American travel journalists, Asher and Lyric Fergusson, took it up on themselves to research and report the worst and safest countries to travel to for the LGBTIQ+ community.

According to their online website their goal is to “help hundreds of thousands of individuals every month stay safe, healthy, and happy while traveling.”

The report is based on the 150 most visited destinations around the world. According to the research Sweden is the best country to travel to for LGBTIQ+ people, followed by Canada, Norway and Portugal. Malta is the 11th safest country to travel to.

The number one worst country to travel to is Nigeria, due to homosexuality receiving up to 14 years in prison and the death penalty. It’s closely followed by Qatar, Yemen and Saudi Arabia, which all have death penalty as one of the punishment for homosexual acts.

Can you give me a little background on your research?

Growing up, Lyric’s favourite person in the universe was her ‘uncle’. Magical, loving, kind, and the best storyteller around, he was her parents’ best friend and one of the most influential people in her life. He also happened to be gay.

Lyric grew up in Hollywood surrounded by actors, producers and what she thought was a very open and accepting community for LGBTQ+ individuals. It wasn’t until she was 13 when she overheard her Uncle explaining that he was concerned he would be fired from an acting job if they found out he was gay, that she realized even one the most liberal US communities were still plagued with homophobia.

Since then, LGBTQ+ rights have been at the forefront of Lyric’s awareness. She wondered how safe the US was for the LGBTQ+ community vs the rest of the world after hearing stories from other travellers. We then decided to dive deep into the subject and what we found was shocking.

Why did you decide to do this research?

So many questions entered our minds. For example, “Is it safe to travel to countries where the death penalty or life imprisonment is still a sentence for being openly gay?”

As travel journalists, we wanted to help the LGBTQ+ community educate themselves on the very complex and layered world of staying safe during international travel. But also, to try to bring more awareness to the often horrific treatment of LGBTQ+ people in many parts of the world. And hopefully, this will bring about change, acceptance, and love for all people regardless of their orientation.

How long did it take?

This research and chart took us more than a month to complete. It was definitely a labour of love.

Where you surprised by the results or the order of the countries?

We were very surprised that there are still such archaic punishments in many countries just because of who someone loves. How can same-sex relationships still lead to the death penalty? When we came across this information, we were really motivated to continue the long process of reviewing the LGBTQ+ laws for all of the 150 most visited countries in the world.

Have you been to these countries before? Did you see how the LGBT+ community gets treated in some of these places?

India is one country that we’ve been to that still has a lot of mistreatment of the LGBTQ+ community. People in India are often afraid of transgender individuals and I’ve seen them physically harmed multiple times. It’s so sad. We’ve also heard a lot of stories from other travellers about other destinations like Egypt.