The 6 Friendliest Countries for Visitors, Ranked by Travelers

Ask a dozen travelers where they felt most welcomed on the road and you will get a dozen different stories, shaped by weather, food, and the sheer luck of who happened to be standing at the ticket counter that day. Yet certain places keep showing up near the top of traveler surveys year after year, and in late 2025 one ranking in particular drew attention for how close the competition actually was. On 7 October 2025, Condé Nast Traveller published the results of its Readers’ Choice Awards 2025 for the world’s friendliest countries, a ranking that drew attention for how tightly contested it was, with all ten countries scoring above 96 percent and only about 2 percentage points separating the top and bottom spots. The following six nations, drawn from that survey and ranked in ascending order toward the top spot, represent what real travelers said made them feel genuinely at home rather than merely tolerated.

6. Vietnam

Vietnam appears at sixth in the ranking, a placement that reflects a country readers described in terms of everyday human contact rather than postcard scenery alone. Readers described a country where community life is highly visible, from urban sidewalk culture made up of curbside food vendors, morning exercise groups and street barbers, to intimate guesthouses and village hospitality in rural areas. It’s the kind of place where a five minute chat with a coffee vendor can turn into an invitation to a family gathering. The magazine highlighted the Ha Giang Loop as an emblematic journey, noting that though many travellers go for the scenery, what lingers is the bond formed with local drivers and hosts. That distinction matters. Plenty of countries have dramatic landscapes, but far fewer manage to pair them with the sense that a stranger on a motorbike genuinely wants you to have a good time.

5. Cambodia

Cambodia’s showing on this list surprised some observers, given its relatively young modern tourism industry. Cambodia was voted the fifth friendliest country in the world in the Readers’ Choice Awards 2025, scoring 97.33 points and beating out major tourist nations such as Vietnam at 97.27 and Thailand at 96.36. For a country whose tourism industry rebuilt itself largely within the last two decades, that result stands out. The reasoning readers gave leaned heavily on culture rather than infrastructure or amenities. Cambodia’s cultural orientation around concepts of compassion and community, together with its rural homestay traditions and the graceful welcome at sites such as Angkor, led readers to rank it highly for friendliness. There’s something fitting about a country whose most famous monument is a temple complex still ranking near the top for how its living residents treat guests.

4. Bhutan

Bhutan rarely tops mainstream tourism charts, largely because it caps visitor numbers and controls tourism tightly by design. That scarcity, though, seems to work in its favor when it comes to genuine hospitality. Bhutan earned a top spot for reasons that go beyond conventional tourism, with its people-first policies, emphasis on Gross National Happiness and commitment to sustainable travel cited as part of the country’s welcoming character. Travelers who make the trip often describe an experience that feels curated in a good way, less like being processed through a tourism machine and more like being hosted by a nation that has decided, as a matter of policy, that visitors should leave feeling cared for. Strict visitor caps mean fewer crowds too, which only adds to the sense that a traveler is genuinely being hosted rather than processed. Mountain guides and homestay families get much of the credit for that impression.

3. Mexico

Mexico’s third place finish came with numbers so close to the top two that the difference barely registers statistically. Mexico came in third with a near-identical score to the top two, with Kenya taking first place at 98.46 points, followed by Barbados at 98.18, and Mexico at 98.00. Given how close those numbers sit together, the difference between first and third place amounts to little more than personal taste in what kind of welcome a traveler prefers. What readers consistently praised was not any single attraction but a pattern of behavior that repeats across the country’s very different regions. Travelers consistently describe the same pattern in Mexico, regardless of which region they visit. Whether in a Yucatán fishing village or a Mexico City neighborhood, the reported experience of home cooked meals and open doors shows up again and again in traveler feedback.

2. Barbados

Barbados landed in second place, and its calendar of public celebration seems to be a large part of the explanation. Barbados ranks second, praised for a lively cultural life shaped by Afro-Caribbean and British legacies. That blend of traditions gives the island a hospitality style that feels both formal and warm at once. The island’s signature event does a lot of heavy lifting for its reputation. The Crop Over Festival traces its origins back to celebrations of sugar cane harvests in the 18th century, and this time of year sees Barbados explode with rainbow hued feathers and calypso music as thousands of international travellers flock in to witness the spectacle, all met with splendid hospitality. It’s the kind of event that turns a passing visitor into someone who feels, briefly, like part of the crowd.

1. Kenya

Kenya took the top spot, and the margin, while narrow in percentage terms, was still enough to make it a clear winner. Kenya took the top spot in the 2025 rankings and has been named the world’s friendliest country in the 2025 Condé Nast Traveller Readers’ Choice Awards, topping the global ranking. Given how tightly bunched the scores were across the entire top ten, first place here is a meaningful distinction rather than a rounding error. What readers pointed to wasn’t just scenery, though Kenya certainly has plenty of that. While famed for its wildlife and safari experiences, readers highlighted that much of the country’s appeal comes from the people, attentive guides, vibrant urban scenes and welcoming coastal resorts that together create an overall sense of hospitality. That combination of safari expertise and everyday warmth in cities and coastal towns appears to be what separated Kenya from the rest of the pack this year.

Final thoughts

Rankings like these are never perfect measures of a country’s character, and the survey’s own methodology acknowledges as much. Condé Nast Traveller’s Readers’ Choice methodology aggregates reader responses across categories to create a single satisfaction percentage, and in 2025 the results produced exceptionally high scores and very small gaps between countries. That closeness is worth remembering before treating any single position as gospel. Still, the pattern across these six countries says something real about what travelers value right now. The outcome suggests that travellers currently value authentic human connection, how locals treat visitors, how communities include outsiders, often more than headline attractions alone. Whether that connection comes from a safari guide in Kenya, a festival crowd in Barbados, or a homestay host in rural Cambodia, the underlying appeal seems to be the same: a welcome that feels personal rather than transactional.