Dublin, the capital of the Republic of Ireland, is safe and beautiful.

Dublin, the capital of the Republic of Ireland, is safe and beautiful.
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The safest countries for women to visit

Is safety high on your list when choosing a holiday destination? Bounce has analysed more than 30 countries to come up with the safest and most welcoming for female travellers.

The Republic of Ireland came in first place, with a 7.88/10 overall safety score. Luggage storage company Bounce says it was among the top-scoring nations for almost all of the eight factors analysed, covering things such as violence towards women, as well as wider gender equality indicators.

"The Emerald Isle scores particularly highly for the laws it has in place to protect women from violence, as well as when it comes to local attitudes toward violence against women," it says.

Austria was just behind, taking second place with a score of 7.70/10, with Bounce noting the alpine country scored particularly well when it came to the percentage of women who feel safe walking alone at night (79%).

"It’s also generally a safe country for all genders, with low crime rates, so it’s a perfect destination for solo travel," it added.

Third place went to Norway, on 7.45/10, with the Scandinavian country scoring highly for the safety of women walking alone at night, its laws on domestic violence and low female homicide rate.

Europe scores highly

Slovenia, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Canada, the Netherlands, Poland and Japan rounded out the rest of the top 10 safest destinations for female travellers.

At the other end of the scale, Colombia was deemed to be the least safe country, coming in last of the 34 countries analysed. Costa Rica was second to last and the United States the third most unsafe country for female visitors.

The United Kingdom was in 26th place, well below France on 14 and behind Italy and Germany, in 23th and 25th place respectively.

Data on domestic violence, female homicide victims, overall crime, perceptions of feeling safe walking at night, attitudes towards violence against women, domestic violence laws and the global gender gap index were analysed for all the countries.

For more information on the survey, click here

Catherine Walbridge
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