Is Warsaw dangerous nightly ?

Hello guys,

I will come in Warsaw soon and I wonder if the city is dangerous nightly. In fact, I would avoid to pay an accomodation.
Is there a big risk to sleep on a bench, or to camp in a public parc? If I do this, do you think I may be annoyed by tramps / skinheads / mendicants / dogs / policemens / drunk people ?

B.

At night it is safer than most capital cities.


Mostly the police (Warsaw is very heavily policed) and other tramps.

If you really must do this, the bushes by the far side of the river are probably your best bet, however they are not the safest place in town.

Avoid train station area. Dogs might be a problem on early morning hours when some people take them out without the leash. Overall it is safe. Police may be checking on you whether you are ok, not drunk etc but may not fine you for say sleeping an the bench. Also I would avoid staying next to large apartment buildings where you could encounter some overactive youth

Sleeping rough in a city that you don't know sounds like a bad idea in general, especially when you can get a dorm room in a hostel for as little as £6 (sterling) from a cursory review of hostelworld,com .

Its generally safe but has a large underclass. You would only save yourelf about 10 euro and be dirty and tired into the bargain. I wouldnt do it myself - slept rough even in safe places geneva and stuttgart in my youth and still got hassle from drunks.

It's not better to go and sleep at airport?

The airport get closed at night after last plane.

And Dworzec Centralny has now removed the seats in the main hall, to discourage rough sleepers.

PS: as to benches in downtown Warsaw, they are all around the Central Station taken by the worst scum. In order to avoid homeless and other alcoholics to squat benches, there are no benches elsewhere in town. If anyone has money to pay for a plane ticket to Warsaw, what's the problem to take a hotel room? This beats me.

What a load of utter bollocks!

Indeed.

Some people sleep at the top of stairwells in apartment buildings and there is (or more probably used to be) an internet cafe in Dw. Centralny which was 10 or 15zl for allnight and had cubicles - most if not all the customers were homeless.

There are also a few outside bin stores by apartment buildings - you sometimes see homeless people using them. Plus some people sleep on the night buses - the longer routes are the most popular.

And of course the network of night shelters for the homeless. I wouldn't imagine they're very nice, however they're fairly well spread out through the city - there's a list of them by the back door of the main hall of the railways station.

Thank you for your answers, this gives me a better insight of the benches of Warsaw nightly :).


It happends even in the safer places. I did it many times and for now I had no serious problem (except when the wheater is cold).


Yes, but if I spend 10 euros for my accomodation every day, I will soon run out of money. I try to be as thrifty as possible. And I'm kind of dirty anyways.


I never wrote that I plan to come by plane. There are other ways to travel (hitchhiking for instance, but also bike or train) than taking a plane.


I was not aware of this. I'll check it when I'll arrive, to see if it fits my 'standards' :). Thanks for this information.

Why not simply go couchsurfing?

There's a list here. Worth mentioning that "dla mężczyzn" means "for men" and "dla kobiet" means "for women". "Dla kobiet i mężczyzn" is obviously mixed. The "Jadłodajnie" listed here are very low cost or free canteens. The city centre in Warsaw is referred to as "Śródmieście" on these lists.

ngo.pl/files/pomocspoleczna.ngo.pl/public/tekstyPSP_pdf/2007/Bezdomni06_07_Warszawa.pdf

Good luck!