Looking for the best cities to live in or retire abroad? The world’s most livable city is once again Vienna, Austria, according to The Economist’s Intelligence Unit’s annual Most Livable Cities ranking.
Others in the top 10 are also similar to years past. The Economist bases its scores on weighted composite calculations covering stability, health care, culture & environment, education, and infrastructure. Here are the top ten cities to live in, or the world’s ‘most livable cities,’ ranked.
Related:The World’s Most and Least Expensive Cities, Ranked The Best Cities to Live in, 2019 Vienna, Austria Melbourne, Australia Sydney, Australia Osaka, Japan Calgary, Canada Vancouver, Canada Toronto, Canada Tokyo, Japan Copenhagen, Denmark Adelaide, Australia
All 10 earned scores between 99.1 and 96.6 on a scale of 100, meaning that there’s really little difference between them. Given the importance of factors at the national as well as local level, it’s no surprise that all top-10 cities are in just five highly developed democracies. Europe also fared well, with Zurich, Frankfurt, Geneva, Helsinki, and Hamburg closely trailing the top 10 despite only Copenhagen making the top ranks.
Of the six scoring categories, only three strongly contribute to the visitor experience: stability, culture & environment, and infrastructure. I did a quick recalculation with just those three categories, and the result changed only slightly: Vienna stays on top, Adelaide at the bottom, with just a few minor position changes.
Related:Everything You Wanted to Know About Working Holiday Visas for Americans
Current headlines come to mind with a look at the bottom 10, or least-livable, cities. The least livable city is Damascus, Syria, followed by Lagos, Nigeria; Dhaka, Bangladesh; Tripoli, Libya; Karachi, Pakitan, Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea; Harare, Zimbabwe; Douala, Cameroon; Algiers, Algeria; and Caracas, Venezuela.
Anyone examining the detailed categories might question some of the scorings. How, for example, could Adelaide outscore Vienna for “culture & environment?” But clearly, all of the top 10 are nice places for visitors as well as for residents—making them the best cities to live in.
What’s most intriguing about the summary report, however, isn’t the close scoring at the top or even the members of the top. For travelers, it’s more notable that some of the world’s top visitor cities—London, New York, Paris, Rome, San Francisco, for example, didn’t make the cut.
Related:The 20 Safest Cities in the World
Did your favorite city make the top 10? Comment below.
More from SmarterTravel: Every Country That Requires a Visa for Americans How to Get a Visa Living Abroad: 12 Tips from Travelers
The website maxtravelz.com is an aggregator of news from open sources. The source is indicated at the beginning and at the end of the announcement. You can send a complaint on the news if you find it unreliable.
Chances are if you frequent airport lounges, you’re a Priority Pass member. Membership can be purchased outright or included as a complimentary benefit under specific credit cards and provides access to more than 1,300 lounges worldwide, across 148 countries in over 600 cities. With Priority Pass membership, travelers can enter lounges in the portfolio on their flight date, regardless of airline or class flown, often with two guests.
After a pandemic slump, quality of life is again on the rise in many of the world's cities. In fact, overall liveability has reached a 15-year high, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit's annual Global Liveability Index, which rates 173 cities on factors including stability, healthcare, culture & environment, education and infrastructure.
Late last year, I was itching to leave my hometown of Los Angeles and booked a short trip to the East Coast. But, as soon as I boarded my return flight, I realized I couldn't wait to get back home.
The 26-country no-border-control Schengen area is in danger of collapsing under the migration threat. Presumably, the new border controls will be for no more than two years. But for now, you have to figure on reverting to the bad old days of mind-numbing border hassles within the area.
Travelers heading to or from Washington, D.C., through Reagan/National Airport can expect major ground travel disruptions and delays through July 18. Trains on both the Blue and Yellow lines will suspend operations on two track segments:
Editors’ Note: On October 1, 2018, Primera Air announced it will cease operations immediately. The following story was published on September 11, 2018.
Airports. Can’t live with ’em, can’t live without ’em. But their tolerability quotients vary widely; some are more endurable, even congenial, than others.
Cruising is one of the best ways to take in multiple destinations on a single trip, not to mention some killer ocean views. For those reasons and more, we look forward to Cruise Critic’s annual Cruisers’ Choice Destination Awards. Based on port ratings from avid cruisers and readers, Cruise Critic picks 15 destination winners each year.
According to research from Germany-based Cruisewatch: “Booking the respective cruise destination at the right time can realistically save you up to 71 percent reductions off your cruise.”
The average payback for six major hotel chain loyalty programs—the value of what the points will buy, compared to what you pay to earn the points—is near 9 percent. That’s substantially higher than the return from the big three airline programs, which fetch about 4 to 6 percent. Those figures come from IdeaWorks’ 2017 CarTrawler Hotel Reward Payback Survey. Among hotel programs, Wyndham’s payback is highest, at 16.7 percent.
According to a report in the Post-Gazette, people who live in the Pittsburgh area can now load up at those wonderful “Airmall” shops airside at Pittsburgh airport without having to fly anywhere. A new pilot “myPITpass” program allows people without tickets to go airside, as long as they show the usual ID and go through the usual TSA screening, between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. weekdays.