San Francisco named one of safest cities in the world for travelers

SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — In the midst of what’s become a national conversation about crime and public safety in San Francisco, a report has surfaced naming the city as one of the safest in the world for travelers. In the report from Berkshire Hathaway Travel Protection, SF was one of just two U.S. cities ranked among the 15 safest cities for travelers, the other being Honolulu.

The report’s methodology involved pulling a list of the most popular international and domestic cities for U.S. travelers from Expedia, USA Today, Forbes and other sources, asking survey respondents if they’d visited those cities, and then combining results with safe-cities indices from Numbeo, The Economist and GeoSure Global.

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“The Economist has it tied with London as the 15th-safest city, and says it’s safer than Zurich,” the report states. “Numbeo and GeoSure wouldn’t go that far, but agree that it’s fairly safe.”

The report does, however, add a caveat regarding SF’s ongoing struggles with homelessness.

“There’s no way to sugarcoat the fact that homelessness is a problem in San Francisco,” it states. “This unfortunate reality does make petty crime more of a problem for travelers.”

“Happy to see San Francisco on the list of safest cities,” San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie tweeted, “1 of only 2 U.S. cities to make this list.”

The complete list of the safest cities for travelers is as follows:

San Francisco’s inclusion on the list comes in the midst of a standoff of sorts between city and state officials and the Trump administration. President Donald Trump said he was preparing to “surge” the city with federal law enforcement and immigration personnel but canceled the operation after being persuaded by Mayor Lurie and local billionaire tech CEOs that the city’s public safety situation was on a good track toward improvement.

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