Voting on a country level here is too coarse, this poll is invalid.
I live in Vietnam and I can see it's getting colored red already but that's unfair.
If you're in Ho Chi Minh City or Hanoi, then for sure you couldn't safely leave your laptop in a cafe. But if youuuUse the edit icon to pin, add or delete clips.'re in a smaller town then you'll be fine. But doesn't that apply to basically every country?
I assume that the majority of people voting here are in one of the big cities and it's coloring the results. But what it really means is that English speakers are clustered in the places where it's not safe, not that the whole country is unsafe.
On the other hand, I see Vietnam is currently green for walkable and that's hilarious, it's one of the least walkable countries in the world. Pavements here are places to do business/park motorbikes, not to mention the heat makes it highly uncomfortable. There's a ratio of ~2 motorbikes per person, nobody walks here.
Yeah, same in the US. I would not leave my laptop in a cafe in SF. I would in the Austin suburbs. I might or might not in Chicago depending on the neighborhood and cafe.
The page says Starbucks, not a random area, random coffee shop. I think it is a valid test. Starbucks is properly staffs, in reasonably busy area, the shop is enclosed.
Starbucks locations in the US are not limited to areas that are low crime. They are as ubiquitous as McDonald’s if not more so.
Mostly I think this website is just a stereotype collector and in that sense is very counterproductive. It’s going to be a bunch of people who want to report their biases.
You'll also need to just chop New York into two and split the city off. NYC data skews the rest of the state so hard...
(north country anectedote: we leave our doors unlocked and laptops, keys, wallets, and iphones straight up in plain view in parking lots up here in rural nowhere. people are dumb.)
- MacBooks are not very attractive theft targets anyway, when properly locked you can only sell them for parts. Wallet or camera or non-Apple laptop would be much more telling.
- Except for Japan, most places it depends on specifics. Who is around, where exactly is the branch, time of day/year (in a couple of countries petty theft rises before Lunar New Year when struggling people especially need money), did you leave a whole setup on your table or is it just lonely closed-lid laptop so someone can pretend it's theirs.
- "Safe to walk at night" isn't what people usually mean by "walkable". Most of the countries in the top are not "walkable".
- This does not account for race and gender. Some white male techbro is probably fine walking alone at night in most places in Thailand, but a woman or an Asian person is another story. The other year multiple people were kidnapped and it caused a big drop in tourism, and a few years earlier double murder of Westerners had some official say the woman should be either ugly or not wear bikini.
- China in the top is funny, I'm aware of multiple knife attacks on foreigners (one happened in central Beijing and I was in the city at the time).
It seems that lower percentage = safer/ more trusting, but that’s the opposite of how the question is phrased, where a higher fraction of affirmative votes means safer. Also, please avoid red-yellow-green gradients because up to 10% of the male population has trouble distinguishing red and green.
you are taking this too literally. try to see it as proxy for questions like 'will i get my wallet back from uber drive' or 'will my purse be snatched by street scooters'
I think poster means a local area, not a locally-owned coffee shop. Meaning in NYC it doesn't matter if it's a Starbucks or Locally owned shop, you still wouldn't leave the laptop.
However, if it's a local coffee shop in the middle of Nebraska, you would be ok.
My first day in Japan (early 90’s) I was in a train station in Tokyo. A suited businessman waiting in a long line put his briefcase on the floor and left the line for a few minutes. He returned to his spot with a newspaper. The case was still there. He had not looked around nor displayed any doubt nor hesitation. Nobody reacted or noticed.
I was born and raised in New York City. This was science fiction to me.
I was surprised to see in Taiwan last year several instances of people walking into a cafe and leaving their phone on the table to indicate the table was occupied and then going up to the counter to order.
in korea u can literally leave ur wallet, laptop, expensive bag at your table and go eat lunch or do something else for an hr and come back and it'll still be there (and people are used to it). one of the few places that surprised me more than japan lol.
South Korea has CCTVs all over the place (especially in the cities), and even small-scale robbery is treated as a very serious crime that often it's not worth the risk.
