We love a bucket-list landmark as much as the next traveller, but how about a holiday that’s scientifically engineered to make you smile?
That’s the premise behind the new Holiday Happiness Index from BookRetreats.com, developed in collaboration with Harvard-affiliated clinical psychologist Dr Natalie Dattilo-Ryan. It analysed 47 destinations worldwide across five factors scientifically linked to the body’s ‘feel-good’ hormones. You can see how each place ranks on sunlight, sleep quality, healthy eating, time in nature and how walkable a place is. Each factor was weighted equally to produce a single happiness score out of 100.
Topping the list is Lisbon, Portugal. Almost 10 percent of the city’s restaurants are classed as ‘healthy,’ the second-highest share in the whole index, ahead of food capitals like Paris, Tokyo and New York. It’s also a walkable city despite its famously hilly terrain, compact enough that most major sights, from Praça do Comércio to Belém Tower, sit within a couple of hours of each other on foot. Add 49 square metres of green space per person (nearly four times more than Madrid), easy access to the beaches of Costa da Caparica and Cascais, and a hefty 2,828 hours of sunshine a year, and Lisbon’s win makes perfect sense.
Rounding out the top five, in order, are Helsinki, Finland, which has been crowned the world’s happiest country for eight years running, and unsurprisingly excellent for green space and low noise pollution. Then there’s Orlando, USA, thanks to more green space per person than anywhere else in the index and nearly 2,930 hours of annual sunshine. Athens, Greece is next, as it’s the single most walkable city in the whole ranking and has the joint-highest share of healthy restaurants, and then Edinburgh, Scotland, the only UK entry in the top ten, which has been praised for its parks, sleep quality and walkability alike.
The world’s happiest holiday destinations
- Lisbon
- Helsinki
- Orlando
- Athens
- Edinburgh
- Madrid
- Vienna
- Budapest
- Oslo
- Vilinus
Did you see that five Latin American neighbourhoods have been named among the world’s coolest by ?
Plus: The world’s best airlines for 2026 are in – and there’s a new number one.
Stay in the loop: sign up to our free Travel newsletter for all the latest travel news and best stuff happening across the world.
