Japan has taken the number one spot in Condé Nast Traveler's 2025 Readers' Choice Awards for best countries in the world, scoring 95.36 and finishing comfortably clear of the rest of a heavily Europe-leaning top 20.
The rankings, compiled from tens of thousands of reader votes, put Greece second on 92.31, followed by a tight cluster of southern European favourites: Portugal (92.08), Italy (92.02) and Spain (91.96), with Türkiye close behind on 91.91. Ireland and Croatia fill seventh and eighth, France lands ninth and Canada rounds out the top ten. No single country dominates the list — it reads more like a map of where travellers actually go and come back raving about.
The remainder of the list mixes alpine and Adriatic with long-haul standouts. Switzerland (90.82), Mexico (89.52) and Germany (89.40) slot in at 11 through 13, then India (88.95) and Thailand (88.06) lead the Asian contingent. Morocco (87.66) is the highest-ranked African entry, while Austria (86.86) and Dominica (86.62) show the range of the vote — from imperial city breaks to rainforest hiking in the Caribbean's 'Nature Island'. Bhutan (86.31), with its high-value, low-volume tourism policy, and South Africa (85.08, the lowest score on the list but still a top-20 finish) complete the field.
What's interesting for anyone planning a 2026 trip is the spread. Eighteen of the twenty are classic easy wins — beach, food, cities — but Dominica and Bhutan are genuine outliers: destinations where tourism is deliberately small-scale and the appeal is raw nature rather than restaurants and nightlife. And Japan's runaway score reflects a year in which the weak yen, world-class food and a flood of new flight routes have made it one of the most in-demand destinations anywhere — with the crowds to match in Kyoto and Tokyo.
The takeaway for travellers: this list doubles as a shortcut for choosing where to go next. If you want guaranteed crowd-pleasers, the Mediterranean run of Greece, Portugal, Italy and Spain is hard to beat, and shoulder-season visits keep them affordable. If you'd rather beat the pack somewhere the list suggests is still under-discovered, Dominica and Bhutan offer top-20 experiences with a fraction of the visitor numbers. Meanwhile, Japan — the outright winner — rewards travellers who plan around peak seasons and look beyond the headline cities.
Scores are reader-generated, so this is less a scientific index than a snapshot of traveller enthusiasm in 2025. But as inspiration lists go, it's a solid starting point.
