How our place scores work: one 0 to 10 scale for every destination and category

What are place scores?

Every destination page on travelfilters comes with a set of scores. They show at a glance how well a place works for different kinds of trips. Tokyo, for example, has a high overall score and top marks for cherry blossoms, luxury shopping and fine dining. A quiet mountain village would look very different, with high scores for hiking and cozy town atmosphere and low ones for most big city topics.

Behind every number is the same idea. We rate how attractive a destination is for tourists in one specific category or activity, on a scale from 0 to 10. We use the same scale and the same categories for every place we cover, from cities and small towns to national parks and whole countries. That's what makes the scores comparable.

The scores you'll see on a destination page

Three things appear near the top of a destination page. Each one answers a slightly different question.

1. "Best for" scores

These show where a place really shines. Every destination is rated in the same set of interest categories, like hiking, museums, street food or snorkeling. The highest ones are highlighted on the page, so you can see what makes a place special without checking every category yourself. Two destinations with the same overall score can be very different trips. One might be strongest for art and architecture. The other might be built around beaches and diving.

2. "Your personal" scores

Not everybody wants the same trip, that's why you can save your person preferences after creating a free travelfilters account. Once you have set up how important different travel topics and other requirements are in your account settings, the personal score shows how well a place matches what matters to you. It builds on the same category scores as everything else, but it weighs them by your own preferences. If you love hiking and don't care about nightlife, a mountain town might get a higher personal score for you than a party city, even though the party city might still have the higher general score.

3. "Suited for" badges

These show how well a destination suits specific types of travelers, like families, seniors, couples, LGBTQ+ travelers or people who need kosher or halal food. For these we ask a simple question. Is there anything that stands in the way for this group? A safe and easy destination usually does well for most groups, even if it has little aimed at them specifically.

Dietary badges are a bit different. Kosher and halal food depend on certification and trust, so we score them cautiously. If we aren't sure a place can provide it reliably, the score stays lower. We'd rather you double-check than arrive and find nothing.

The general place scores and their colored circle

The big number with the colored circle around it is the general place score. It gives you a quick overview of how well a place works for different types of trips. The circle is split into five parts. Each part stands for one of the strongest categories of the place, taken from the "Best for" scores or from your personal scores. Every part has the color of the group its category belongs to:

• Orange: shopping and food
• Yellow: culture and history
• Light green: relaxation and spa
• Dark green: nature
• Blue: activities and sports
• Purple: beaches and nightlife

The number is the overall impression and the colors show what it's made of. We use a custom formula that we worked out and balanced ourselves. It follows the idea of diminishing returns, which means that each additional strong category still adds to the score but a little less than the one before. That way a large city or region with a lot to do can reach a high score. A small village that only does one thing but does it extremely well can reach one too. We wanted both to be ranked fairly, because both can be a great reason to travel and both should be able to be compared together in general.

Together with the colored circle, the score works best as a quick first impression. Two destinations can both have an 8. One with a lot of dark green in the circle is built around nature and one with a lot of orange is more about shopping and food. After a few visits you'll probably read the colors without thinking about it.

Why we built the scores

Travel rankings usually come down to popularity. Top 10 lists and star averages tell you a lot about what's famous and not much about what fits you. They're also hard to compare. A beach town and a capital city are often judged on different things by different people at different times, so their ratings don't line up.

We wanted something that works like a common measuring stick. Every place is rated in the same categories on the same scale. That way you can compare a mountain village with a coastal city on the things that matter to you. You can also filter for exactly those things. It's also the base for our Trip Finder, which we'll get to further down.

How the scale works

The scale goes from 0 to 10 and we only use whole numbers. Here's what the numbers mean in practice.

• 10 means among the world's best. People travel far for this and sometimes only for this.
• 9 means clearly outstanding but not quite world-best.
• 8 means very good and well above the norm.
• 7 means good and recommended. A travel guide would list it and people come here for it.
• 5 and 6 mean real and worthwhile but not a reason to travel. Someone who's already there will do it and enjoy it.
• 3 and 4 mean it exists and is doable but it isn't really why anyone visits.
• 1 and 2 mean it's barely there, marginal or only some distance away.
• 0 means it isn't present or isn't possible.

We measure against the whole world. A 10 for hiking means a place is among the best for hiking anywhere, not only in its own country. That makes 10s rare. It also means that lovely places have low numbers in plenty of categories. A low score just means the category isn't a reason people travel there. A cozy old town can have a 2 for hiking and still be a wonderful trip.

