Definitely. The amount of crime in the small old mill towns in my area make Europe seem like Disneyland even in the midst of protests going on. When I went out of town for school I realized I had a much higher threshold for sketchiness than a lot of my peers because of the situations that become normalized.

I’ve been looking Europe for hiking down the road, and boy does not having bears in a lot of places make logistics a lot more manageable. Carrying a bear vault + spray is a decent amount of added weight/space/hassle.