Safety traveling to France

I would feel as safe there as anywhere. No use worrying about something that is likely not to happen. None of us can control when it is our time. You could lock yourself in your house and not be any better off...and bored as well.

This has been discussed recently and not so recently; I would go in a heartbeat, with the usual precautions:

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/france/common-sense-precautions-in-paris

Thank you! I just want to be smart. We were just in Israel 2 months ago and felt totally safe. As you said, there are things going on here in the States right within my city. A friend went to Turkey yesterday for a wedding and now the airport is shut down. His wife is worried that he won't be able to come back.

France, no worries. Will be heading there in September.

Turkey - keep an eye on this as Erdoyan is trying to fundamentally change the country, and not for the better.

Yes, our trip is in a month instead of yours in a week, but we'll be going to France as planned.

No, I don't feel totally safe but I think there's virtually no chance that we'll be hurt in a terrorist attack.

If your lodging and transport reservations are already paid for, I will step forward and volunteer to take your place. I promise to take plenty of pictures and let you know how things go. ;-)

"...feel safe going to France....? Depends where in France is how I see if I were going , say next week.

When you compare the frequency of mass shootings in the USA (nearly daily) with the frequency of terrorism in France, it's an easy call.

Please don't worry about the "wrong" things. Do you allow your teenaged son to drive with more than one passenger the same age in the car .... ? "With peer passengers in the car, male teen drivers were almost six times more likely to perform an illegal maneuver and twice more likely to act aggressively before crashing than when driving alone." 933 passengers died in 2011 with a teenager behind the wheel. Are you still worried about terrorism?

We just got back from France last Sunday. We were there for a month, traveled all over the country ending our trip in Paris during the Eurocup semifinals. We felt completely safe and would do it again in a heartbeat!

I'm with Tim on this. Compared to our gun culture in the US, it's an easy call. I just returned from five weeks in France and I never felt unsafe. Turn off cable news and focus on packing. Wish I could join you!

I just made my first trip to Paris in May and I would return right this minute if possible. Be aware of your surroundings but I expect that once you arrive and start exploring you'll forget all about being anxious--at least that's what happened with me.

I just arrived and felt very safe today. Life is going on as usual here--we did a boat tour, had dinner at an outdoor café, took the metro, got ice cream and pastries. Check out the thread I started called "common sense precautions in Paris"--lots of great advice. Have a good trip!

We are going for two months, Paris for a month and wending our way down to eventually fly out of Nice. Safety in France is the least of our worries. What with packing for two months, making reservations, remembering what is important to bring, etc. We just had a mass shooting in our very own Dallas. We can't be less safe in France.

We arrived in Paris from Prague via Cologne today. The Paris train station felt militarized. There were police in numbers on the platforms of Paris Nord for international trains. We saw two families, both black and the only black people we saw exiting the train, questioned. We, and everyone else sailed right by. The racial profiling unsettled us, but we didn't feel unsafe.

On the night train from Prague to Cologne we saw police at every station before we went to bed. We saw no one threatened or questioned.

In five days we are meeting friends in London who were just in Paris. They reported heaven security in museums and even to enter gardens. But they didn't feel endangered. They saw what we saw on the train platforms.

We have noticed this whole trip that crowds are way down in Amsredam, Salzburg, Vienna, and Prague. Two twenty minute lines in Prague are the worst lines so far. Our friends warn us security lines in Paris may run that long.

We really haven't worried more than usual about safty. Nice made us worry about my mother and my husband's father being worried more than it scared us by far. I suspect I'm safer on Paris streets than driving the freeway.

Bottom line : if someone offered you make it possible for me to stay another month, I would. And I wouldn't feel unsafe.

We just got back on Sunday from a 3.5 week Europe trip. We were in Paris four days right in the middle of the train strike and the Euro Cup. We never felt unsafe at any time, but it still wasn't what I expected. The atmosphere in Paris was very different this trip than it was when we were there 12 years ago, and understandably so, based on everything they've gone through in the past few years. The city just kinda felt...sad. It's like it lost its "spark." There were armed police and military at most of the tourist sites, and there were entire homeless families sleeping on the streets. Security was tight at all of the major attractions - we quickly learned just to cram the necessities into my small purse, rather than carrying around a daypack while sightseeing. This is certainly not a problem exclusive to Paris - I feel the same way about some of my favorite American cities - NYC, Orlando, Atlanta, Miami. It just made me sad to see it happen to Paris.

But getting back to your original question - I felt completely safe in Paris while we were there, and my teenage daughter and I separated from my husband and son a few times to do different activities without feeling the least bit nervous.

There's no doubt France has had more than its share of tragic attacks recently. It's almost impossible not to feel some anxiety about that.

But I figure every time I get in my car to drive anywhere, my statistical chances of being hurt or killed are much, much higher than a terrorist attack happening at the place I happen to be at the exact time I happen to be there while traveling. Yet I never think twice about getting in my car.

And so I go - We'll be in Paris in September!

If you can base your decision to go or no go on rational risk assessment, then it is an easy call. The fear, and that is the whole purpose of these attacks, that is raised is irrational. Once the fear becomes irrational along with an element of emotion, then logic, reasoning, assessment, etc., has no impact on reducing the fear. It becomes, Yes. but ...... We are facing that problem at the moment with friends who had intended to travel to southern France with us in September. My guess is that we will go alone. We can have the logic discussion but the negating self worry, (I am sure your are right, but ..) makes it difficult to make a comfortable decision for them. And for that reason, I would never say to anyone that is safe to go to France or that it is not safe to go France. We just make sure our wills are in order and someone has a key to safety deposit box.

When I was in Vienna towards the end of May to 9 June, 9 nights, it did not seem less crowded. People were checking in to the hotel everyday of all nationalities, esp Asian tourists. The tourist areas Hofburg, Schönbrunn, Stephansdom, were crowded enough. It was very crowded, likewise the day trip I took to Prague from Dresden in the third week of June. Berlin was crowded as usual, Hbf, Alexanderplatz, Friedrichstrasse, spent ten nights at the Pension, every room was taken.

Maybe July was different in Vienna. True, on the flight over to FRA on 24 May there were numerous seats empty, ie, out of a row of five , two were occupied.