If your next trip is all about coming home in a better mood than you left, a new ranking says you should book a flight to Lisbon. The Portuguese capital has come first in the Holiday Happiness Index from BookRetreats, which scored 47 cities worldwide on how naturally they boost a visitor's wellbeing.
The methodology was overseen by Natalie Dattilo-Ryan, a clinical psychologist affiliated with Harvard who specialises in holistic happiness. Five factors did the heavy lifting: sunlight, healthy food, sleep quality, physical exercise and access to nature — all known to trigger the body's own feel-good hormones.
Lisbon scores strongly across the board. Nearly 10% of its restaurants are classed as healthy, the second-highest share in the index, putting it ahead of food heavyweights like Paris, Tokyo and New York — and, importantly, at prices that don't wreck a budget. Fresh seafood and old-school taverns feature heavily in the city's appeal. Walking is easy too, despite the hills: the centre is compact, and viewpoints (the famous miradouros) reward anyone wandering at a slower pace. Green space is generous at 49 square metres per resident, roughly four times what Madrid offers, and the coast is close — Cascais and Costa da Caparica beaches are under an hour away by public transport. Then there's the weather: 2,828 hours of sunshine a year. The Lisbon Tourism Association welcomed the result, with director-general António Valle pointing to the city's distinctive ways of being experienced while keeping what makes it valuable for both visitors and locals.
Second place went to Helsinki, fittingly in the country repeatedly named the happiest on earth. The Finnish capital offers around 126 square metres of green space per person — more than 50 times the ratio in Hong Kong — with parks that blend into actual forest trails. The study also flags its safe streets, efficient transport and culture of trust as reasons visitors can genuinely switch off.
Orlando rounds out the top three, the only non-European city in the top 10. It's praised less for its theme parks and more for its lakes, green spaces and 2,930 hours of annual sunshine. From fourth place onwards the ranking is an all-European affair: Athens, Edinburgh, Madrid, Vienna, Budapest, Oslo and Vilnius complete the list.
For travellers, this is a useful lens on Lisbon beyond the usual sightseeing checklist. It confirms what regulars already know: you can spend a long weekend there walking, eating well, hitting a beach and soaking up sun without spending much — and the things that make locals happy tend to make holidays better too. The same logic works further north if you'd rather have forests than seafood: Helsinki is the pick for anyone craving calm and greenery over nightlife and pastries.
Original source: Euronews Travel
