If you’re looking for the happiest countries for travel, the Nordic countries are your best bet.
That’s because a report released earlier this year by the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network revealed that Northern Europe countries ranked the highest in the World Happiness Report.
Finland ranked as this year’s happiest country, followed by Norway, Denmark, Iceland, and Switzerland.
Now in its sixth year, the overall rankings of country happiness are based on the pooled results from Gallup World Poll surveys from 2015 and 2017.
Following Switzerland are The Netherlands, Canada, New Zealand, Sweden, and Australia.
The top 10 positions are held by the same countries as in the last two years but have swapped places, according to the report. All top 10 countries, however, tend to have high values for all six of the key variables that have been found to support overall well-being: income, healthy life expectancy, social support, freedom, trust, and generosity.
Analysts also note that the ten overall happiest countries also fill the 10 out of the top 11 spots in the ranking of immigrant happiness.
Finland tops both rankings in this report, with the happiest immigrants, and the happiest population in general.
The United States fell four spots from last year, from No. 14 to No. 18. The reason in part is “because of the ongoing epidemics of obesity, substance abuse, and untreated depression,” World Happiness Report co-editor and Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs told CNBC.
A surprising change this year among analysts are the happiness changes from 2008 and 2010 to 2015 that shows Togo as the biggest gainer, moving up 17 places in the overall rankings from the last place position it held as recently as in the 2015 rankings.
The biggest loser is Venezuela, down 2.2 points on the 0 to 10 scale.
