Canada and Montreal top Berkshire Hathaway Travel Protection (BHTP) rankings of the safest places for 2027, with New Zealand and Australia completing the top three countries and Zurich and Amsterdam the top three cities. The lists come from BHTP’s 12th annual State of Travel Insurance (SOTI) Safest Destinations report, released Oct. 28.
“Travelers are navigating a more complicated landscape, with global uncertainty, higher prices and other concerns shaping how and where they travel,” said Carol Mueller, Head of Marketing, Berkshire Hathaway Travel Protection, in a press statement. “Yet this year’s rankings show that when the world feels less predictable, travelers continue to look to destinations they know and trust. Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand remain well represented among the safest countries and cities, reinforcing the idea that while the travel landscape may change, the destinations travelers rely on for a sense of safety can remain remarkably consistent.”
BHTP: Helping Sort Out Uncertainty
Among countries, Canada jumped from fifth last year to first and New Zealand from sixth to second, while Australia, No. 2 in each of the past two years, is now third. Japan climbed from ninth to fifth and the Netherlands, last year’s top country, fell to ninth.
Among cities, Montreal debuted at No. 1, Zurich moved up from third to second and Amsterdam rose one spot to third, while Reykjavik, last year’s No. 1 city, dropped to fifth.
BHTP has tracked Americans’ attitudes toward travel safety since 2016 and added destination rankings in 2018, with Polymath Research + Marketing conducting the research each fall through independent national panels. Each year, a large group of American travelers is polled on firsthand travel experiences from the past five years and on safety concerns including terrorism, health concerns, the safety of underrepresented groups and weather emergencies.
Outside indices are layered onto those ratings to produce a weighted composite score for each country’s overall safety, and this year BHTP added newer external measures. Sources include the World Health Organization, the Global Peace Index, Numbeo, the Equaldex Equality Index, the Global Terrorism Index, State Department safety ratings and GeoSure Global, and past rankings are also factored in.
The 15 safest countries for 2027:
- Canada
- New Zealand
- Australia
- Iceland
- Japan
- Austria
- Ireland
- Netherlands
- Denmark
- Portugal
- Norway
- Switzerland
- Italy
- Spain
- Germany
The 15 safest cities for 2027:
- Montreal
- Zurich
- Amsterdam
- Tokyo
- Reykjavik
- Oslo
- Singapore
- Venice, Italy
- Sydney
- Honolulu
- Dublin
- Copenhagen
- Barcelona
- San Francisco
- Paris
Why It Matters
In Global Rescue‘s April 2026 survey of more than 1,200 current and former members, 56 percent said they were more or much more concerned about their personal safety when traveling internationally, and less than 1 percent said they were less concerned. The BHTP lists give advisors an outside, data-based reference for those conversations, whether that means pointing a first-time international traveler toward top-ranked countries such as Canada, Iceland or Portugal or building a Japan or Australia itinerary around Tokyo or Sydney, and the report’s travel insurance focus offers a natural opening to discuss trip protection at the same time.
For more information, visit bhtp.com.