It’s not only the CCTVs, haha. In Korea, even petty theft is culturally treated as a pretty serious offense. People generally see stealing itself as crossing a big line.
Even if the votes are highly accurate, there is no circumstance in which I would want to leave my laptop at a Starbucks. There is a likelihood I may forget, but certainly not intentionally leaving it. That said, there are places where people leave their cell phones, keys, etc just to reserve a table in a food court while they go off to buy their food. I guess this map could be a proxy on which countries are safe to do that.
I can bet with my Macbook to have it in any random coffee shop in Riyadh, Jeddah, or any other City in Saudi , and I can say that is Applicable to Cities like Dubai Doha, these cities have a high level of prosperity, people are there don’t have to steal, and every worker in the country already by law have working permits otherwise he couldn’t stay
Those countries have pruned-controlled immigration systems. What leads to sudden disruptions in observances of law are newcomers who are not familiar with how things work in the new culture. If someone were to walk into town where all the shops and stores keep their doors open and have a box on the counter for payment when someone feels like they need something, it would be a strange sight. And this person would wrestle with the idea of taking something and not paying in full with a bunch of pros and cons. Maybe after some time he will understand better how to proceed.
Interesting, the map author marked Crimea as part of Russia, but for some reason doesn't mark 4 other Ukranian regions as Russian. Cannot choose the right side?
Seems right. This site uses `React Simple Maps` library with `Natural Earth` map data. Natural earth marks crimea Russian territory[0] in their "default" map data.
Good idea, but a hard dealbreaker issue: clicking "Yes, totally" or "Hell no" is never accepted, as it always returns "Couldn't verify you're human — please try again.". Clicking a country in the list will also show a white page. But keep going, you have built something useful here my friend ;)
It's a tricky one as I've left my laptop in Glasgow, London, Tokyo, Seoul, and Berlin. I would say ancedotally they are all of varying levels of safety on the whole as a city, but it depends on the situation and judging it correctly. The only time I've ever had my phone or any piece of tech stolen was in Japan, which many would think was safer.
For the US this really needs to broken down by state and even county. I know places were you can leave valuables with little likelihood of them being stolen and places where they would be gone in seconds. Small towns where most people know each other are very different to large cities.
Australian here, and the differing wording on the site kind of changes my answer. I believe I 'can' but also that I 'wouldn't'.
I'm not worried about theft, but see 'reserving' a seat like that as rude, and 10 minutes as longer than is reasonable.
(Pragmatically – I’m more concerned about having an awkward interaction with a barista that cleared the table and put the laptop somewhere, than about someone stealing the laptop)
I would like to see a ranking for countries where you can ship RAM without it getting stolen on the way. I just got mine stolen by someone at Amazon last week so I’m a bit bitter right now!
Every cafe is different and cafes in each country vary heavily by city and area and I am not sure if I have recommendations on how to make crowd sourced data more reliable but I like the work done.
Semantics, but are there really random coffee shops in Antarctica? I assumed no, though a quick search suggests a place called Coffeehouse at McMurdo Station, some at South Pole Station, and then assorted local station cafeterias. Even so. I guess I'd still vote yes though, so...
This reminds me of Hoodmaps, lightweight crowdsourcing with immediate utility.
Main issue is probably self reporting bias, people may vote based on national pride rather than risk levels.
Obviously Japan. My first year there I actually was stupid and left my phone/keys at the table when I went to the toilet and things like that. After a while I realised that while the chances of theft are very small, they are not zero.
very cool idea! Like others have said, "country" doesn't feel like the right level of aggregation. Municipality, street, or even coffee shop itself would feel more natural, although there's a sure trade-off with the effort to source the data
You should probably find a proper e-waste collector, but I guess if you can't find one, you could leave it at Starbucks and someone will take care of it?
I voted "yes" for Antarctica, because that is the only place I'm confident about.
But seriously, I don't think this website solves the problem of knowing "which countries you can simply leave your laptop at a Starbucks, and where you can't".
It's just a rough indicator of percepted crime rate among a nation.
Canada is currently at 31%, and I call BS. Some of us have this self-image of a country where people trust each other, but that doesn't make it true.
