All cities have their sketchy areas, and i would say of the ones you listed, paris is the sketchiest. I never got a bad vibe in berlin or budapest, but i would be careful around the vienna train station at night. Some of the neighborhoods around there aren’t that well lit.

Thanks Kurlypunk. Fortunately I have a friend who will be picking me up from Vienna train station at night! What is it that makes it sketchy, just out of curiousity? Both Vienna station at night and Paris?

I arrived in vienna at night, so one of my first impressions of the city were all these shady types hanging out at the train station for no apparent reason… not travellers, not homeless people, just shady. Also, the streets behind the train station are not very busy or well-lit, which creates a possibility of being mugged. Nothing ever happened while i was there, but you still have to be careful.

As for paris, the pickpockets are all over the place and some neighborhoods can get pretty sketchy when the sun goes down. Especially pigalle. A not on the paris metro: trains stop running at 12:30 at night. One night i caught one of the last metro trains and was alone in the metro car with these two guys that kept looking at me and nodding. Talk about freak me out!

But really, if you use common street sense, you should be ok. And you’ll probably meet people at hostels, etc to hang out with, so it’s not like you’ll be alone all the time anyway.