“Best countries to visit” lists are usually one writer’s opinion dressed up as a ranking. This one separates the two things people actually mean by the phrase: where the most people already go, and where travel editors think the moment is right to go next.
Where the most people actually go: UN Tourism’s 2024 arrivals
UN Tourism (the UN specialized agency for tourism statistics, formerly UNWTO) publishes the only globally standardized count of international arrivals by country. Full-year 2025 figures are still provisional as of this writing, so the confirmed ranking below is 2024 — the most recent finalized data:
- France — 102 million arrivals, the first country ever to cross 100 million in a single year
- Spain — 93.8 million
- United States — 72.4 million
- Turkey — 60.6 million
- Italy — 57.8 million
- Mexico — 45 million, the most-visited country in Latin America
- United Kingdom
- Germany
- Greece — around 36 million, a record year
- Austria
Outside the top 10 by raw arrivals, three countries are worth naming because they lead their region: Japan (36.9 million, Asia’s most-visited country, up more than 47% year-on-year on a weak yen and full border reopening), Thailand (35.5 million, Southeast Asia’s leader), and Morocco (17.4 million, Africa’s most-visited country, running at 135% of 2019 levels).
Where editors are pointing for 2026
Raw arrivals measure where people already go, not where the travel-writing industry thinks the interesting story is next year. Lonely Planet’s Best in Travel 2026, published October 2025, is the most widely cited list of that second kind — 25 destinations picked by its editors for a mix of renewed interest and under-the-radar appeal. Selections include Finland, Botswana, Peru, Jeju-do in South Korea, Sardinia, Tunisia, Barbados, and Cádiz in Spain, grouped by best travel season rather than a single ranked order.
The two lists barely overlap on purpose: one counts people, the other bets on where attention is heading. Both are useful for different questions — “where does infrastructure and experience already exist at scale” versus “where might a trip feel less crowded before everyone else arrives.”
What this means for planning a trip
A country topping the arrivals list isn’t automatically the right pick for a specific trip — France’s 102 million visitors are not evenly spread across the country, and the same is true everywhere on this list. The arrivals data is a signal of scale and infrastructure (transport, hotel supply, English/multilingual services), not of fit for a particular traveler. Pair the “who actually goes here” list with a real look at the season, route, and budget for your dates before picking a country off either ranking.
We’ve written dedicated top-10-places guides for seven countries from these lists — France, Spain, the United States, Mexico, Japan, Thailand, and Morocco — each with sources cited so you can check the numbers yourself.