How the scores work.

round uses the indicated precision: one decimal place for all three metrics. clamp keeps the result between 0 and 10. All scores and slider endpoints use one decimal place. Direct scaling has no added baseline offset.

Open the Destination Selector tool ↗. Quick asks four questions: world groups, activities, cost and safety. Detailed adds infrastructure, languages, travel month and intercity transport. Comprehensive adds excluded countries, travel-warning tolerance, ride apps, card/cash comfort, language reach, shortlist diversity, missing-score handling and a final ranking priority. Currency does not affect the questions or ranking.

When a traveller has chosen languages, language reach distinguishes documented everyday/shared use from visitor-service use. When no language is chosen, that question instead asks whether air or ground/port infrastructure should carry more influence. Each route still has exactly 4, 8 or 16 questions.

Limits first, preference order second

World groups, excluded countries, cost ceilings, safety/infrastructure floors, required practical-language matches, required ride apps, warning categories and missing-score policy determine eligibility. Default routes require a known safety score and exclude severe travel warnings. The numerical safety minimum and warning category are separate. Comprehensive can explicitly change the warning and missing-data rules. A missing metric cannot satisfy an active numerical limit. Everyday-language matching includes documented regional/shared use, rather than promising nationwide coverage; local-context-only languages never qualify.

Eligible countries are ordered by a weighted average: lower cost, higher safety and higher infrastructure each have weight 1; the share of chosen activity tags matched has weight 4 by default. Practical language matches add weight 2 (everyday match 1; visitor-services-only match 0.75). A selected month adds weight 1.5, preferred intercity mode 1.25 and a card-payment preference 0.75. Comprehensive’s final priority gives its chosen main factor weight 4; choosing similar influence gives each main metric and the activity share weight 1. Unanswered practical preferences add no weight. Missing metric values contribute a neutral 0.5 only after eligibility checks, never zero or an evidenced match. Equal results use alphabetical country name order.

Month comparisons use explicit month names and ranges in the reviewed best-time heading, including ranges crossing December. Year-round headings include all months; broad seasons, ambiguous regions and unestablished windows remain unknown. A listed month contributes 1, an outside month 0.2 and an unknown window 0.5. These are soft planning preferences, not weather forecasts or exclusions. Regional and activity qualifiers remain visible in result explanations.

Transport modes come only from the reviewed main Getting around answer: trains/rail, buses/minibuses/coaches, flights, and road transfers/taxis/drivers/hired vehicles. A mode match contributes 1 and an unlisted mode 0. This identifies a documented option, not its frequency, quality or usefulness for every itinerary. Ride-app matching uses explicit provider statements in the existing note and retains advertised/listed service caveats; it does not infer country-wide or live availability.

Card preferences use explicit acceptance notes: widely accepted/common cards contribute 1, conditional use in larger businesses 0.65, explicit limited/unavailable/cash-heavy use 0.15, and unclassified notes remain neutral at 0.5. Cash comfort adds no score. This is a small practical preference, not a payment index. All underlying notes and sources remain in country details.

The five strongest eligible matches are returned. A request for variety selects the next strongest country from a new travel region or broad world group until those options run out. Preferences are never loosened to force five results; fewer appear if fewer qualify. Results explain matches, trade-offs, n/a metrics and warnings, without inventing a percentage fit or changing country scores. Compare on the map carries the named shortlist into the dashboard; its usual controls remain available, and Clear shortlist or Reset filters removes that restriction. Region view still averages every tracked member, not only shortlisted countries.

The interface saves answers in session storage in the current browser tab. It uses the bundled snapshot without an external recommendation service. The question-flow reference was Points Brief’s Card Selector; questions and matching logic here are tailored to the travel dataset.

UK FCDO advice is used for foreign destinations. Government of Canada advice is used for the United Kingdom. The point values below are editorial choices for this project; governments do not issue these 0–10 scores.

Additional country reviews account for conflict, attacks and transport disruption described in official advice. A lower reviewed cap overrides the generic cap. Each affected country links to its advice and includes the reason. These reviews are a dated snapshot and do not automatically refresh.

Advice is written for the issuing government’s nationals. Passport, destination area, itinerary and personal circumstances can change the risk. A country score is an estimate, not a guarantee of safety.

The right-hand table uses Cost for Travel Cost, Safety for Visitor Safety, and Transport for Travel Infrastructure. Click a column header to sort. A newly selected Cost column sorts low to high; the others sort high to low. Click the active header to reverse the order.

The initial order is Travel Cost from low to high. Sorting compares the displayed scores; ties use alphabetical name order. Missing values stay last in either direction. The same sorting controls work in Country and Region views.

Sorting changes only the list order. It does not change your filters, selected Quick priority, selected destination or map colors.

Travel Cost, Visitor Safety and Travel Infrastructure average the existing country scores. Missing values are excluded separately for each metric and never treated as zero. Coverage counts show how many countries contributed.

