Why Is Everyone Suddenly Talking About Safe Countries for LGBT Travel?
If your social media feeds and LGBTQ newsletters have been awash with blog post lists of safe countries for LGBT travelers, that’s because Spartacus recently released their latest gay travel index.
This post was written in May 2025 and updated in April 2026 to reflect the latest rankings and add a section comparing the rankings of safe countries for LGBT travel from year to year.
If you’re just looking for the top ranked safe countries for LGBT people in 2026, it’s Canada, Iceland, Portugal, Spain and Malta. Those countries are tied for number one – and they’re also on our list of the best countries in Europe for gay and lesbian travel.
If you’re curious what the Spartacus index looks at when ranking safe countries for LGBT folks, or who’s behind the ranking, keep reading!
Spartacus Index Updates: Gay Travel Rankings Explained and Why Safe Countries for LGBT Travel Matters
At first glance, the 2026 Spartacus Gay Travel Index looks pretty similar to the 2025 version.
LGBT friendly Iceland is in first place. No surprise to me.
Close behind Iceland, the second safest countries to visit if you’re LGBT are Malta and Spain. No surprise here either: these top our most LGBT friendly countries in Europe, too!
Tied for fourth place are gay and lesbian travel favorites: Germany, Portugal, Belgium and Canada.
But the real story of this year’s Spartacus gay travel index isn’t the countries at the top or the bottom, it’s the ones in the middle.
The places that LGBT travelers tend to gloss over because they aren’t the best, safest countries to visit – but nor are they the ones that travel media tells us to be scared to visit, because there are no hate crime protections, same sex marriage laws, or affirming attitudes towards LGBT or non binary gender!
These Countries Moved the Most on LGBTQ Inclusion In One Year
Places like Nepal, Poland and Chile, where LGBT rights got a lot better.
Poland shot up from #118 to #59 in the gay travel index. This is due to stronger legal protections for LGBTQ people, progress on trans rights, and greater social acceptance.
While Poland still falls behind other European countries, that’s major progress on gender identity and sexual orientation in a year – over sixty points!
LGBT Nepal travel has been on my radar for years ever since I read this Vacationer article suggesting Kathmandu would be the next queer Asian travel trend.
Nepal ranks #32 (up from #53 in last year’s index). Like Poland, the rise in rankings was driven by greater acceptance and legal protections for trans people – in Nepal’s case, legal support for self-identification.
If you’ve always dreamed of trekking in the Himalayas, consider this your sign to start planning!
In South America, countries like Uruguay have been proudly LGBT-friendly for years. Countries that haven’t had the same level of protections, like Chile and Colombia, are now moving toward greater social and legal support for LGBTQ+ populations.
The flip side of the progress narrative is all the places where it’s less accepted to be LGBTQ.
The US rightly gets a lot of criticism in this conversation (including plenty from me), but it is far from the only country where public support for LGBTQ rights is waning.
Over in the UK, TERF curmudgeon author JK Rowling is using her massive nest egg not to write, but to fund the gender critical movement, one of my greatest pet peeves in life.
Rant aside, this year’s Spartacus Gay Travel Index confirms the bigger picture I’ve been tracking: LGBTQ rights are in a divergent path around the world.
Some countries are getting more open and accepting and some are closing down, with LGBTQ+ individuals experiencing less freedom and openness.
In the US, this pattern repeats in micro: States like Kansas and Idaho are passing extreme anti-trans laws, while liberal states double down on safeguarding LGBTQ+ rights, leading to widespread inequality within the US depending on where you life.
And while tons of LGBTQ+ people are moving to safer states, moving costs money a lot of trans and queer people do not have.
Moving also means leaving support systems and queer communities – a scary proposition even if the bad laws are motivating you to flee!
Crossing borders means gaining or losing rights, depending on where you live. As the US and UK illustrate, a country may have been a pioneer of LGBTQ rights, but that is no guarantee that it will be equally safe and affirming for years to come.
The takeaway for travelers: LGBTQ friendly rankings are a great place to get travel inspiration, but don’t stop there. Dig deeper to understand whether a country is rising or falling, and what changing rights and freedoms mean for your visit.
What is the Spartacus Gay Travel Index, anyway?
The Spartacus Gay Travel Index is an annual snapshot of how LGBTQIA+ people are treated around the world, published annually since 2012.
Before Spartacus was an index, it was an LGBTQ travel guidebook.
Actually, the LGBTQ guidebook.
There wasn’t much competition in the 1970s, when the first Spartacus guide was printed!
