One question comes up almost every week:
“Why isn’t my city on Datespots?”
The answer is usually more complicated than people expect.
It’s not because I couldn’t find enough cafés, museums, restaurants, or parks.
It’s because I wasn’t confident recommending them.
Datespots isn’t a travel guide.
It’s not Yelp.
It’s not Google Maps.
When someone opens Datespots, they’re trusting that the places they find are somewhere they’d genuinely enjoy spending time with another person. That carries a responsibility.
For me, safety has always been one of the deciding factors.
Safety Isn’t a Number
People often ask whether I have a crime threshold or some ranking that determines whether a city gets added.
I don’t.
Safety is much broader than crime statistics.
Can someone comfortably walk between neighborhoods?
Is public transportation dependable late in the evening?
Are popular date areas active after dark, or do they empty out?
Would a solo visitor feel reasonably comfortable navigating the city?
Can I confidently recommend someone spend an afternoon exploring without having to attach a list of warnings?
Those are the questions I ask.
Local Knowledge Matters
Every city has safe neighborhoods.
Every city has places you should probably avoid.
The problem is that Datespots is built for discovery.
Many users aren’t locals.
They may be visiting for the first time or have just moved there.
I can’t assume they know which streets to avoid, which transit lines to skip late at night, or which neighborhoods change dramatically after sunset.
If my recommendation requires local knowledge to be safe, then it probably isn’t a good recommendation.
Responsibility Matters
Whenever I publish a city, I’m implicitly saying:
“I think you can have a good experience here.”
That’s a statement I don’t make lightly.
If someone has a bad meal because I recommended the wrong restaurant, that’s disappointing.
If someone ends up in an uncomfortable or unsafe situation because I recommended the wrong area, that’s far more serious.
I’d rather disappoint someone by not supporting their city than publish something I’m not comfortable standing behind.
Safety Isn’t the Only Reason
To be clear, safety alone rarely determines whether a city makes it onto Datespots.
It’s one piece of a much larger puzzle.
I also consider whether the city has enough variety, whether neighborhoods are easy to organize, whether reliable data exists, whether there’s an active culture of exploring the city, and whether I can realistically maintain the recommendations over time.
A city might fail one of those tests.
Or several.
Safety is simply the one criterion I’m least willing to compromise on.
Could That Change?
Absolutely.
Cities evolve.
Neighborhoods change.
Public spaces improve.
Transit expands.
New districts become destinations.
A city that doesn’t meet my standards today might meet them in a few years.
Nothing is permanently blacklisted.
But until I feel confident recommending it to complete strangers, I’d rather leave it off the platform.
Datespots has never been about listing every city in the world.
It’s about recommending places I’d be comfortable suggesting to a friend.
That standard has always been higher than simply dropping pins on a map.