Averages are calculated before filters are applied. Selecting activities, score ranges or regions does not change the countries contributing to a region’s average.

Region values display to one decimal place. Range filters and sorting use that displayed precision; map colors use the stored averages. Region cards retain warnings for individual member countries, because an average can conceal substantial differences.

Middle East is a separate region and group, outside Asia. Its safety average includes Iran’s 1/10 and Saudi Arabia’s 3/10, after travel-risk caps, and averages 4.6/10 across 14 tracked countries. Individual-country warnings still apply.

• Where in the world: multiple selections match any selected finer region. Continent and group checkboxes select or clear all their subregions; a dash indicates a partial selection. Middle East and Russia’s Europe & Asia group remain separate.
• Things to do: multiple selections match any selected activity. Tags are editorial suggestions, not measured ratings or an exhaustive list. History & Heritage highlights historic sites, monuments, museums and heritage attractions; it does not measure the value of a country’s culture or the extent of its history.
• Activities in Region view: a tag matches if at least one tracked member country has it. This does not imply that every country offers that activity.
• Languages I speak: matches any selected language with documented everyday/shared use or useful communication in visitor areas. Regional and service-area limits appear in country details. Only languages matching at least three tracked countries appear in the dropdown, sorted by country count from highest to lowest; ties are alphabetical. Search preserves that order. Counts are calculated before other filters.
• Languages in Region view: at least one tracked country must match. Coverage counts show how many countries match each selected language; different languages can match different countries. Region scores continue to average all tracked countries.
• Score ranges: both endpoints are inclusive, from 0 to 10 in 0.1 steps. Displayed scores can still have decimals. Empty dropdown selections include all destinations.
• Default — no filters: All three score ranges start at 0.0–10.0, with no regions, activities, languages or Quick priority selected. The map shows cost and the list sorts by cost, low to high.
• Good value: Travel Cost 0.0–4.0, with the full 0.0–10.0 range for safety and infrastructure.
• Balanced preset: the Balanced shortcut uses Visitor Safety 3.0–10.0, Travel Cost 0.0–7.0 and Travel Infrastructure 3.0–10.0. Reset filters restores the full 0–10 ranges. The shortcut sets these ranges and orders the list by safety, high to low.
• Quick priorities and sorting: choosing a priority sets its suggested metric and sort direction: Good value uses Travel Cost low to high, Safety first uses Visitor Safety high to low, and Better infrastructure uses Travel Infrastructure high to low. Changing the sort afterward keeps the priority highlighted; its range and map-color settings still determine whether it is active.
• Combining filters: a destination must satisfy each filter group and the name search.
• Switching views: ranges, activities, languages, region selections, sorting and map colors persist. The name search clears because the searched entity changes.

Nature versus adventure: Nature & Wildlife focuses on scenery and animal watching. Hiking & Adventure focuses on active pursuits such as hiking, cycling, paddling, climbing and snow or water sports. A country can legitimately have both; a scenic park or vehicle safari alone does not automatically earn the active tag. These are practical definitions for this dashboard, rather than an official tourism classification.

The newly approved Wellness & Relaxation, Arts & Design and Theme Parks categories require a documented specialist experience or visitor itinerary, rather than generic availability. Their country selections are an initial documented inventory.

In Region view, tracked member countries share their region’s map color. Untracked countries remain gray. Selecting a member country opens Country view.

The dataset is selective. Oceania currently includes Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea. Central Asia includes Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Pakistan is in South Asia; Taiwan is tracked separately in East Asia. Afghanistan is excluded. An untracked outline or unavailable score does not imply that a destination is unsafe or unsuitable.

Madagascar lacks the selected crime-perception value, so its safety remains unavailable. East Africa’s safety average uses 9 of its 10 tracked countries.

Travel Infrastructure uses the two 2026 WEF transport pillars; countries without both remain unrated. No HDI or older-edition fallback is used.

Public Cleanliness was removed because coverage was too limited. Its saved source snapshot is retained for reference and does not affect the dashboard.

Unavailable values appear as n/a. Destinations with a missing metric remain visible only when that metric’s range is the full 0–10; they rank after scored entries when sorting by that metric, in either direction.

Official theft, robbery and serious-assault figures are retained as a downloadable backup dataset. They are hidden from the dashboard and do not affect any current score. Recorded crime differs across reporting systems and is not a tourist victimisation probability.

The Global Peace Index and HDI remain separate background context. Neither determines the active safety or infrastructure scores. WEF’s 2026 edition uses the latest indicators available at collection in May 2026; underlying years vary, and some source indicators may be imputed by WEF.

FCDO information: Crown copyright, Open Government Licence. Other sources retain their own reuse conditions. Review source terms before public or commercial redistribution.

This page describes the bundled project snapshot.