Guest article by Hannelore Oberbauer, student at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.

Instead of relying on hearsay and anecdotes from other travelers, we took a deep look at LGBTQ+ rights, country by country. We’ve gathered data from a variety of trusted international sources to create a “LGBTQ+ Danger Index” that will help you find the worst (and safest) countries for LGBTQ+ travel.

Being born this way can be rough, but one thing should not give you anxiety when you’re trans, bi, lesbian, queer, or gay: travel. Europe, North America, Oceania, Africa, Asia, and South America all have LGBTQ-safe countries where it’s OK to just be you. These are some of the best places for LGBTQ+ travel enthusiasts to go, where queer and trans individuals have important basic rights and protections like marriage equality, constitutional protections, and hate-crime punishments for targeted violence. By looking at the legal rights of each country, we found these top 25 LGBTQ-friendly countries, which often serve as the top gay vacation destinations for travelers the world over:

1. Sweden
2. Canada
3. Norway
4. Portugal
5. Belgium
6. United Kingdom
7. Finland
8. France
9. Iceland
10. Spain
11. Malta
12. New Zealand
13. Netherlands
14. Denmark
15. South Africa
16. Ireland
17. Australia
18. Uruguay
19. Colombia
20. Austria
21. Germany
22. Slovenia
23. Luxembourg
24. United States
25. Guam

One country might surprise you for not ranking highly on our list: the United States. One reason for that is, of course, that there is a great deal of variation in gay rights depending on the state you’re in. There are also no constitutional or broad protections for LGBTQ+ rights under federal law in the U.S. Also, in some states, LGBTQ+ youth do not have access to helpful information, with these so-called “no-promo homo” laws counting in the “propaganda/morality” category. The U.S. might have come far, but it has a long way to go in terms of LGBTQ+ rights, especially for young transgender people.