Safety is a priority when traveling to destinations unknown. When planning, it’s essential to find out any safety risks such as political violence, crime, and infectious diseases.
Fortunately, travel security company International SOS has released its yearly Travel Risk Map for 2020.
Their findings are based on both medical and travel security risks and are organized into five categories, starting at “insignificant” moving into “extreme” risk.
Results were based on “the current threat posed to travelers by political violence, social unrest, as well as violent and petty crime,” says International SOS. Other determining factors are the effectiveness of emergency services during a natural disaster and transportation infrastructure.
According to their map, the safest countries are Denmark, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Slovenia, Luxembourg, and Switzerland.
Medium risk countries include Brazil, Costa Rica, India, Indonesia, Mozambique, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and Turkey.
The most dangerous include countries such as Afghanistan, Somalia, and Syria.
There are countries, such as Colombia and Mexico, that received mixed ratings because they didn’t fit in just one category. There are some areas in each country that are rated medium risk while other areas are high risk.
An International SOS spokesperson tells CNN: “Obviously it is overall reflective of location risks, but we do advise that consumers do as much research on their destinations as possible.”
Many parts of the Motherland was declared medium and high risk while the US, UK, Australia, China and most parts of Europe were rated as being low risk.
You can read the full report here.