How We Score
Destinations.
SafeTravelGal compiles safety information from official government advisories and a versioned verified dataset. This page describes exactly what we fetch, how often, what we cite, and what the methodology does not yet do.
Dataset v1.0 · Frozen 2026-05-13
Download methodology (v1.0, PDF)Live data we ingest today
These four feeds are fetched every 6 hours by an automated job and stored in our database. Every country guide displays per-source last-fetched timestamps in its “Sources & last updated” block.
US State Dept
US Department of State
Levels 1-2 reviewed every 12 months; Levels 3-4 at least every 6 months; reactive updates as needed.
UK FCDO
UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
Updates can occur several times a day during a crisis; daily upstream feed updates.
AU DFAT
Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Smartraveller)
Event-driven; daily upstream feed.
CDC
US Centers for Disease Control — Travel Health Notices
Issued event-driven; supplemental health alerts.
GPI
Institute for Economics & Peace — Global Peace Index
Annual dataset published by IEP. Local copy updated when each year's report releases.
Equaldex
Equaldex LGBTQ+ Rights Index
Community-maintained legal status database; changes detected on each cron run.
CDC travel health notices are supplemental — they are not part of the composite safety score, but new notices for tracked countries are flagged on the country guide and in the newsletter digest.
Dataset v1.0: how the composite score is currently produced
Static composite, expert-reviewed at dataset freeze date. Composite overallScore is a single integer assigned by the dataset author cross-referencing the live and planned sources; it is not a live computation. v1.1 will introduce a live composite — see methodology.
Honest disclosure
The composite overallScore on each country guide is a single integer assigned at dataset freeze date by the analyst, cross-referencing the live and reference sources listed on this page. It is not a live computation from an algorithm. Sub-scores (theft, harassment, scam, night safety) are also analyst-assigned at freeze. Where a score or sub-score has not yet been verified from primary data sources, the field is marked as pending rather than displaying an unverified value.
v1.1 will introduce a live composite with documented weights — see Section 3.
Reference sources consulted at dataset freeze
These sources informed analyst judgement for the v1.0 dataset but are not currently live-ingested. They are listed here for transparency. Live ingestion of each is planned for v1.1 dataset releases.
UNODC homicide statistics
https://dataunodc.un.org/→Georgetown Women, Peace, and Security Index
https://giwps.georgetown.edu/the-index/→WEF Global Gender Gap Index
https://www.weforum.org/reports/global-gender-gap-report/→Live Ingestion Pipeline Map
1. API Ingestion
Polls US State Dept, UK FCDO, AU DFAT, and CDC RSS/JSON feeds in parallel.
2. Change Diffing
Compares current advisory scores with stored rows to identify changes.
3. Supabase Write
Updates countries table via service-role client and logs events.
4. ISR Regeneration
Triggers Vercel revalidation paths to rebuild affected country guides in 50ms.
5. Search Submit
Submits fresh URLs directly to IndexNow for immediate search engine indexing.
Dataset version log
v1.0 — current — frozen 2026-05-13
Static composite, 50 countries. Live updates to advisory level and FCDO summary apply per-row as the cron fires; the composite overall score does not move until v1.1.
v1.1 composite formula — live
Equally weighted average of four normalized safety indicators. Each source is independently normalized to a 0–100 scale (100 = safest). The composite is the arithmetic mean of available sources, then scaled to 0–10 for display. Minimum 2 sources required; otherwise the score is omitted.
Output: 0–100 normalized → 0–10 displayed. Minimum 2 sources required.
Reproducibility
Every input, weight, normalization rule, and source URL behind the SafeTravelGal Solo Female Safety Score v1.0is published on this page. Any reader, researcher, or journalist can reproduce a country's composite score by pulling the same named government sources, applying the documented per-source normalization, and taking the equally weighted mean of the available indicators. Nothing in the score depends on private data or undisclosed judgement — the formula above is the whole method. When the composite formula moves to live computation in v1.1, every variable change will be logged in the public methodology changelog.
Interactive Weight Auditor
Test the v1.1 composite formula weights. Drag the sliders to see how shifting the influence of US, UK, AU, or GPI safety data changes country ranks and scores in real time.
Formula Inputs
Dynamic Ranking Output
Sandbox Live- #1Iceland9.9/10
- #2Singapore9.9/10
- #3Japan9.6/10
- #4Greece8.8/10
- #5Italy7.9/10
- #6Thailand6.7/10
- #7Morocco6.3/10
- #8Mexico4.7/10
- #9Colombia3.5/10
What this methodology does NOT yet do
Not Ingested
UNODC homicide statistics, Georgetown WPS Index, WEF Gender Gap. These remain reference sources for the v1.0 dataset, not live feeds. Country pages will not claim them as live data. Global Peace Index and Equaldex are now ingested (see Section 1).
Not Computed
At v1.0 the composite overall score is a static value assigned at dataset freeze (2026-05-13), cross-referencing the live and reference sources on this page — not a live algorithmic computation. The live composite formula in Section 3 ships with v1.1, where countries with fewer than 2 available sources will show no score rather than an unreliable estimate.
Not Absolute
No safety score is a guarantee. Conditions change rapidly; always check your government's current advisory before booking or traveling. SafeTravelGal content is informational only, not a substitute for current official guidance or licensed professional advice.
Not First-Person
First-person travel anecdotes about a destination only appear when the named verifier or a named contributor has personally visited that destination. Desk-researched guides are labeled explicitly and cite the sources used.
Data verification
Country, city, ranking, gear, and insurance pages will be verified by a named Data Verification Lead before publication. The verifier identity is currently being established; see /about for status.