When visiting a new city one always wonders whether it is safe, what are the best areas to stay at and which ones to avoid. In this post I will go through exactly these questions, I will share specific tips in case you are travelling: with kids, friends or as a couple.

QUICK SUMMARY

1. How safe is Turin for Travel
2. Where to book your Hotel/Airbnb/B&B?
3. Where to stay: tips for Families with Kids
4. Where to stay: tips for Students
5. Where to stay: tips for Couples
6. Which areas to avoid in Turin

1. How safe is Turin for travel?

Like most cities in Italy Turin is very safe to visit, tourists are very unlikely to have any incident.

Together with Milan, Rome and Bologna, Turin is one of the richest cities in Italy, every year it attracts people from all over Italy who move to Turin for studying or working purposes.

In terms of studying purposes, the Polytechnic of Turin is very renowned and it is one of the Europe’s leading universities for engineering, computer science and technology. The Polytechnic has over 30,000 students enrolled and every year it attracts students from all around the world.

In addition to that, in Turin there is the famous ESCP Business School which ranks consistently in the Top 10 Europe Financial Times rankings for Masters in Management .

Among the most famous companies based in Turin we have FIAT/Chrysler, Lavazza, Juventus, Kappa, Martini & Rossi, Eataly, Alfa Romeo, Superga and many more.  In the area nearby Turin there is also the Ferrero global headquarter and the Nutella plant.

Of course, like any city you need to be street smart and keep your eyes open but most likely the worst thing could happen to you is to get pick-pocketed if you are overly distracted at a restaurant or on the bus. Overall, there is no doubt that Turin is a safe city.

2. Where to stay with your Hotel/Airbnb/B&B?

My suggestion is to stay in the city-center with an accommodation that offers free parking.

This way you can leave your car there and walk around the city by foot. The population of Turin is approximately one million people, however the city center is not that big so you can easily walk your way around it.

There is absolutely no need to use a car, in addition to that looking for a parking spot can be a real nightmare. You are on holiday, don’t stress out!

To be a bit more specific, I recommend to stay anywhere in the area below:

• East-to-West between Piazza Vittorio Veneto to Piazza Statuto
• South-to-North between Via Po/Via del Carmine to Corso Vittorio Emanuele II

For the avoidance of doubt, try to stay inside the area highlighted in blue in the map below.

3. Where to stay: Tips for Families

Overall, anywhere within the blue area highlighted in the map above is a good place to stay. Let me be more specific.

For families with kids , I recommend to stay close to Parco del Valentino. This way you can easily reach the park by foot and let the kids play there. The park is really beautiful and huge, it is by the Po river with nice views overlooking the hills and a great botanical garden called “giardino roccioso” which is a no miss.

In this case, the best areas would be between Piazza Vittorio Veneto and Corso Vittorio Emanuele II, prioritizing the streets closer to the Po River so you can walk along the river all the way up to the Valentino Park. The best examples would be Piazza Maria Teresa, Via della Rocca, Via Mazzini.

Avoid the San Salvario area (Via Sant’Anselmo/Via Baretti) which is very popular among teenagers and thus extremely noisy at night.

4. Where to stay: tips for Students

For students, the best area is by far San Salvario. No doubt.

This is the neighborhood around via Baretti and Via Sant’Anselmo, next to the Porta Nuova Train Station.

The area is packed with restaurants, pizzerias and cocktail bars of any type which are open until late at night. It also offers good clubbing opportunities. The streets are crowded at night, you can barely walk on the side-walks as it is very common for people to grab a cocktail and drink it outside the very same bar while chit-chatting with friends.

The upside is that it is very cheap to stay at. You can find very good deals in terms accommodation but also for food & drinks. The culinary variety is huge and multiethnic. Furthermore, the location is strategic as you are walking distance both from the city center and the Parco del Valentino .

The downside is that it can get very noisy at night but if you are planning to take part in the “movida” it shouldn’t be an issue. To be fair, it could get a little dodgy if walking alone late at night but this is true for any city when it comes to neighborhoods nearby train stations.

5. Where to stay: tips for Couples

If you are travelling with your partner the best option is to be close to Piazza Castello. This is the heart of the city-center.

Being central, it is close to restaurants, bars and the main shopping streets & museums. However, as opposed to other similarly central locations, you are far from the noise of the nightlife. It is just the perfect sweet-spot.

The Piazza Castello square is right in the middle of the city-center. Equally distant from the other two main squares Piazza San Carlo and Piazza Vittorio Veneto.

The streets to prioritize in this area are Via Lagrange/Via Carlo Alberto as well as virtually any perpendicular street to Via Garibaldi .

Another interesting neighborhood for couples could be “Regio Parco” ( near Via Catania and Corso Regio Parco). This area developed incredibly over the past few years and it is now offering a wide variety of cafés for breakfast & brunch as well as good restaurants for dinner. The downside is that it is slightly outside the center (20 mins walking distance from Piazza Castello).

6. Which areas to avoid in Turin?

As mentioned earlier, Turin city-centre is extremely safe so if you stick to the area highlighted in blue in the map above you will be just fine.

Having said that, I would probably avoid the area called “Porta Palazzo” which is basically the one around Piazza della Repubblica.

This is where the street market takes place, hence it can be very noisy during the day, dirty in the evening once the market closes and a bit dodgy at night.

To be fair the area improved a lot over the past ten years and it now offers some really good places to eat, such as the Mercato Centrale Torino, which I highly recommend for lunch or dinner. Having said that, if your house is in the wrong street or if you take the wrong cross-road you can end-up in areas that I would rather avoid.

In addition to Porta Palazzo, I recommend to avoid staying too close to Corso Regina Margherita or the Porta Nuova train station for the same reasons mentioned above.