If wellbeing is what you book a holiday for, a new study says Lisbon should be first on the list. The Portuguese capital has come out on top of the Holiday Happiness Index from BookRetreats, which ranked 47 cities worldwide on the everyday ingredients of feeling good: sunshine, healthy food, sleep, exercise and access to nature.
The analysis was shaped by Natalie Dattilo-Ryan, a clinical psychologist affiliated with Harvard who specialises in holistic happiness, and reflects a broader shift in how people pick trips — a sense of wellbeing is increasingly the deciding factor.
So why Lisbon? Food plays a big part. Nearly 10% of the city's restaurants are classed as healthy — the second-highest share in the whole index, ahead of food heavyweights like Paris, Tokyo and New York. Fresh seafood and traditional taverns, the study notes, come at prices most budgets can handle.
The city is also compact enough to explore on foot, hills and all, with miradouros (viewpoints) that reward a slower pace. Green space is generous too: 49 square metres per resident, roughly four times more than Madrid. And when city strolling palls, the beaches of Cascais and Costa da Caparica are both under an hour away by public transport. Factor in 2,828 hours of annual sunshine and the mood-lift starts to make sense.
Lisbon Tourism Association director-general António Valle welcomed the result, saying the destination's distinctiveness is central to how the city is promoted while preserving what locals and visitors value.
Behind Lisbon, Helsinki took second place — fitting for the capital of a country regularly named the happiest on earth. The Finnish city offers around 126 square metres of green space per person, with parks that flow into forest trails, plus safe streets and efficient transport that the study says make it easy for visitors to genuinely switch off.
Third went to Orlando, the only non-European city in the top 10. Famous for Disney and Universal, it also clocks 2,930 hours of sunshine a year, plus lakes and green space for outdoor time between rollercoasters.
From fourth place down, Europe sweeps the rest of the list: Athens, Edinburgh, Madrid, Vienna, Budapest, Oslo and Vilnius round out the top 10.
For travellers, the takeaway is straightforward: the cities that scored highest aren't theme parks or party hubs but walkable, green, sunny places where you can eat well without overspending. Lisbon in particular makes a strong case for a week of long lunches, coastal day trips and viewpoints at golden hour — with happiness, apparently, thrown in for free.
