Safety in Thailand

The main reason many people find Thailand safe is that there isn’t a lot of violent crime here. Even if you walk home in Bangkok in the middle of the night, you are unlikely to face physical harm, certainly not as a man. I’d be lying if I said I knew for a fact that this was true for women, though anecdotally I don’t know a single woman in Thailand who has been sexually assaulted.

The lack of hard crime in Thailand is definitely worth celebrating. It’s a big part of why I spend so much time there (and in Asia more broadly) and not in places like South America, as much as I like it there. On the other hand, there’s still a certain amount of danger in Thailand, and it unfortunately takes several forms, some of which can be hard to anticipate, if you’ve never been there. Please allow me to break some of them down.

The Most Dangerous Things in ThailandThe roads

Would you believe me if I told you that every white person I knew who’d rented a motorbike in Thailand ended up having an accident? The rate isn’t quite 100%, but it is very high. Even if you don’t go this route, the reality is that Thailand has more road accidents per day, per capita than almost any other country in the world.

Food (and mosquito)-borne illness

The good news? Malaria is incredibly rare in Thailand, and while Dengue fever is slightly more common, you can avoid it by wearing mosquito repellent consistently at nighttime. The bad news? Another type of sickness—food-borne illness—continues to make Thailand dangerous from a health perspective.

Petty theft

My mind is as deep in the gutter as anyone’s, but I don’t laugh when I see signs warning of “snatch theft” along roads in Bangkok and throughout Thailand. Indeed, it’s never happened to me, but I do know for a fact that thieves on motorcycles will snatch people’s bags as they speed by, to say nothing of good old-fashioned pickpocketing.

Scams

Even though Thailand is safe from violent crime, you may encounter any other number of criminal types here. Scammers are a common one—and they take many forms. In some cases, it’s a matter of a taxi driver refusing to use the meter, or a market seller deliberately giving you the wrong change back. Other times, it’s much worse.