Back then, the original gay travel guide listed country and city-specific tips, gay-owned businesses, and a rundown of the laws and social acceptance toward LGBTQ+ folks. Resources, including gay support groups and HIV/AIDS hotlines, were also listed.
By the 2010s, when their safe countries for LGBT guidebook went digital-only, editions ran well over 1,000 pages!
Spartacus released digital guides beginning in 2017 before developing an app for LGBTQ travelers.
How Spartacus Ranks Safe Countries for LGBT People
The index ranks countries based on LGBTQ+ laws, protections, and lived realities like discrimination and violence.
Ranking data is pulled from a mix of trusted sources—think IGLTA, Equaldex, and Human Rights Watch.
There’s a points system, where being pro-LGBTQ earns you points and criminalizing LGBTQ identities costs you points.
Countries that kill you for being gay lose five points.
Countries that say they’ll kill you for being gay but don’t enforce the law lose one point.
Countries where sharia law impacts LGBTQ public safety and legal rights (like Nigeria, Indonesia or United Arab Emirates) lose points for that.
The index breaks down the most safe countries for LGBT, according to data points like:
- LGBTQ+ nondiscrimination
- Same-sex marriage
- Trans rights
- Censorship
- Ban on Pride
- LGBTQ+ murders
- Legal persecution
On the LGBT tourism side, it tracks how actively destinations are trying to attract gay, lesbian and trans travelers (spoiler: not all marketing is meaningful).
Spartacus is great for checking the pulse of a country. It’s not perfect, but it’s one of the most useful tools out there for seeing how queer life compares across borders.
If you want to go beyond the numbers, you’ll have to look elsewhere.
The LGBT safety rankings do not explain why Iceland moved up in the rankings or the United States moved down from 41 to 48, for example.
That’s why I tend to check Equaldex or Movement Advancement Project’s LGBTQ maps instead of Spartacus when I’m planning travel. They make it easy to scroll down and find context for a ranking.
For gay and lesbian Europe travels, ILGA puts out an annual Rainbow Map raking European countries on LGBTQ inclusion. A separate map from ILGA and Transgender Europe tracks trans inclusion. This post unpacks their 2025 Europe travel maps and the latest changes.
Since 2020, Spartacus has released a separate gay travel index for the USA. That’s an acknowledgement that US travel – not to mention daily life – really depends on where you go.
That’s something not everyone understands. Foreigners tend to think about life in a few big cities or coastal states.
Even Americans oversimplify.
People assume I live in New York City because I’m in New York when the truth is, I rarely get down there (and usually it’s to an airport!).
Speaking of New York, it took first place in the USA index!
Hot on its heels is California, followed by a three-way tie for third place with Nevada, Oregon and Washington.
Memorize that for the next time someone asks you where in the US is safe for LGBT! Or send them to this post, which goes into way more detail on LGBTQ safe states.
Why is there a Spartacus United States Gay Travel Index?
On the one hand, a separate US index reeks of American exceptionalism.
On the other hand, the United States is one of the largest countries in the world (in terms of land mass. Population wise, the US is third, after India and China).
Laws and attitudes toward LGBTQ people vary widely from one state to the next.
Same sex couples can marry in every state in the US as a result of federal laws affirming marriage rights. But many other laws impacting LGBT folks are set at the state level.
Many states are abolishing their LGBTQ rights, while other states are going even further to offer protections and sanctuary to LGBT people.
So given just how different states vary in things like conversion therapy or legal gender recognition, it just is not possible to rank the United States as a whole. You need to look deeper at the states.
So how does Spartacus do that exactly?
The US list has some fun categories that the global index does not yet have. Take queer infrastructure for one.
Queer infrastructure looks at how many Pride events, LGBTQ+ spaces, and community resources exist across different cities.
That tips the list in favor of the big states with multiple queer hubs – the ones that are obviously LGBTQ friendly.
The US list also looks at hate crime laws and whether states prohibit the “gay panic” defense, in which queer or transphobia can break someone’s brain so much they cannot be held accountable for their reaction.
My favorite US category? That’s “locals hostile,” which is largely a euphemism for murder.
Here’s what Spartacus had to say about that in the conclusion to their 2025 USA gay travel index:
“Incidents in which people were offended or being physically attacked is almost everywhere. This can also happen in states that have not received any negative points.”
Bottom Line:
Spartacus Gay Travel Index is one of your options for checking out the safety of a US state or country, as well understanding global rankings of LGBT safe countries. I like to look at the Spartacus list for tracking year over year trends and checking the pulse of a county, but if you’re looking for reasons (or reassurance), there are other resources that dig deeper. For more resources like this one, here are some of my favorite trans travel safety indexes and lesbian travel safety lists to know.
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