Travel Inspiration · 3 min read · 2026

Five years of Good Trips: where ethical travellers are heading in 2026

The Good Trips Index is back – and this year's findings show that British holidaymakers care more about sustainable travel than ever before.

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Holiday Extras has published the fifth annual Good Trips Index, ranking 183 countries across eight ethical travel measures. New research shows that 28% of British holidaymakers now describe sustainability as very important when booking – up from 16% in 2022. The index also reveals how political context, from Trump's presidency to Hungary's election, is reshaping where British travellers want to go.

Five years of asking a big question

Back in 2022, Holiday Extras set out to answer something no travel company had seriously tackled: where in the world can you take a genuinely good trip?

Five editions later, the Good Trips Index has become the most comprehensive ethical travel ranking of its kind. This year's edition – the most detailed yet – ranks 183 countries across eight measures: LGBT+ safety, press freedom, democracy, human freedom, animal welfare, women's safety, local quality of life, and sustainability.

The result is a data-driven guide to the destinations that meet the ethical standards modern travellers increasingly demand.

Sustainable travel is now mainstream

The numbers tell a clear story. In 2022, 16% of British holidaymakers described sustainability as very important when making booking decisions. By January 2026, that figure had climbed to 28% – a rise of twelve points in just four years.

Travellers who think sustainable travel is very important now outnumber those who consider it unimportant by more than two to one.

That shift is exactly what the Good Trips Index was built for. Whether your priority is environmental credentials, LGBT+ safety, press freedom, or democratic health, the index lets you find the destinations that reflect what matters most to you.

What five years of data tells us

Five editions of the index have built up something genuinely useful: a long view of which destinations are improving and which are heading in the wrong direction.

Alongside this year's full rankings, Holiday Extras has published a separate look at the biggest climbers – countries that have made meaningful, verifiable progress across multiple ethical measures over the past five years. There's also a special analysis of destinations where strong headline scores mask more troubling realities on the ground.

It's the kind of nuance that a single year's snapshot simply can't capture.

Politics is reshaping where we want to go

Sustainability isn't the only force changing British travellers' plans. Political context is playing a bigger role too – and the data is striking.

More than a third of UK adults (37%) now say Donald Trump's presidency makes them less likely to visit the United States. In January 2025, that figure was 15%. That's a dramatic shift in just twelve months.

On the flip side, separate research conducted after Peter Magyar's election victory in Hungary found that nearly a third of British adults (31%) would now be more likely to consider Hungary for a future trip.

Five years of index data show this trend is deepening, not fading. The politics of a destination – how it treats its own people, its press, its minorities – is increasingly part of how British travellers decide where to spend their money.

Explore the full 2026 Good Trips Index

The full 2026 Good Trips Index is available now, with interactive tools to explore country-by-country rankings across all eight metrics. You can also dig into infographics breaking down the data by region, metric, and five-year trajectory.

Whatever matters most to you as a traveller, the index helps you find the destinations that match your values.

About the Good Trips Index

Now in its fifth year, the Good Trips Index ranks 183 countries across eight weighted measures: LGBT+ safety, press freedom, democracy, human freedom, animal welfare, quality of life, women's rights, and sustainability. It draws on internationally recognised third-party data sources, updated annually.

All survey data comes from polls of 1,000 UK holidaymakers, conducted by Holiday Extras using the same methodology as its quarterly Travel Disruption Tracker.