The best destinations for an anxious traveller
Anxious about travelling and not sure where you should visit?
Hopefully, this will be the guide for you. Below, we've picked out some of the places we've visited that we think are best for anxious travellers. We've tried to focus on picking places that are safe, that are easy to get the most out of, and which are less likely to trigger some specific anxieties that you or your travel companions might have.
We've also written a few notes on who these places might not suit, but please don't think we're telling you not to visit these places even if you see some of your anxieties in those sections. It's good to push yourself a bit, so maybe you'll decide that the good sides outweigh a couple of challenges.
You won't find some places that we've loved visiting together but which I might have found too overwhelming if I'd been solo travelling. That means no places like Fes, in Morocco, for instance: an ancient city which is an incredible treasure trove of beautiful old buildings and souks unlike any others, but a city which is very loud, crowded, and tough to navigate.
Instead, this list is for those needing a more stress-free vacation. Keep checking back, as we'll be updating this page whenever we visit more places that feel easy, welcoming, and soothing to visit.
Contents
Oslo
Why Oslo could be good for an anxious traveller: Our trip to Oslo this year was the inspiration for this list. Oslo is spacious, clean, walkable and easy to navigate city with loads of easy-to-access activities, both outdoors in nature and indoors enjoying Norway’s museums and other cultural offerings. There's a good café on seemingly every street and, while traditional Norwegian food isn't going to appeal to many vegetarian or vegan travellers, there's enough variety of other restaurants to keep most people happy.
If you speak English, you won’t find much of a language barrier as pretty much everyone you meet in Norway speaks perfect English. We found the city and its residents to be friendly and welcoming, and there's not a huge drinking culture - so there's no risk of being woken up by people piling out of clubs and bars near your hotel, as there is in some other big cities.
If you’re a nervous flyer and you live in Europe, there are train connections to the rest of the continent – though they won’t be cheap. For those with health anxieties, like me, you’re visiting a country with excellent healthcare and no risk of picking up anything from a pesky mosquito.
Oslo is one of the easiest places you could wish to spend a long weekend visiting. And we found it had much more to do than we'd expected before visiting too. If it sounds right for you, read more about how to spend a few days in Oslo.
Why it might not suit you: If you find being in a busier, buzzier space helps distract you from intrusive or repetitive thoughts, then Oslo may not be as good for you as some of Europe’s larger capital cities. You can find plenty of things to do, but evenings in Oslo aren’t as lively as in Rome or Paris for instance.
If you tend to worry about budgeting, I can understand Oslo not being high on your personal list of places to visit. We found keeping costs down was manageable, but it's possible you could end up spending a fair amount more on food and things to do than you typically would on your travels.
And though it's not an anxiety-related reason not to visit, Oslo won't be the right spot for you if you're hoping to see a picture-perfect Norwegian fjord. If that's your main reason for considering Norway, then you might want to look into visiting Stavanger for two or three days instead. A compact town with a remarkably good (if expensive) food scene for its size, it's a starting point for short boat tours along Lysefjord and past Pulpit Rock.
Bilbao
Not far from Bilbao is Urdaibai Estuary. It's a great place to escape to if you need a break from the city
Why Bilbao could be good for an anxious traveller: Of all the cities I’ve visited, Bilbao is the one I could most imagine myself living in. It’s bigger and busier than Oslo, but beautifully and thoughtfully designed – including several city parks where you can spend a few hours if you need to decompress.
You'll find no end of exceptional restaurants, crowds are mostly smaller than in Barcelona or San Sebastian, and the Basque people are almost unfailingly friendly and welcoming.
The other fantastic thing about visiting Bilbao is that you can plan a holiday that takes in a city break, a trip to pretty coastal areas, and a walk around a national park without much planning. The Bilbao metro takes you directly to the Basque Coast, while Urdaibai Estuary, where Liz and I spent a lovely day a couple of years ago, is accessible by bus or train.
Why it might not suit you: If one of the reasons for your trip is to get a bit of sunshine (like many, my anxiety is typically worse in the grey and cold winter months), then Bilbao won’t be a suitable destination year-round. When we visited in March last year, the weather felt very familiar to what we’d left behind in Britain.
Bilbao isn’t as expensive as Barcelona, but it’s not cheap either so you may have to do a bit of budget planning. For some of you, I’m sure, more planning means more stress.
While crowds are generally smaller than in Spain’s hottest of tourist hotspots, you will find big crowds at the most famous attractions (around the Guggenheim, say). If you worry about contributing to overtourism – and, honestly, I think we all should be – some residents have held protests about this recently. Try to plan your visit outside the peak tourist months to lessen your impact.
