Among 47 destinations analyzed worldwide, Lisbon tops the Holiday Happiness Index, a ranking by the retreat platform BookRetreats that measures which destinations are best suited to make a trip a happy one. Helsinki and Orlando round out the top three.
Why did Lisbon come in first?
The food
This is Lisbon’s strong point in the study: nearly 10% of the city’s restaurants are classified as healthy, the second-highest percentage among the 47 destinations, trailing only Athens. In this category, Paris, Tokyo, and New York all rank behind Lisbon.
Sun and greenery
The capital enjoys 2,828 hours of sunshine per year and 49 square meters of green space per resident —much less than Helsinki, but nearly four times more than Madrid, according to the study. BookRetreats also notes that the beaches of Cascais and Costa da Caparica are less than an hour from the city.
Walking
Another asset is the city’s scale: Lisbon is easy to explore on foot, despite the hills in neighborhoods like Bairro Alto and Alfama. According to the index’s calculations, walking between some of the city’s most popular attractions—from Praça do Comércio to the Belém Tower—takes just under two hours.
The rest of the top 5
Helsinki, in second place, has the highest index score for sleep quality, with the lowest levels of noise and light pollution. Orlando, in third place, has the most green space per resident among the cities analyzed: 258 square meters. Athens, in fourth place, is the easiest to explore on foot and has the highest percentage of healthy restaurants. Edinburgh rounds out the top 5 and is the only UK destination in the top ten.
How the index works
The Holiday Happiness Index was created in collaboration with clinical psychologist Natalie Dattilo-Ryan, affiliated with Harvard Medical School, and evaluates five factors equally: hours of sunshine, sleep quality (measured by perceptions of noise and light pollution), the availability of healthy restaurants on TripAdvisor, green space per resident, and the time it takes to walk to the four highest-rated attractions in each destination.
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