When people think of Australia, they might imagine a land filled with man-eating crocodiles, stinging jellyfish, hairy spiders and venomous snakes. While we do have our fair share of deadly critters, Australia isn’t as wild and wacky as it’s made out to be. We’re not the only ones who think so too, with a recent report naming Australia as the tenth safest country in the world for travellers.
The annual study by travel insurance company Berkshire Hathaway goes far beyond just looking at levels of terrorist activity or disease outbreaks; it also considers how freely people can move about, stay disease-free and be sheltered from severe weather events. To compile the rankings, they combined safety ratings from travellers who had visited each country in the last five years, with data from global safety studies, like the Global Peace Index and the State Department’s travel safety ratings.
This isn’t the first time Australia has appeared on the world’s safest travel destinations list, having ranked fourth in 2023. Our wacky wildlife and intense UV rays nudged us down a bit on the safety scale, while our number of homicides (377 in 2022) was relatively lower compared to places like Chicago, which tallied 692 in the same year.
Australia might have slipped in the overall rankings, but Sydney soared in an equivalent breakdown of the world’s safest cities for travel in 2024. Our beloved Emerald City claimed the fourth top spot, jumping from its tenth-place ranking last year and standing proud as the only Australian city on the list. Like the previous study, these rankings were based on a mix of traveller feedback and data on weather crises, health measures, terrorism and the safety of marginalised groups.
It’s worth noting that the world is a highly unpredictable place and a certain country’s safety status can shift overnight. The tragic recent violent events in Sydney and summer bushfires from a few years back proves just that. If you are travelling to Australia and find yourself in an emergency, here are the numbers you need to keep handy.
You can find a list of the 15 safest travel destinations in 2024 here:
- Canada
- Switzerland
- Norway
- Ireland
- Netherlands
- United Kingdom
- Portugal
- Denmark
- Iceland
- Australia
- New Zealand
- Japan
- France
- Spain
- Brazil
And a list of the 15 safest cities in the world for travellers in 2024 here:
- Honolulu
- Montreal
- Reykjavik
- Sydney
- Amsterdam
- Dubai
- Copenhagen
- London
- Seoul
- Venice
- Tokyo
- Berlin
- Paris
- Barcelona
- Orlando
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