According to a Swiss insurance portal, Austria remains one of the safest countries in the world to visit. It ranks fourth, after Iceland, Singapore, and Denmark, in a study conducted by the Swiss insurance comparison calculator HelloSafe, based on 35 criteria. The most unsafe countries to travel to are the Philippines, Colombia, and Mexico.
The criteria are divided into five categories: natural disasters, societal violence, involvement in internal or external armed conflict, health infrastructure, and the militarization of the country. The world’s most unsafe countries encompass many old and new conflict hotspots, often accompanied by high natural risks. This means that Russia and the USA are also among the 15 most unsafe countries in the world, with the latter only just behind civil war-torn Syria. Ukraine, on the other hand, performs significantly better despite the war.
Europe is by far the safest continent to travel to. The only non-European country in the top 10 is Singapore, and 30 of the top 50 places are occupied by European countries. However, there are also outliers with poorer scores. France, for example, is only ranked the 80th safest country in the world to travel to, which the authors of the study explain primarily by the present threat of terrorism. However, even popular vacation destinations like Spain and Italy are hardly any safer.
Only three non-European countries make it into the list of the 15 safest countries. In addition to Singapore, these are Bhutan and Qatar. In the case of the Arab country, this is probably not the case for travelers from the LGBTQIA community. In the “Gay Travel Guide,” Qatar is only ranked 206th, between Nigeria and Russia. It is therefore advisable to consult various safety indices before booking a trip, particularly the constantly updated safety information from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
- source: APA/picture: Image by Reinhold Schlager from Pixabay
This post has already been read 247 times!