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(c) Elliott Publishing.

Dark Side of Disney
Err Travel · July 20, 1999

My wife has never had the Disney "experience." She's never been to Disney World or Disneyland. (I couldn't believe it either.)

So we decided that this would be the year for the Magic Kingdom. On that much we agreed. Then we found ourselves at loggerheads. She wanted to take in the whole shebang in Orlando; I wanted to do Disney Lite in Anaheim.

How could we decide which would be the better of the two? All the travel-related issues of distance, weather, time zone change, and of course cost, only made the alternatives seem equally (un)appealing. We needed a tie-breaker.

"Hey, the FBI just released it's crime statistics for '98," I said. "How 'bout we select the location that showed the least crime?" After all, I'm a travel safety expert. I should stand on the principle that the safer destination is the one to visit. My wife consented (both of us knowing full well that we would be going to Orlando, regardless).

So I went online to find the FBI's Preliminary Annual Release (May 16, 1999) of its Uniform Crime Report. The UCR is far from a perfect reflection of crime in a locale, especially crime perpetrated against travelers, but it is the best we've got. I looked primarily at statistics for burglaries and robberies, the most common crimes facing travelers.

Here's what I found.

Anaheim reported 2085 burglaries and 550 robberies in 1998. In the same period, Orlando reported 3995 burglaries and 1123 robberies -- roughly twice the numbers as in Anaheim.

Ah, . . . but Orlando's population has got to be at least twice that of Anaheim, right? Well extrapolating from data available from the U.S. Census Bureau, the opposite is closer to the truth. The city of Orlando has 100,000 fewer residents than Anaheim's 270,000.

I brought this data to the attention of my wife, whereupon she said, "Sure, it has fewer 'residents,' but what about all the tourists. There are a ton more in the Orlando area than around Disneyland. So that could explain the difference in crime rate, couldn't it?"

"Of course it could," I answered. "That's exactly the point. The tourists are the victims."

"You're probably right, Terry," she said, acknowledging the wisdom of my expertise. "I'll tell you what. Why don't you find the safest place indicated by the statistics, and we'll just go there instead?"

Now we're talking.

I invited my wife to look over my shoulder as I glanced through the statistics of 229 cities with populations over 100,000. There it was. Listed between Moreno Valley, Calif. and Nashville, Tenn., I found one of the safest places in the U.S. for us to visit: Naperville, Ill.

We are on our way to Orlando.

Dr. Terry Riley is a psychologist and travel security authority. Visit his site at http://www.appliedpsychology.com or e-mail him at riley@appliedpsychology.com.