Thanks to COVID we’ve all had plenty of time to plan our next adventure. While many Americans have already taken to the skies domestically, international travel has been virtually non-existent for the last year and a half. With the Delta variant now slowing our return to ‘normalcy’, whatever that is, and with more variants expected to follow, it’ll take a major ramping up of vaccinations worldwide before the international travel community can welcome us back to their countries.
So where should that first overseas trip take you once we stop taking one step forward and two steps back? The Global Peace Index recently released its 13th annual review of 163 countries around the globe, rating them using 23 qualitative and quantitative indicators. High on the list of these parameters were societal safety and personal security, domestic and international conflicts, as well as the degree of militarization in each nation.
While you’re busy comtemplating which countries you think are leaders of the pack of the safest to visit, allow me to help you out a little bit. You can eliminate Myanmar, Syria, North Korea, Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan. They didn’t make the top 20. Surprise, surprise. And go ahead and remove Somalia, Yemen, Venezuela, Brazil, Belarus and Russia, too.
Thinking about staying home in the good ole U. S. of A.? Think again. American exceptionalism may be accurate in some categories, but not when it comes to being a safe place to visit. In fact, the United States ranked #122 out of 163 this year, a rather strartling but reasonable result considering the high emphasis on societal safety and our current situation with gun violence and political unrest.
With that being said, here are top 20 safest countries to visit in 2021:
- 1. Iceland
- 2. New Zealand
- 3. Portugal
- 4. Austria
- 5. Denmark
- 6. Canada
- 7. Singapore
- 8. Slovenia
- 9. Japan
- 10. Czech Republic
- 11. Switzerland
- 12. Ireland
- 13. Australia
- 14. Finland
- 15. Bhutan
- 16. Malaysia
- 17. Netherlands
- 18. Belgium
- 19. Sweden
- 20. Norway
Overall, Europe remains the safest region of the world in which to travel, with seven of the top 10 countries being located there. Iceland has held the position of the safest country in the world since 2008.
To take a look at the complete list and each country’s respective score, go to www.visionsofhumanity.org.
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