Where Is It Safe for LGBTQ Travelers in 2025 & 2026?
A New Survey Tries to Answer That Question
ITB Berlin and A3M Global Monitoring just released their first LGBTQ+ global risk survey map. While this is the companies’ first, Spartacus has been issuing the Gay Travel Index for years, and Berkshire Hathaway has also released a limited list that’s not specific to LGBTQ travelers. That said, this is a huge step forward for our safety, but as always, use a bit of caution when interpreting the information presented. I want to share a few of my own insights and reservations about this new map.
What Makes This Study Unique?
The creators of this study drew two helpful conclusions. First, ‘very safe’ means it’s both legal and that travelers feel safe engaging in public displays of affection. Second, they differentiated legality and PDA from public perception. The darker green, indicating a very low risk, represents the former, while the lighter green, indicating a low risk, represents the latter. There is value in studying other categories. I plan to make this a series addressing practical issues facing LGBTQ travelers, such as the types of clothing that are illegal and severe punishments for breaking these laws. This post will provide a high-level overview, but please let me know in the comments if you’d like a more in-depth discussion.
Before I delve into the subject, I want to be responsible and mention that you should take your safety seriously, which means exercising a bit of skepticism with all sources of information. Most importantly, I cannot determine your safety, nor can a study. Many people in our community live and travel to areas marked as risky without any problems. On the other hand, it is also possible to encounter difficulties in a country designated as safe. These data are not perfect and may be helpful, but they are far from perfect.
Ok, that said, let’s dive in.
The first thing I noticed was the methodology. The survey measured the perceived safety of travelers. That is, they send travelers a survey and ask them to rate their level of safety. These studies are notoriously biased. It’s basically a vibes check. It’s beneficial to use this to help determine whether you might feel at ease or not, rather than focusing on the probability of something bad happening to you. I’ll use a personal example to demonstrate the value; I live in a country that’s considered medium (yellow on the map). In the city and state where I live, I feel unsafe. Nothing bad has happened to me personally. However, I recently traveled to another city (Palm Springs) in another state (California) and felt so much more relaxed because of the strong gay community presence there. That is a significant regional difference that this map is unable to portray accurately, but the effect was real and meaningful to me as a gay traveler.
The second thing I noticed was a discrepancy between the data collected and the data represented. The study creators stated that they did not consider ranking countries that had fewer than four survey results. Four is a low benchmark. Several countries didn’t reach even that low amount of surveys. When you look at the map, though, every country received a ranking. This is the first study so the problems that arise from being the first will hopefully diminish as they conduct more surveys, but it is worth keeping that in mind.
I’ll add a third and final point before discussing destinations. This study examined perceptions that most closely resembled public opinion within the country. The results don’t necessarily align with the laws a country has in place, though they were an imporant part of the ranking criteria, nor how effectively a country enforces those laws. If we look at a country like Germany, where the laws are very progressive, you might feel less safe knowing that the population holds increasingly conservative views.
Highest Ranking Countries Around the World
Here’s a list of countries ranked as safe or very safe. Spoiler alert: every populated continent has at least one. (Sorry, Antarctica, we’re not counting you.) While every country should be safe, I’m still going to celebrate the places that made the rank.
Africa
- La Reunion
- South Africa
Asia
- Israel
- Taiwan
- Thailand
Europe
- Andorra*
- Austria*
- Belgium*
- Croatia
- Cyprus
- Czech Republic
- Denmark*
- Estonia
- Finland*
- France
- Germany*
- Greece
- Iceland*
- Ireland*
- Italy
- Latvia
- Liechtenstein*
- Luxembourg*
- Malta*
- Monaco
- Netherlands
- Norway
- Portugal*
- San Marino
- Slovenia
- Spain*
- Sweden*
- Switzerland*
- United Kingdom
North America
- American Samoa
- Aruba
- Bermuda
- Canada*
- Cayman Islands
- Greenland*
- Guadelope
- Guam
- Martinique
- Puerto Rico
- St. Barthelemy
- St. Martin
Ocenia
- Australia*
- New Caledonia*
- New Zeland*
- Norfolk Island
South America
- Argentina
- Brazil
- Chile
- Ecuador
- Falkland Islands
- French Giuana
- Uruguay*
A few more takeaways after looking through the map. First, the map is difficult to read. If you notice any discrepancies, please let me know. Second, countries and their territories appear to be ranked independently; for example, Puerto Rico is classified as low risk (light green), while the US is categorized as moderate risk (yellow). Third, there aren’t too many surprises, but the surprises were mostly good.
A Few of the Surprises
Japan ranked lower than I thought. Despite being one of the safest countries in the world, Japan does not have many laws protecting LGBTQ+ people. Couple that with some rising sentiment against foreigners in their country and the election of a new Prime Minister who has repeatedly made false anti-foreign statements publicly, and Japan emerges as moderate despite being perceived as safe in other studies.
France, the UK, and a few other countries ranked lower than I thought. After reading a few articles on the subject, it seems that many countries that had made a lot of progress for LGBTQ people have reversed course. Similar to what is happening in the US, these countries have reversed their protections.
Some countries ranked higher than I had expected. Uruguay, Ecuador, Latvia, Estonia, and Croatia have long been beautiful destinations to me, but I was unsure about how safe it was as a gay person. Now, they’ve risen to the top of the list as potential gay cultural destinations.
What Does It All Mean?
It will hold different meanings for each of us. This is as good a place as any to mention that being gay, cis, and white influence my perception in ways that may differ from your view, so keep that in mind. For me, I have two takeaways–one, I’m judging less; two, I’ve moved a few places higher on my list. As I mentioned, I live in a moderate country. Knowing that I’ve traveled safely within my own country helps me feel more at ease when traveling to countries with similar rankings, and it makes me feel even better when traveling to countries with higher rankings. No place really became less enticing to visit for me, but several of the smaller countries, specifically island nations, and territories in South America, Europe, and the Caribbean are now on my radar.
I hope this is helpful. If you’d like to see more content like this, please let me know.
* Designates contries with very low risk.
Leave a Reply