An interactive map has revealed which countries are the most dangerous to travel to in 2023. Ukraine, Libya, Syria and Somalia are among the destinations which pose the highest risk to travellers.
Created by security and risk experts International SOS, the Travel Risk Map ranks the safety of countries across the world according to medical, security and mental health risks. Security risk is ranked out of five, ranging from countries where the rates of violent crime are low to those where government control and law and order is “minimal or non-existent”.
Medical risk is also ranked out of five, and takes in factors such as infectious disease, standard of emergency medical services and access to pharmaceutical supplies. Meanwhile mental health risk looks at the share of the population with any mental health issues, such as depression and anxiety, using data from the Institute for Health metrics and Evaluation, Global Burden of Disease.
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War-torn countries including Ukraine, Afghanistan, Libya and Somalia all pose an “extreme” security risk. The UK, the US, Canada, Australia, China, Argentina, along with most European countries, are ranked as having a “low” security risk.
The least dangerous countries to travel to are Iceland, Greenland, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Slovenia. Their level of security risk is ranked as “insignificant”.
Travellers visiting Europe, the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Africa face the lowest medical risks. Niger, Libya, Iraq and Somalia are among the countries where the medical risk is “very high”.
In terms of mental health risk, countries including Spain, Ireland, Iran and Australia rank the highest, with 17.5 - 20 per cent of the population affected by mental health issues. Poland, China, Mexico, Japan and South Africa were among those with the lowest rates, with 10 - 12.5 per cent of the population affected.
All the medical risk ratings were taken in November 2022 while security ratings were taken in March 2023. You can check the risk ratings of any choice via the interactive map here.
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