Is the United States safe to travel?

Violent crime is increasing and some areas inside the big cities are considered unsafe, especially in the evening and at night. Working and social life ends earlier than in Italy and city centres empty out around 18:00 to 19:00, which also makes transport hard to find.

Thefts from parked cars are rising, above all in San Francisco, and what goes missing is travel documents, credit cards and electronics. Leave nothing in the vehicle.

Hurricanes and tropical storms run roughly from June to November over Florida, the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico as far as Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, and now reach New Jersey and New York too, directly or as a tail end. In the areas hit, expect delays or breaks in air, sea and land links, long outages of communications, power and water, and serious damage to infrastructure and accommodation. Around Miami the peak is late August, September and October; Florida is also one of the states worst hit by lightning, and beaches can be evacuated fast or closed for days.

From August to November in recent years the west coast has seen a sharp rise in very large fires, destroying big stretches of forest in California, Oregon and Washington and forcing mass evacuations of towns. Check conditions carefully before travelling in that window and follow the instructions of the local authorities.

The risk of attacks persists, above all in the big cities but also in smaller communities, where serious firearm incidents happen periodically, and the authorities have published emergency protocols for them. Avoid demonstrations and gatherings, which can degenerate, especially around elections.