On one hand, I dropped my brand new iPhone 4 (whatever year that was) at a concert, and it was waiting for me at the bar. Multiple people did the right thing in that particular case.
On the other hand, I've had a backpack and camera stolen. I've even had toilet paper stolen while I was loading my car (during COVID). I've worked in offices where laptops have been stolen. Everyone has a story like this.
I had my phone fell from my pocket while in a dancing club at night. Someone found it, took it to the bartender and I got it back (saw the location on my computer using Google's find your phone).
But would I deliberately leave my phone or laptop unattended on the table at a random coffee shop that I know nothing about? Probably fine but not taking that risk. Also as others pointed out, context matters. A small indoor coffee shop while I visit the toilet? No problem. Large crowded outside terrace? I'm not stupid.
I mean, I wouldn't leave an unattended laptop anywhere. Maybe the real test is "if you had forgotten your laptop at a coffee shop for ten minutes, what probability would you assign to going back there and successfully recovering it?".
For Greece, it would be pretty high, but I wouldn't just randomly leave a laptop, because the off chance of something happening is still not worth the trouble.
This is complete nonsense. I am French and there is no way you can compare the northern suburbs of Paris with its western ones. Or the middle of Auvergne.
It's like asking the question "is it safe to cross here" for any road in the country.
Complete nonsense map. Some more useful questions: Is English spoken? Is water deep? Is there fuel?
Why? Stop reserving public or publicly available spots. I you leave anything from laptop to beach towel unattended for longer than 5 minutes you're an asshole.
Voting on a country level here is too coarse, this poll is invalid.
I live in Vietnam and I can see it's getting colored red already but that's unfair.
If you're in Ho Chi Minh City or Hanoi, then for sure you couldn't safely leave your laptop in a cafe. But if youuuUse the edit icon to pin, add or delete clips.'re in a smaller town then you'll be fine. But doesn't that apply to basically every country?
I assume that the majority of people voting here are in one of the big cities and it's coloring the results. But what it really means is that English speakers are clustered in the places where it's not safe, not that the whole country is unsafe.
On the other hand, I see Vietnam is currently green for walkable and that's hilarious, it's one of the least walkable countries in the world. Pavements here are places to do business/park motorbikes, not to mention the heat makes it highly uncomfortable. There's a ratio of ~2 motorbikes per person, nobody walks here.
> Voting on a country level here is too coarse, this poll is invalid.
> I live in Vietnam and I can see it's getting colored red already but that's unfair.
Also, it's a tiny sample: eight votes to represent a country of 100 million people.
Yeah, same in the US. I would not leave my laptop in a cafe in SF. I would in the Austin suburbs. I might or might not in Chicago depending on the neighborhood and cafe.
The page says Starbucks, not a random area, random coffee shop. I think it is a valid test. Starbucks is properly staffs, in reasonably busy area, the shop is enclosed.
Starbucks locations in the US are not limited to areas that are low crime. They are as ubiquitous as McDonald’s if not more so.
Mostly I think this website is just a stereotype collector and in that sense is very counterproductive. It’s going to be a bunch of people who want to report their biases.
> The page says Starbucks, not a random area, random coffee shop.
Yes but the HN title says "random coffee shop".
Yeah but still way too granular.
There’s 50 US states. Many are very different.
It’d be even better if it was city based.
You'll also need to just chop New York into two and split the city off. NYC data skews the rest of the state so hard...
(north country anectedote: we leave our doors unlocked and laptops, keys, wallets, and iphones straight up in plain view in parking lots up here in rural nowhere. people are dumb.)
There's many issues with this.
- MacBooks are not very attractive theft targets anyway, when properly locked you can only sell them for parts. Wallet or camera or non-Apple laptop would be much more telling.
- Except for Japan, most places it depends on specifics. Who is around, where exactly is the branch, time of day/year (in a couple of countries petty theft rises before Lunar New Year when struggling people especially need money), did you leave a whole setup on your table or is it just lonely closed-lid laptop so someone can pretend it's theirs.
- "Safe to walk at night" isn't what people usually mean by "walkable". Most of the countries in the top are not "walkable".
