re: Most unsafe or unsafe event that happened in your travels

Kinda boring answer, but my daughter and I almost got hit by a bus in Santiago, Chile. It was going much faster than I thought (probably about 50 mph), and the driver did not take his foot off the gas. It couldn't have missed us by more than a few inches.

Interesting thread!

Hmmmm....

Two things come to mind.

As part of a high school graduation trip in the late 70's, went to Haiti and the Dominican Republic with a friend. Upon landing in Port-Au-Prince, we were directed to a room by guards armed with machine guns and told to strip. They searched for drugs and let us on our way.

Second, was in Krakow last December. This dude comes up to my wife speaking some gibberish in Polish. Not just a typical panhandler type. I was behind her. Thought maybe he'd just piss off and leave, but he kept jabbering about something. I walk up between them and say NO real loudly. FYI, I've been training in Krav Maga for almost 8 years. Never had to use it, but I felt like the moment of truth was near. A quick throat pluck and he'd have gone down. Now, this was in a public square, in a foreign country, so I just let it play out and he left. I was actually ready to get some that day.

Been welcomed to Port-au-Prince with machine gun fire in the air while waiting in traffic. Some people kind of dispersed most people just acted like it was a normal occurrence including the driver

I got pickpocketed in downtown Lima, Peru during morning rush hour. Loads of people crossing the street and this a-hole comes darting towards me and gets in front of me. Instinctively I put my arms out to push him away and I felt something on my left front pocket. I reach down into my pocket-nothing but pocket and leg. His partner got me from behind. The Embassy Consulate told me I was lucky I didn't get jabbed as well, as was the norm. My PADI Card (Diving License) saved my arse in getting a new passport issued as it has my picture on it. It was in my briefcase at the hotel.

Most nervous I’ve ever been was trying to protect/guide a group of belligerently drunk women through the side streets of the French Quarter while in a tux after a wedding. We were all coming from the wedding and I told them not to go out after, but of course that fell on the deaf ears of oblivious white women. No idea how nothing happened to us that night because of course they had to interact with every sketchy figure lurking in the shadows.

I was outside the Capitol when the Capitol Police Officer was killed a couple of years ago by the car that ran into the barricade. That was wild.

A few years ago, my wife found some bar she wanted to visit in NYC. We went and got hammered and didn’t leave until closing. It was in some rough warehouse district and it was completely dark when we exited. I could see figures coming out of the shadows and following us, so I ran into the middle of the next major street we found and flagged down a taxi. That was scary.

Was getting off the subway at the Galleria Borghese exit in Rome. I was 21 at the time with my girlfriend. I had a backpack on. The top had a small padlock but the bottom front pocket (Jansport bag) had my film. I was carrying a tripod. I made eye contact with someone as we exited the train… just felt weird.

We were walking to the exit and I could feel someone digging in my backpack. Somehow either out of the corner of my eye or a reflection I saw someone in my bag. I told my girlfriend run… she said what… I turned and swung my tripod like a baseball bat and smoked the frick out of the guy. Mind you I had just finished playing D1 baseball at the time. I then yelled to her fricking run! I can still remember the homeless lady begging for money as we exited the subway.

While in Kenya in 2007 on a mission trip. Our driver is driving our group (10 of us) in a large van on dirt roads in the middle of nowhere.

All of a sudden we come to spikes across the road and what appears to be Kenyan cops armed with machine guns. Our driver stops and before they walk up he quickly tells us to put away anything valuable and just keep quiet (our driver is Kenyan). We see machine guns pointed at us and we are freaking out.

Cops and driver talk to each other in Swahili and one of cops pokes his head in the van to look at us. Back to more talking and then spikes are lifted and we are allowed to drive by.

Driver tells us if we had not been in the van he would have certainly been robbed. Kenyan police very corrupt and will set up stops all the time to rob people. But they don’t want to deal with Americans complaining to the US embassy so as soon as they saw us they let us go.

My brother in law was in Mexico a year ago for work.

He got picked up(company driver)from the airport. On the way to the hotel, the driver said he needed to stop and get gas. Once he parked by the tank, didn't fill up or anything, but just walked inside, 3 armed guys stormed the car and took everything and the driver was never found.

I flew by myself into Paris (DeGaulle) ... when I went to catch the train a few taxi drivers surrounded me and told me to take a taxi. I told them no, and tried to get out of the circle. They kept saying taxi, taxi ... so I yelled no really loudly, and the police/military who were standing in the corner looked up, so they dispersed, and I got on the train.

A few things had recently happened, so there were police and military everywhere in Paris. It reminded me of going to Mexico.

In Jamaica. Met another couple at our resort who had a car. They invited us to go hiking in the mountains with them. So we drive way out in the cane fields to get to this place.

We get out of the car in a parking area and there are four or five guys. We say hello and start walking to the trail. They follow. As we go down the trail, more of them start popping out from the woods and they are stalking us. We huddled up and agreed we were in a bad situation and decided to make a hasty retreat back to the car.

We were all martial artists, but there were too many of them to engage in a fight. Luckily we had not walked too far in. We calmly started walking while making eye contact and not panicking (although we were shitting our pants). Got back to the car and hauled arse out of there.

A tourist would never be found out in those cane fields where the Maroons live. If you ever feel uneasy, get the hell out of there.