Hokkaido
Why Hokkaido could be good for an anxious traveller: Want to experience Japan but overawed by Tokyo, Kyoto and the other biggest cities on Japan’s largest island? Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost prefecture, might be the place for you.
Sapporo is a big city, offering many of the things you’d be looking to find on a stroll around Tokyo – countless bars, great food, neon-illuminated buildings and all-night karaoke spots – but with the sensory overload you’d find at Shinjuku or Shibuya crossing turned down a few notches.
Outside of the peak winter months, and lavender-bloom season in mid-to-late July, the areas further north are as blissfully quiet as they are exceptionally beautiful. We visited in August last year and fell in love with every place we visited. Otaru is a small and picturesque town with cute little shops to fall in and out of, while Biei and Furano are stunning to visit even outside of skiing season.
Noboribetsu is famed for its onsens, but its volcanic scenery and Sika deer were my personal highlights, while Toyako is a picturesque lake formed in a volcanic caldera with offering nice hikes around its inner islands.
Don’t be worried about oppressive summer heat. Hokkaido is very warm in summer, but it doesn’t have the overwhelming humidity you’ll feel further south on Honshu. You don’t really need to worry about mosquito bites in Japan – Japanese encephalitis vaccines are available, and you’re highly unlikely to contract it unless spending a lot of time around rice paddies anyway – but I know that anyone with certain health anxieties might worry about them anyway. In Hokkaido, with its colder winter climate, you don't need to worry at all (with no recorded cases of JE ever recorded on the island).
Lastly, much of Hokkaido is easier to navigate on public transport than you may think, even if you don't speak the language. Station staff will do their absolute best to help you find the right train and buy tickets and translation apps will work just fine if you ever need to ask for help.
Why it might not suit you: If you're vegetarian and want a wide range of food options, it's certainly easier to find choices in Kyoto, Osaka, Tokyo and other cities further south than it is in some of the smaller towns we visited in Hokkaido. 7/11 is always an option for a vegan instant ramen, but you might have to spend some time finding a suitable restaurant if you’re looking for something more substantial.
The language barrier is real for English speakers. That might affect how easy it is to strike up conversations if you’re solo travelling and don’t speak Japanese, although we still ran into a few English-speaking travellers even in the summer months.
To get the most out of a trip to Hokkaido, you will have to drive or travel long distances by public transport sometimes. If navigating public transport causes you anxiety, then maybe the well-travelled Osaka-Kyoto-Tokyo route will be more suitable for you.
But if you think you can manage all of the above, we'd fully recommend Hokkaido to you. It's a remarkable place to visit.
The Azores
Why The Azores could be good for an anxious traveller: Beautiful, peaceful, abundantly green islands surrounded by miles upon miles of shimmering blue oceans. What’s not to love?
If you’re someone who finds it extremely soothing to be out in nature, then the Azores islands – a short flight from Porto or Lisbon in Portugal – are some of the best places you could possibly wish to visit. I challenge anyone not to find Furnas relaxing, with its nice hot baths, a still lake surrounded by bubbling volcanic fumaroles, and thick fluffy white (okay, just as often grey) clouds floating over the mountain tops all around you. If the local Spar supermarket only stocked a bit of tofu and gochujang, it’d be heaven.
The atmosphere in Ponta Delgada, the capital of Sao Miguel (the largest of the Azores islands), is lively but welcoming. With just under 70,000 people living in the capital, the town has enough places and people to feel full of life without being too big and stress-inducing for travellers who don't like being in big cities.
If you're after somewhere even quieter, then Terceira is a lovely place to spend a few restful days. We've heard similarly great things about Pico - one of the best places in Europe to take a whale-watching trip from - and been made green with envy looking at photos taken by a friend who visited Flores island. We're hoping to visit both by this time next year.
If one of your main sources of stress or anxiety while travelling is planning how to visit different places, or if you’re unconfident using public transport on your travels, we found a really good number of quality local tour guides who can take you to the best spots to visit.
Why it might not suit you: Island hopping in the Azores is not the best idea for anyone who really dislikes flying. The middle group of islands have ferry connections during peak season, but other islands can only be accessed by intra-island flights on large turbo-prop planes. It’s the wait to to get off the ground that causes me the most stress while flying, so these planes’ steeper and quicker take-off actually made the flight easier for me. I know that won’t be the case for all of you, though.
If you prefer indoor activities - visiting museums, going shopping, that kind of thing - or lively nights out to keep yourself distracted, the Azores are not the place for you. There’s plenty of places to hike, explore, and unwind, but outside of Ponta Delgada you’re not likely to find much of a social scene on an evening.