- This does not account for race and gender. Some white male techbro is probably fine walking alone at night in most places in Thailand, but a woman or an Asian person is another story. The other year multiple people were kidnapped and it caused a big drop in tourism, and a few years earlier double murder of Westerners had some official say the woman should be either ugly or not wear bikini.
- China in the top is funny, I'm aware of multiple knife attacks on foreigners (one happened in central Beijing and I was in the city at the time).
> in a couple of countries petty theft rises before Lunar New Year when struggling people especially need money
I'm ignorant. Why does the Lunar New Year increase the need for funds?
Strong culture of gifting/sending money to family from my understanding.
Even in Japan it depends on specifics. Things get stolen there too.
Yah. London I wouldn’t, but some village in the UK countryside sure
We had our car broken into in a quiet Oxfordshire village (Bampton) the other day.
>But if youuuUse the edit icon to pin, add or delete clips.'re in a smaller town then you'll be fine.
Autocorrect, what did they do to hurt you so badly that you needed such revenge?!
I would say I’ve had great experience in hcmc and Hanoi shops and left it unattended, matters most which shop but for the majority no issue at all.
Leaving it in that cliche highland coffee shop location in D1 by that street, yeah, no.
Indonesia too, no issue across Jakarta, Depok, Yogya, Bali, Lombok, etc
I’m surprised at Japan, I would thought it be a zero. No issue at any location at all.
It seems that lower percentage = safer/ more trusting, but that’s the opposite of how the question is phrased, where a higher fraction of affirmative votes means safer. Also, please avoid red-yellow-green gradients because up to 10% of the male population has trouble distinguishing red and green.
There is no coffee shop anywhere in the world where I would leave my laptop unattended.
Even if things are unlikely to go wrong the level of avoidable risk is simply too high.
A $3000 piece of my personal or worse employer's property and I'm just supposed to "trust"? Not worth it.
you are taking this too literally. try to see it as proxy for questions like 'will i get my wallet back from uber drive' or 'will my purse be snatched by street scooters'
There was a time you could leave your valuables in most teashops in the UK and they would be safe.
Not no more. We lost our high trust society in most places.
Relevant LKY: https://youtu.be/b_6H26fpZp8
I wonder how long an honesty box in London or Birmingham would survive.
Which is it? A random coffee shop or a Starbucks.
In the USA, I could leave my laptop at a small town coffee shop without any trouble, but never a Starbucks, which are only in larger towns and cities.
Thanks, I couldn't imagine such a distinction initially. I have added a separation between Local and Chain coffeeshops in the site.
I think poster means a local area, not a locally-owned coffee shop. Meaning in NYC it doesn't matter if it's a Starbucks or Locally owned shop, you still wouldn't leave the laptop.
However, if it's a local coffee shop in the middle of Nebraska, you would be ok.
My first day in Japan (early 90’s) I was in a train station in Tokyo. A suited businessman waiting in a long line put his briefcase on the floor and left the line for a few minutes. He returned to his spot with a newspaper. The case was still there. He had not looked around nor displayed any doubt nor hesitation. Nobody reacted or noticed.
I was born and raised in New York City. This was science fiction to me.
I was surprised to see in Taiwan last year several instances of people walking into a cafe and leaving their phone on the table to indicate the table was occupied and then going up to the counter to order.
in korea u can literally leave ur wallet, laptop, expensive bag at your table and go eat lunch or do something else for an hr and come back and it'll still be there (and people are used to it). one of the few places that surprised me more than japan lol.
but dont leave ur bike or umbrella out.
South Korea has CCTVs all over the place (especially in the cities), and even small-scale robbery is treated as a very serious crime that often it's not worth the risk.
It’s not only the CCTVs, haha. In Korea, even petty theft is culturally treated as a pretty serious offense. People generally see stealing itself as crossing a big line.
Wow enforcing laws and cultural taboos deters crime?
yeah it's not just the CCTVs, very ingrained culturally somehow, at least for this type of theft (stealing personal stuff from cafes/restaurants/etc)
what if other people want to use that table? is it okay to move their laptop/bags off?
