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Revealed: the safest destinations in the world for travellers in 2023

Based on everything from crime rates to LGBT inclusivity, these are the safest cities and countries in the world

Ed Cunningham
Written by
Ed Cunningham
News Editor, Time Out UK and Time Out London
Seattle, Washington, USA
Photograph: Shutterstock
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When you’re travelling, safety is obviously of utmost importance – especially if you’re a solo traveller, and even more so if you’re travelling as a member of a marginalised community. But which destinations around the world are the safest right now?

There are a few rankings out there that look at safety. One, the Post Office Travel Insurance Safety Index, ranks destinations on how safe they are for solo travellers. By analysing stuff such as crime rates, the quality of medical care, rates of traffic deaths and WHO food safety ratings, the Post Office came out with ten of the world’s safest cities.

By those metrics, top of the pile came Seattle in Washington state, USA, followed by the Japanese capital of Tokyo and Portland in the US state of Oregon. Here’s the full list of the world’s safest cities for individual travellers, according to Post Office Travel Insurance.

  1. Seattle, USA
  2. Tokyo, Japan
  3. Portland, USA
  4. Vancouver, Canada
  5. Copenhagen, Denmark
  6. Oslo, Norway
  7. Cairo, Egypt
  8. Dublin, Ireland
  9. Zurich, Switzerland
  10. Singapore, Singapore

You can read the full safety index from the Post Office here, which also has a bunch of tips for travelling on your own.

But that isn’t the only safety ranking out there. Another study by security company Get Licensed ranked cities around the world based on similar factors, but also took into account things like LGBT social acceptance and levels of terrorism. 

In this study, the top spot was taken by Reykjavik in Iceland, which isn’t too much of a surprise. The Icelandic capital topped a similar safety ranking last year, thanks in part to it apparently having no terrorist threat and a very high level of LGBT acceptance.

Next in Get Licensed’s list is Bern in Switzerland, thanks partly to its low homicide rate, followed by Bergen in Norway. Here’s the full list of the safest cities in the world, according to Get Licensed.

  1. Reykjavik, Iceland
  2. Bern, Switzerland
  3. Bergen, Norway
  4. Kyoto, Japan
  5. Taipei, Taiwan
  6. Singapore, Singapore
  7. Copenhagen, Denmark
  8. Salzburg, Austria
  9. Tokyo, Japan
  10. Doha, Qatar

You can read Get Licensed’s full research yourself here.

Yet another study by gambling site (after all, who wants to gamble with their safety?) Gamblino has ranked countries in Europe based on factors like crime, natural disaster risk and their placing on the Global Peace Index.

Switzerland topped that study, scoring well on all fronts, followed by Iceland and Norway. Here are the rest of the top ten.

  1. Switzerland
  2. Iceland
  3. Norway
  4. Denmark
  5. Luxembourg
  6. Finland
  7. Ireland
  8. Netherlands
  9. Austria
  10. Sweden

As you can see, certain places pop up on all three lists. But as always, it’s worth taking these rankings with a pinch of salt. Plenty of destinations not on these lists are often perfectly safe – just as plenty of places can be dangerous in the wrong circumstances.

In any case, safe travels! Now, check out our list of the best European city breaks for 2023.

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