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This Caribbean Island Ranks Among the Safest Right Now—and U.S. Travelers Don't Even Need a Passport
Always All Inclusive, a team of Sandals Resorts experts, released the results of its Caribbean Island Safety Index 2025, which ranks the 10 most popular Caribbean destinations based on data-driven safety metrics. They analyzed data from four safety risk categories. Then, Always All Inclusive combined the results into a safety score for each island.
Puerto Rico comes in at No. 6, with health care receiving the best ranking of 10 and boasting a composite score across all the categories of 7.6. Since Puerto Rico is a territory of the United States, American citizens don't need a passport to visit the island.
Aruba, Barbados, and Grenada took the top three spots respectively, with rankings of 9.3, 9.2, and 9.0.
'While Puerto Rico (#6) offers top-tier U.S.-quality health care, it's more exposed to hurricanes and moderate urban crime,' the report states. 'That said, [Puerto Rico is] generally safe for tourists, especially within resort zones.'
In order to create the rankings, each destination was scored across four traveler-focused categories: U.S. State Department travel advisories, violent crime rates, hurricane frequency and resilience, and emergency health care access. The islands were each assigned a 1-10 score in each category, with 10 as the best possible score. Then, the scores were weighted based on travelers' concerns. Travel advisories and crime and tourist safety were weighted at 30%, healthcare access at 25 percent, and hurricane risk at 15 percent.
The rankings only focused on the 10 most visited and commercially relevant Caribbean destinations, and deliberately left out high-risk destinations like Haiti, Trinidad & Tobago, and Turks & Caicos, due to factors including inconsistent available data, ongoing political or safety issues, and limited resort-based tourism infrastructure.
'Islands like Puerto Rico and The Bahamas are frequently affected [by hurricanes], while Aruba, Curaçao, and Barbados remain largely outside the storm zone,' the report stated. 'Post-pandemic, travelers prioritize access to hospitals, urgent care, and emergency transport, which gives destinations like Barbados, Aruba, and Puerto Rico an edge.'
If you're planning on visiting Puerto Rico, its high season stretches from December to April, with the shoulder season lasting from May to June and low season from July to November, which corresponds to hurricane season.
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