If you’re scared of dogs, avoid trying to walk between villages and towns. Liz and I are animal lovers and confident with dogs, but a couple of times on our walks we encountered large breeds not kept on leads or gated into their gardens – and snarling and posturing just enough for us to feel wary. Frankly, you’re not going to want to walk between villages or towns anyway; we tried it a couple of times and between the lack of pavements and some questionable driving standards on the islands, we didn’t find it relaxing. Stick to the hikes around Sete Cidades, Furnas, and other designated trails instead.
Vienna
Why Vienna could be good for an anxious traveller: I’ll hand the reins to Liz to talk about Vienna, which she recommends to anyone with similar anxieties to me who’s interested in a city break.
While Vienna is a big city, it’s accessible, spacious, easy to get around, and the people are very friendly too. It’s a popular destination for tourists so, if you’re worried about being by yourself and haven’t got a travel buddy lined up to go with you, you won’t find it difficult to meet some people while you’re there.
If you liked the sound of what Josh wrote about Oslo earlier, then you’ll probably like Vienna too. It has amazing history, loads to do, and it’s not quite as busy as some other popular city destinations in Europe too.
Why it might not suit you: There aren’t many anxiety-related reasons to avoid Vienna that I can think of.
Those who feel anxiety about travelling on unfamiliar public transport systems may not enjoy themselves, since a lot of the things that you might want to do in Vienna are quite spread out.
Otherwise, the main thing to stop you visiting would be if exploring palaces, parks and museums aren’t your idea of fun. If so, there are a lot of other cities with more to offer.
Seoul
Why Seoul could be good for an anxious traveller: Yes, it’s probably a long-haul flight away from you and it's a big and busier city than some others on this list. While I'm breaking some of the rules I set out at the start of this guide, I promise that Seoul is a great city to visit for certain anxious travellers.
I know this, because I visited Seoul before meeting Liz and loved every minute of my time there. Having travelled with a friend who had a lot of different interests, much of time in Seoul was my first experience of exploring somewhere overseas by myself - and I had no difficulties at all while I was there.
Korea, like Japan, is very safe. It has a modern and well sign-posted public transport system that’s easy to navigate without needing to be able to speak Korean. It has incredible food, including (in Seoul at least), enough options for a vegetarian like me to find good food without spending ages looking for it.
While busy in places, Seoul is blessed with peaceful areas to unwind in too. I absolutely adored walking along Cheonggyecheon stream in summer, cooling off and taking a break from the busier streets just above and around me. The garden at Gyeongbokgung Palace is beautiful, calm and spacious – you can and I did spend a very long time there in total peace – and the magnificently preserved Changdeokgung Palace (or Eastern palace) is equally lovely. There are even quiet and restful places in and around some of the big museums – I’m thinking particularly of the Hangeul Museum, dedicated to the Korean language, and the area around the National War Memorial.
You can visit other parts of Korea from Seoul without the stress of having to book multiple hotels too, since the trains are fast and reliable enough to easily enable you to visit some other great cities before heading back to Seoul in the evening. You can go to Busan and back within a day, and Suwon is even closer if you fancy checking out the ancient historic Hwaseong Fortress.
Most of the places we've listed are quieter and calmer cities. But if one of your worries about travelling is not having anyone to talk to, Seoul is a great place to go. There are loads of great bars, plenty of English-speaking tourists to meet and talk to, and South Koreans are almost always polite, willing to chat, and very helpful to those in need. If by any chance you're the student who noticed me and my travel buddy looking a little lost on our first night and helped us find a lovely bar and restaurant, a huge kamsahamnida to you.
Why it might not suit you: If you’re not a fan of crowds, there are parts of Seoul that won’t be to your tastes. Myeongdong can get pretty busy, and I found Gwangjang Market a bit overwhelming too – in part because I find it difficult to see tanks of live fish just waiting to become someone’s dinner, and in part because of the crowds and the heat in the market in summer.
I assume, if you’re reading this, you’re from a country where English is the first language. So getting to Seoul is going to take hopping on a very long flight. Long-haul flying is pretty tiring, tiredness can lead to more anxiety, and – well, you get the idea. I’d go to Seoul again in a heartbeat, given the opportunity, but you’ll need to decide if it’s worth the effort and the cost for you too.
Final thoughts
We'll be updating this list as soon as we visit somewhere else that we feel belongs on here.
If you've already decided on your next travel destination and need a bit of help preparing for the trip, the ever-organised lIz has written a travel-planning checklist that we hope has some useful tips.
If there's anywhere else you think belongs on this checklist, please let us know in the comments or send us an email with your recommendation. Much of this guide is based on my own experiences with anxiety and the things that trigger me; we'd love to hear from others who experience anxiety differently, so we can give some help as many anxious travellers as we can.
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