Hamburg Warnings Or Dangers Tips by globetrott Top 5 Page for this destination

Dont give your adress & e-mail to these people

When you leave Hamburg Hauptbahnhof you will see a great Porsche-sportscar and you will find cards that you may fill out for a lottery in order to win this lovely car at the end of the year.
You have to fill out your full name, adress, telephone-number, birthdate...
...in very small writing you may read as well there :
Yes, I would like to get more infos about lifestyle and media by telephone or mail...(Ja, ich wünsche mir telefonisch und schriftlich weitere informationen rund um die Themen Lifestyle und Medien...)
b.t.w. they say that the winner is drawn already, it is one of the birthdates, that you have to fill out...I guess it will be very easy to "let disappear" the few cards with the correct birthday and pretend nobody has won...
and the only winner will be DVK GmbH, D-20095 Hamburg - a company that I cannot find in any directory and all of their aim seems to be to collect adresses and sell them...
well sorted according to birthdates and with written permission to phone them anytime...

Hamburg has a 'Free Trading Zone' Free Trading Zone Review

A large part of the port of Hamburg is a 'Free Trading Zone' - so it may happen, that you enter that port-area without seeing any controls but you might be checked for cigarettes,alcohol,drugs..., when you are leaving that area again !!
better watch out for these signs at many places around the port of Hamburg ! In general the freeport may be entered, when you walk or drive through the "Alte Elbtunnel" and there are some other gates to enter the Freihafen south of Hauptbahnhof.
There will be cameras watching you and maybe they will decide to check you, when you are leaving again. Entering Freihafen is mostly no problem at all !

watch carefully, WHERE your hotel is Dodgy Areas Review

watch carefully, WHERE your hotel is...
The area around the Hauptbahnhof is certainly NOT a good place to stay for a family with children, who might wonder, what the many drug-addicts or prostitues are doing there all day and night...
East of the Hauptbahnhof only Kirchenallee + Hachmannplatz and SteintorPLATZ are still good adresses to stay in a hotel.
The rest of St Georg, Adenauerallee, Steindamm, Bremer Reihe, Hansaplatz etc. will have many rather cheap hotels and hostels, BUT I may not recommend them for families and single women travelling alone.
For men I dont see any problem, as long as you stay away from the drug-addicts. This area is not really under police-control all day long...
Reeperbahn has some cheap and rather popular hotels, like Hotel Stern, it is in the very centre of the "sinful area", but at least under police-control, so you will not be in danger and you are really close to many great theatres !
...there are so many elegant hotels in many areas - but if you choose the wrong area in Hamburg it might be a problem. - Simply try to avoid to have a hotel at Steindamm and all the areas around it