How we choose the categories

We currently rate every destination in more than 100 categories. They fall into a few groups. Interests cover things like nature, history, art, food and drink, shopping and nightlife. Practical categories cover safety, healthcare, tap water, accessibility and getting around. Traveler groups are the badges described above.

Each category measures one clear thing and the list is the same for every place to keep the results uniform. Where activities attract different people, we keep them apart even if they sound similar. Hiking means day walks and trekking means multi-day routes with places to stay along the way. Climbing, bouldering and mountaineering are three different sports with different audiences. Snorkeling and diving are separate too, because snorkelers need shallow clear water close to shore while divers look for depth and good sites. Of course some places can still score high in both. Skiing & snowboarding has its own category and other winter activities, like dog sledding or snowshoeing, have another.

Some categories are about tradition. Coffee and tea scores look at whether a place has a real ritual around them. Every city has cafés, so that alone doesn't count.

How we decide on a number

A few rules help us keep scores consistent from place to place.

• We score the place and an ordinary day out from it. A city is rated for what's in the city and what most visitors would add as a day trip. If a nearby attraction is a destination of its own that people stay at, it adds very little to its neighbor. A famous waterfall an hour or two from a big city can be on every itinerary and still count for very little in that city's scores.
• Bigger areas are scored on breadth. For countries and regions we look at why someone would travel to the whole area. Several strong places can lift a category to a 9 or 10. One world-class spot with little else around it usually stays lower.
• We score what visitors find today. Former glory doesn't count if it's gone. When conditions change, for example after a disaster or during a conflict, we try to reflect the current situation.
• Crowds only affect two scores. Less touristy and secluded are the only categories where crowding counts. Both work the other way around from the rest, so a high number means quiet. A postcard village that's overrun with day trippers can score very low there and still be one of the coziest towns anywhere.
• Prohibited counts as absent. If something isn't possible or isn't allowed, it gets a clean 0. Cycling in a wildlife park where it's forbidden is a good example.
• Practical scores start from the country. Healthcare, safety and similar categories begin with the national picture and then adjust for local facts. Tap water might be perfectly safe in a country but too salty to enjoy on one particular island, so that island scores lower. We also try to picture a realistic mix of visitors, including curious ones who leave the tourist area, not only people who stay in a resort.

To keep the scale uniform and comparable, we compare new scores with a set of reference destinations that we have already scored. A mountain village is compared with other mountain villages and a capital with other capitals. That way a 7 for one place means about the same as a 7 for another.

How the scores power the Trip Finder

The scores aren't only there for reading. They're also the base of the Trip Finder on travelfilters. Every destination is rated on the same scale in the same categories, so we can compare very different places fairly and combine as many wishes as you like.

You pick what matters to you. Maybe that's good hiking, a warm climate in the month you can travel, a strong vegetarian food scene plus a mid-range budget. Each choice becomes a filter. The scores of every destination for those categories are then combined into a match score. In advanced mode you can also rank your filters by importance, so a must-have counts for more than a nice-to-have. The list updates as you change things.

This has a few benefits:

• You see the whole list and not only a handful of suggestions. That shows you why a place made the cut and how close the runners-up were.
• You can change one preference and watch the list re-rank, instead of rewording a question and hoping for a different answer.
• Places you might never have thought of can show up, simply because they score well in the things you care about.
• The same scores are on every destination page, so after you find a match you can check why it scored the way it did.
• You decide how important each filter is, so the list reflects what you care about and not what a system guesses.

If you haven't tried it yet, you can start in the Trip Finder. A free account lets you save destinations to lists and compare them later.

A few things to know

We're careful with how we describe these scores, because they're easy to over-read. They're our assessment of how attractive a place is for tourists. They aren't measured data. Two people might give the same place a 7 or an 8 for the same thing. That's fine.

Places change too. Restaurants close, trails reopen and neighborhoods get safer or less safe. We review scores over time and try to keep up, but it can never be perfect. If a score looks wrong to you, please let us know through our error report page.

A score also isn't a verdict on whether to go. A high overall score doesn't mean a place fits you. A low score in one category just means it isn't a reason people travel there. That's what the personal score and the Trip Finder are for. As with our Reality Check Badge, we'd rather be open about what a number can and can't tell you.