyone that has been a victim of some terrible crime. I knew plenty that had been, including myself, back in USA.