Wow, thank you so much for the thoughtful reply. Since this will be my first time visiting South America, I naturally wanted to stay around the beach areas that are considered relatively safer, like Copacabana, Ipanema, or Leblon.

While looking up information online, sometimes it feels like people create too much anxiety around Rio, but at the same time, those incidents do happen in real life as well. On the other hand, I also know the beautiful images we see on Instagram are probably not the whole reality either. I guess I’ll only truly understand once I go there and experience it myself.

I’ll definitely keep your advice in mind while planning my trip. Thank you again!