I lived for 6 months in what was easily the most violent neighborhood, in the most violent city, in the most violent country in the world at the time. After a while I came to an interesting insight: as a outsider, you don't really have to fear for your life. You might get robbed, potentially with a threat of violence, which can be a scary experience, but you won't get randomly stabbed or shot. This is simply because random violence is incredibly rare...almost all violence has a motive, and as an outsider, you're too disconnected from the world you're visiting for anybody to have a real beef with you. You're simply not anybody else's drama.

There are some places which are definitely unsafe as a tourist. In particular, post-colonial countries where your appearance might connect you to a long-held grudge, or places where the prevalent politics are threatening to people of your nationality, or active warzones where you might get caught in the crossfire. And admittedly, I experienced this as a male, and might feel completely differently as a female. But for the vast majority of places with violent reputations among the locals, you can visit for short periods of time without incident.

> But perhaps even locals don't visit these areas much so they might not know what they're really like? It does certainly look like a place that would make most people turn around.

I think that's mostly the case. Ferentari is not really dangerous, just depressing and maybe dangerous-looking. I've felt significantly more unsafe in the banlieues of Paris.

Would have been hilarious if we had run into each other there and never realized it :)

I've lived there for two years total, still have fond memories of all the parks and the beauty behind the grime.

I think part of it is practice and part is being a big dude.

Check out his book, Dignity. Super good. He does this in the US, hanging in the “worst” neighborhoods. So he has lots of practice.

True, I'm also a 'big dude'. Some of my colleagues are often terrified when I tell them I walked late at night through an unknown city :)

But I don't scare so easily and I think I have a decent 'radar' for situations that are really not OK, from working in bars for a long time. Of course the first time I'll be proven wrong about this I'll regret this. But anyway. I need this to make me feel free on a business trip, when so much of my schedule is already set in stone.

Having said that I have seen some heartbreaking stuff in Romania. I saw a woman with a baby sleeping on the street (thankfully in summer). Another time one woman approached me offering sex just so she could stay in my warm hotel room (it was -15C at the time). I felt so bad she had so little she was willing to go that far (she was clearly not a professional, those tend to dress differently). Of course I didn't take her up on it but I gave her some money though I didn't have a lot on me. It really made me sad to see this.

And another time there was an old lady in the subway begging for money, with the usual accoutrements like a shopping bag with blankets etc. I gave her some money and spoke to her for a while and to my surprise she had excellent English. Turned out she wasn't homeless at all but she was a school teacher who was cheated out of most of her state pension by some privatisation scheme imposed just before she retired, and really needed money for her husband's medical treatments.

Sure she could have been scamming me but she was razor sharp and she could tell me exactly what was going on in the world. Not a typical homeless person on the booze. She told me a lot about how old people are getting the short end of the stick right now in Romania and young people get all the opportunities. She also didn't try to ask for more money at any point (though I did give her more after we'd been speaking so long as I felt really bad for "blocking" her chance of collecting more).

What shocked me a lot is that the benefits of joining the EU seem to be exclusively falling to young people and the old are completely left out. Right beside our fancy office tower there was a block where some people had plastic bags for windows. I would stand there at the coffee dock trying to look away. So sad. I think when they joined the EU we should have made more point of the benefits being spread fairly.

You can see the same on the streets. Brand new $100.000 Mercedeses and Audis among Dacias that have clearly been built during communist rule. There seems to be almost no middle class, with the exception of the upcoming young generation.