Lucky over at One Mile at a Time wrote a trip report recently about his stay in Lisbon, Portugal – with a side trip to Porto – and described his experience as “Amazing”.

All I can say about Portugal is wow, wow, wow! I think it might just be the most underrated country I’ve been to. ~Lucky

Lucky isn’t the only one touting Portugal as a destination to seriously consider – particularly if you are looking for someplace a little less cost prohibitive than other European destinations might be. In fact, Westerner92 is specifically seeking regions to visit that are both “cheap, yet safe” and Portugal’s name comes up more than once:

Portugal is fairly reasonably-priced, for Europe. ~Wwanderer

Definitely Portugal. I traveled with a friend (so 2 twenty-something women instead of 1), and was stunned by how inexpensive things were. You can fly into Madrid or Barcelona, then take a fairly inexpensive TAP flight into Lisbon or Porto. $30/night for a two bedroom apartment on airbnb (so even less if you just need a studio). More than once we thought the restaurant bill was per person when it was for both of us ~mpheels

As great as Portugal sounds – and it really does sound pretty great – there are as it turns out no shortage of locations that fit the cheap and safe bill:

…the Maritime Provinces of Canada. The more off the beaten track places in Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador are much lower in price than more popular destinations like Montreal, Quebec, Toront, etc. ~Clark Park

Vietnam….though you have to watch your wallet and haggle to avoid getting ripped off, but as far as violent crimes…very low. ~JL

My top recommendation is Taiwan. I think you can spend a good amount of time exploring the entire island (I could spend plenty of time just in Taipei), it’s beautiful, very much first world comforts but a third world price. ~projectmaximus

Others mention Laos, Thailand, Costa Rica, India, Nepal … and an area I wrote about recently, Croatia (more specifically the Dalmatian Coast region), also garners a mention.

Be warned, upon reading this discussion it will be very difficult for you to do anything besides research locales and travel prices for the next several hours. So if you’re reading this while at work, well, you might want to click through to the thread later, or maybe just feign illness and take the rest of the day off.

How would you add to/supplement this list? Which of these places have you visited? About which do you agree/disagree?

Read the thread in its entirety: Cheap AND Safe places to travel