I actually find it annoying if people put stuff on tables and then walk away for an hour or more, hogging a spot that could be used by others.
nope, u don't touch it. everyone does it and accepts it and it's not that annoying i guess.
Even if the votes are highly accurate, there is no circumstance in which I would want to leave my laptop at a Starbucks. There is a likelihood I may forget, but certainly not intentionally leaving it. That said, there are places where people leave their cell phones, keys, etc just to reserve a table in a food court while they go off to buy their food. I guess this map could be a proxy on which countries are safe to do that.
> Verification not ready, try again.
Japan is trusted enough to leave laptops in but not trusted enough to vote :/
> Couldn't verify you're human — please try again.
I'm on safari without an adblocker, not sure what sketchy stuff my ASN is up to
Something similar is the lost wallet test:
https://reddit.com/r/europe/comments/ijboze/study_of_civic_h... source: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aau8712
https://web.archive.org/web/20190327101602/https://www.rd.co...
I can bet with my Macbook to have it in any random coffee shop in Riyadh, Jeddah, or any other City in Saudi , and I can say that is Applicable to Cities like Dubai Doha, these cities have a high level of prosperity, people are there don’t have to steal, and every worker in the country already by law have working permits otherwise he couldn’t stay
Those countries have pruned-controlled immigration systems. What leads to sudden disruptions in observances of law are newcomers who are not familiar with how things work in the new culture. If someone were to walk into town where all the shops and stores keep their doors open and have a box on the counter for payment when someone feels like they need something, it would be a strange sight. And this person would wrestle with the idea of taking something and not paying in full with a bunch of pros and cons. Maybe after some time he will understand better how to proceed.
Interesting, the map author marked Crimea as part of Russia, but for some reason doesn't mark 4 other Ukranian regions as Russian. Cannot choose the right side?
Surely they’re using a third party mapping library and they have absolutely 0 control over what the borders look like in disputed areas.
Seems right. This site uses `React Simple Maps` library with `Natural Earth` map data. Natural earth marks crimea Russian territory[0] in their "default" map data.
[0]: https://github.com/nvkelso/natural-earth-vector/issues/391
Opened it fully wanting to vote Yes on Taiwan. Saw it was already top of the safety list. Beautiful country and people.
Good idea, but a hard dealbreaker issue: clicking "Yes, totally" or "Hell no" is never accepted, as it always returns "Couldn't verify you're human — please try again.". Clicking a country in the list will also show a white page. But keep going, you have built something useful here my friend ;)
It's a tricky one as I've left my laptop in Glasgow, London, Tokyo, Seoul, and Berlin. I would say ancedotally they are all of varying levels of safety on the whole as a city, but it depends on the situation and judging it correctly. The only time I've ever had my phone or any piece of tech stolen was in Japan, which many would think was safer.
I think it's interesting that this map shows the Sahrawi Republic, that's not a very common feature.
For the US this really needs to broken down by state and even county. I know places were you can leave valuables with little likelihood of them being stolen and places where they would be gone in seconds. Small towns where most people know each other are very different to large cities.
That applies to everywhere except for like the Vatican or Monaco. The US is not special
Australian here, and the differing wording on the site kind of changes my answer. I believe I 'can' but also that I 'wouldn't'.
I'm not worried about theft, but see 'reserving' a seat like that as rude, and 10 minutes as longer than is reasonable.
(Pragmatically – I’m more concerned about having an awkward interaction with a barista that cleared the table and put the laptop somewhere, than about someone stealing the laptop)
I would like to see a ranking for countries where you can ship RAM without it getting stolen on the way. I just got mine stolen by someone at Amazon last week so I’m a bit bitter right now!
I liked looking at this.
Every cafe is different and cafes in each country vary heavily by city and area and I am not sure if I have recommendations on how to make crowd sourced data more reliable but I like the work done.
The "trick" that worked for me so far is to ask the person in the next table nicely if I can leave it by their side for a moment.
Statistically they're more likely to be honest rather than a thief of opportunity
Semantics, but are there really random coffee shops in Antarctica? I assumed no, though a quick search suggests a place called Coffeehouse at McMurdo Station, some at South Pole Station, and then assorted local station cafeterias. Even so. I guess I'd still vote yes though, so...
