martinsmom

Am planning a trip to London with my 2 kids (5 yrs & 2 yrs old). Which are "unsafe" places to avoid in London? We were in Paris last spring and my father-in-law got pickpocketed in the Metro and my husband & I was cornered by thugs in the Metro as well.

Barkinpark

Pickpockets are almost in every tourist areas. I would avoid Camden in south bank.

daisy58

really?? we have been to Paris twice, 2003 and 2004, never any mugging or confrontational experiances at all..,
in fact, in January 03 (snowing, record cold..brrrr), I had apparently dropped one of my gloves in the metro,
and a VERY nice young man caught up to us, before I even knew I had dropped it! And I personally LOVE the metro, so easy to use, goes virtually everywhere..

danandlara

I have been to Paris many, many times. Several times for a girl's trip. I have never had a problem ever.

janisj

I'll bet neither your husband's or father-inlaw's incidents happened in "unsafe" places. Pickpockets work everywhere. One needs take normal precautions where ever they are. And was FIL wearing a money belt?

Everyplace in central London where normal tourists might find themselves will be safe. (don't have a clue what barkinpark is talking about. Camden is not on teh southbank)

daisy58

hubby and I also took the "tube" all over London in 04, no problems, no worries..

Kate_W

Overall, I feel safer in Paris than I did in London (I live in Paris now; I lived in London in 2001-02). But for part of the year in London I was living in North Clapham, on the edge of Brixton and it was just after 9/11, when London authorities pulled a lot of bobbies off their regular beats and put them on terrorist/security patrols.

But - I think that the most of the areas you would visit or stay as a tourist would not pose problems, with only one or two exceptions. For example, I'd recommend that you avoid the cheap hotels around King's Cross Station.

As in other large cities (e.g. New York, where I've also lived), you want to avoid deserted/nearly deserted metro tunnels/overpasses, twisty dead-end streets and deserted parks. (That was one of my problems in London; I lived at the end of a twisty dead-end street, with a shortcut to a housing estate - lots of "underemployed youth" loitering on my street in late afternoon and the evenings). You want to have enough people around you so that thugs aren't tempted to try something, but not so many people jostling you that it's difficult to keep an eye on your belongings (or your kids, for that matter). You also want to be watchful (in terms of keeping track of your belongings) in very crowded environments where it is easy to be distracted. I remember a police public awareness campaign at my tube stop for a while where they were warning people as they got off the tube not to pull their cell phones out as they walked out the station - because thugs were grabbing them.

I found that in London, my greatest concern was petty fraud. Most ATMs are outside on the street, and there is often someone hanging out underneath or beside the ATM. Some of the ATMs have been rigged by crooks with card readers or set up so that someone can watch you punch in your pin number. Be careful when and how you withdraw money - best if one of you does it and the other watches the street. Also, be careful what you do with your credit card receipts (shred them or keep them). I used to find that if I put my garbage on the street more than an hour before pick-up, someone would go through it and pull out the receipts. Also, be very careful about charging purchases or meals - don't let someone walk away with your credit card. You want to watch them at all times. Someone in a store or restaurant took my credit card number (not the card itself) and charged $3500 worth of plane tickets to it.

Despite these kinds of issues, I walked everywhere in central London (and took the metro late in the evening), by myself, and never felt concerned about my personal safety.

john44

London is the safest place in the UK it has less crime per head of population than the rest of the country.

KidsToLondon

Of the areas that most tourists will be going, there are very few dicey areas. I guess some spots near Kings Cross rail/tube station would qualify, and parts of Soho too. Would hate to have to explain to my kids about the activities in some spots...mainly sex-oriented businesses (shops, as well as "mobile vendors&quot. But even that does not pose a direct threat, if any threat, to visitors.

Camden Market--which I assume a previous poster was pointing to--can get pretty zoo-ish at times. Not the most fun if you have young kids in tow. Parts of east London--which typical tourists don't visit (yet)--and some areas on the Southbank are dingy and probably not a good place to take your family group. And even in trendy Notting Hill, I've wondered about family safety at night.

Now, this posting will probably prompt howls of protest. My comments are based upon personal experience at times when I had children kids along. But overall, your comfort level should be fairly high throughout most areas in central London.

Underhill

Years ago my wallet was stolen out of my purse on the green line, but I was being careless.

The only place I've felt unsafe in London was the tube stop new Westbourne Grove around midnight.

cloudboy

Going to be staying near King's Cross this weekend (decent hotel). How bad is this area, really? I accept that there is pickpocketing everywhere, and I really don't get too worked up over what shops are in town. Heck, I have dealt with several dicey areas in San Francisco, Boston, and even NYC. My big fear is getting mugged or shot. Is that common in these areas?

flanneruk

The whines about Kings Cross mostly come from people who've never lived in a proper city - and, I suspect have never actually visited Kings Cross except to change tubes there.

The area's scruffy, there are a few hotels that traditionally have rented by the hour, and there's a fair amount of street activity by pretty unpleasant-looking people. It's also got just about the highest concentration of CCTV cameras in Britain (and that's really saying something). The evidence is that the hookers and dealers have moved north, to an area where there aren't any hotels and no tourist would bother going anyway.

I (and Mrs F) have been walking through the area at all times of day and night for decades, and spent quarter of a century living close by. Apart from the most easily-declined offers to "do business, love?" imaginable (and they've dried up in the past year or so), neither of us have ever seen or been exposed to anything remotely disturbing.

owain

"London is the safest place in the UK it has less crime per head of population than the rest of the country."

Bad use of statistics. This doesn't tell us about the risks to a single individual in London, only that London is heavily populated.

cloudboy

So I stayed between Kings'd Cross and Euston stations. I did wander around the Kings Cross area a bit. Being London, it was light pretty late, so very limited night time experience, but compared to many US cities I did not find this area a problem in the least. PErhaps I never went down the specific streets that people had a problem with, but it was about the same condition as any other city in the US. It is not pretty and clean as other touristy areas in the city, but it was hardly unsafe by any stretch.

blackduff

At lunch today, Sky News had an article about knife attacks in England and there was a score for Lodon. There are eight killings with a knife in London for 2008.

Now I'm not sure if this is good or bad but the stat was double since total in 2006.

Blackduff

PalenQ

Would seem like a 'good' week in Detroit

Cholmondley_Warner

All the knife attacks (about which there is a moral panic) have been youth on youth and mainly in places that no tourist would ever go.

Nowhere a tourist is likely to find themselves is dangerous. Camden Town on a saturday can be a bit lairy, but so can most town centres.

There are places that are near where tourists go that are bloody awful - but you can't really blunder into them by accident.

There is very little public vice trade in London (and what there is isn't in toursity areas). You may well get offered drugs in some of the the trendier placesif you look the type.

Really London is pretty safe - just keep your wits about you, don't get falling-down drunk or stoned and use your common sense. It's when tourists don't do this that they come to grief.

PalenQ

<have been youth on youth and mainly in places that no tourist would ever go>

one apparently happened in proximity to the B&B i stay in in Eltham

Cholmondley_Warner

The boy who was murdered in Lee and the harry potter actor murdered in Sidcup were both at school at St Thomas' RC school in Eltham.

We've got the killers in both cases.

nona1

There was a stabbing in Eltham.

A 47 year old man answered his front door and was stabbed in the stomach. He wasn't robbed.

I could be wrong but something tells me that there was something very 'personal' about this.

The other stabbings have been of teenagers by other teenagers. Still dreadful but probably not something to concern tourists.

We are not talking about totally random stabbings on the street or stabbings relating to robbery/muggings etc.