Safest Cities for Solo Travel: What the Real Indices Show
No organization publishes a single verified 'safety score' for solo travelers, city by city — so this page doesn't invent one. Instead, here are the real, independently-published indices that actually exist, kept separate rather than blended into a fabricated composite.
Last updated: July 2026
Why there's no single real 'safety score'
Composite city safety rankings that combine crime, healthcare, transit, and "solo traveler infrastructure" into one clean 0-100 score are everywhere online — and almost none of them disclose a real, checkable methodology. The honest picture is messier: several real, independently-published indices exist, each measuring something different, and none of them is solo-travel-specific. Rather than blend them into an invented score, here's what each one actually says.
Numbeo's Crime Index — real, live, and city-level
Numbeo publishes a continuously-updated, crowd-sourced Crime Index by city — it's real and genuinely city-level, unlike most "safety" data. Because it's crowd-sourced and updates constantly, exact values shift; treat any snapshot as directional, not a permanent ranking. As of mid-2026, the lowest (safest) Crime Index scores are concentrated in the UAE and East Asia, not the Northern European cities that most "safest cities" lists default to.
Numbeo Crime Index — lowest (safest) scores, mid-2026 snapshot
| City | Crime Index | Safety Index |
|---|---|---|
| Ajman, UAE | 11.2 | 88.8 |
| Abu Dhabi, UAE | 11.4 | 88.6 |
| Ras al-Khaimah, UAE | 14.6 | 85.4 |
| Sharjah, UAE | 15.3 | 84.7 |
| Doha, Qatar | 15.4 | 84.6 |
| Dubai, UAE | 16.2 | 83.8 |
| Taipei, Taiwan | 16.6 | 83.4 |
| Muscat, Oman | 18.6 | 81.4 |
| The Hague, Netherlands | 21.1 | 78.9 |
| Zagreb, Croatia | 21.6 | 78.4 |
Numbeo Crime Index by City, fetched mid-2026 — this index fluctuates continuously and is based on user-submitted perception data, so treat it as directional. Check numbeo.com/crime/rankings.jsp for the current live values before citing a specific number.
The Global Peace Index — real, country-level
The Institute for Economics & Peace publishes the annual Global Peace Index, ranking countries (not cities) on societal safety, ongoing conflict, and militarization. It's a real, well-established, methodologically-disclosed index — just not solo-travel-specific and not city-level. The 2026 top 10: Iceland, New Zealand, Switzerland, Slovenia, Ireland, Austria, Portugal, Singapore, Finland, and Japan.
English Proficiency — real, mostly country-level
EF's English Proficiency Index (EF EPI) is real and current, based on 2.2 million test-takers across 123 countries in the 2025 edition. It's useful context for navigation ease, but it's a country-level metric — EF publishes city-level breakouts for only a handful of major cities, not a full ranked list, so don't trust any page that presents a precise English-proficiency score for 25 individual cities. The 2025 top-ranked countries: Netherlands, Croatia, Austria, Germany, Norway, Portugal, Denmark, and Sweden.
What solo travelers actually worry about
Solo Traveler World runs a real, recurring annual survey of its readership — the closest thing to a legitimate solo-travel-specific data source in this space. In its most recent published results: price and safety are the top two trip-planning factors (77% and 76% respectively), 59% of women say they feel safe traveling solo, 76% say they'd avoid a specific destination over safety concerns, and 38% have avoided an entire country for the same reason. Among safety worries specifically, the top three named concerns are being mugged or robbed (15%), road traffic accidents (14%), and scams (13%) — notably, violent assault and traffic accidents rank ahead of the threats solo-travel content usually emphasizes most.
Practical safety measures that don't depend on a ranking
Regardless of which index you trust, the same practical steps hold everywhere: research your specific neighborhood, not just the city, since safety varies block to block in every city on every list above; keep a digital and physical copy of your documents; confirm your accommodation's exact address before you land; and know how you'll be found if something goes wrong. That last one is the piece a ranking can't help with — it's not about which city you're in, it's about whether someone back home knows to look for you.
Stay connected while traveling solo
The biggest risk unique to solo travel isn't which city has the lowest crime index — it's that nobody notices when something goes wrong, regardless of where you are. A daily check-in system addresses this directly. ImAlive lets solo travelers set a daily check-in window; on Protect Me, if you don't check in by your chosen time, your designated emergency contact is automatically notified with your last-known location. It works across time zones and even with minimal connectivity, since it only needs a brief connection once a day, not constant GPS tracking.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the safest city in the world for solo travelers?
No organization publishes a verified, solo-travel-specific ranking of cities by safety. What does exist: Numbeo's live Crime Index (currently lowest, i.e. safest, in cities like Ajman, Abu Dhabi, and Taipei) and the Global Peace Index, which ranks countries — not cities — and currently places Iceland, New Zealand, and Switzerland at the top. These measure different things and shouldn't be blended into a single score without disclosing that.
Is it safe to travel solo as a woman?
In Solo Traveler World's most recent annual reader survey, 59% of women said they feel safe traveling solo, while safety concerns still shape 76% of travel planning decisions. We'd recommend checking destination-specific resources like the Georgetown Institute WPS Index and current government travel advisories rather than relying on any single blended "safety score."
How do I stay safe while traveling alone?
Research your specific neighborhood (not just the city), keep digital and physical copies of your documents, confirm your accommodation's address before arrival, and use a daily check-in app like ImAlive so someone is alerted if you don't check in.
What do solo travelers actually worry about most?
According to Solo Traveler World's recurring annual survey, the top named safety concerns are being mugged or robbed (15%), road traffic accidents (14%), and scams (13%) — worth noting since traffic accidents rarely get the attention that assault does in most solo-travel safety content, despite ranking similarly high.
Is Numbeo's Crime Index reliable for choosing a destination?
It's a real, city-level, continuously-updated index — genuinely useful as one data point. But it's crowd-sourced from user submissions, fluctuates over time, and has known sample-size limitations in smaller cities, so it should be one input among several (alongside government travel advisories and your own research), not treated as a precise ranking.
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