The coffee shop at McMurdo looks awesome! https://www.instagram.com/p/DDadGo8zn2i/?img_index=6
It does, right? It's going to be a hard one for me to to sample to put on my personal coffee shop tier list though...
This reminds me of Hoodmaps, lightweight crowdsourcing with immediate utility. Main issue is probably self reporting bias, people may vote based on national pride rather than risk levels.
Obviously Japan. My first year there I actually was stupid and left my phone/keys at the table when I went to the toilet and things like that. After a while I realised that while the chances of theft are very small, they are not zero.
Was this in Shibuya? Maybe there or Roppongi, but most other places aren't really a worry.
Kyoto. But I disagree that it's not a worry. It only takes one opportunistic person to ruin your day (or month)
The map on the website has a few mistakes. The wrong border on Ukraine, for example.
very cool idea! Like others have said, "country" doesn't feel like the right level of aggregation. Municipality, street, or even coffee shop itself would feel more natural, although there's a sure trade-off with the effort to source the data
The page won't verify me as a human if I try to vote, I don't know why.
Good to see 4 scientists in Antarctica felt safe enough to leave their Mac.
Might be more effective if this was by postal code instead of by entire country
Thanks, I will consider to add such granularities.
The mobile navigating is a bit iffy. I can accidentally click on a country when zooming in
You should probably find a proper e-waste collector, but I guess if you can't find one, you could leave it at Starbucks and someone will take care of it?
In the UK, it's very regional, even in the same city (e.g. London).
I've seen people leave purses unattended in japan in a fast food restaurant while going to the bathroom.
amazing (and kind of uplifting)
You can leave your laptop anywhere on the planet.
Just put it down and walk away.
The difference between the places is the amount of time before it starts being someone else's laptop.
japan is quite safe actually, I sometimes do it when I go to the bathroom
I voted "yes" for Antarctica, because that is the only place I'm confident about.
But seriously, I don't think this website solves the problem of knowing "which countries you can simply leave your laptop at a Starbucks, and where you can't".
It's just a rough indicator of percepted crime rate among a nation.
I do it all the time in Shanghai.
Canada is currently at 31%, and I call BS. Some of us have this self-image of a country where people trust each other, but that doesn't make it true.
On one hand, I dropped my brand new iPhone 4 (whatever year that was) at a concert, and it was waiting for me at the bar. Multiple people did the right thing in that particular case.
On the other hand, I've had a backpack and camera stolen. I've even had toilet paper stolen while I was loading my car (during COVID). I've worked in offices where laptops have been stolen. Everyone has a story like this.
I had my phone fell from my pocket while in a dancing club at night. Someone found it, took it to the bartender and I got it back (saw the location on my computer using Google's find your phone).
But would I deliberately leave my phone or laptop unattended on the table at a random coffee shop that I know nothing about? Probably fine but not taking that risk. Also as others pointed out, context matters. A small indoor coffee shop while I visit the toilet? No problem. Large crowded outside terrace? I'm not stupid.
I mean, I wouldn't leave an unattended laptop anywhere. Maybe the real test is "if you had forgotten your laptop at a coffee shop for ten minutes, what probability would you assign to going back there and successfully recovering it?".
For Greece, it would be pretty high, but I wouldn't just randomly leave a laptop, because the off chance of something happening is still not worth the trouble.
Denmark
"Couldn't verify you're human — please try again"
This is complete nonsense. I am French and there is no way you can compare the northern suburbs of Paris with its western ones. Or the middle of Auvergne.
It's like asking the question "is it safe to cross here" for any road in the country.
Complete nonsense map. Some more useful questions: Is English spoken? Is water deep? Is there fuel?
interesting!
"Verification not ready, try again"
china 43%.. LOL
Why? Stop reserving public or publicly available spots. I you leave anything from laptop to beach towel unattended for longer than 5 minutes you're an asshole.
Sometimes the bathroom takes longer than five minutes, or placing an order...
Then take a seat after a poo and placing your order.
Sometimes people need to use the bathroom after sitting for a while...