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The story
In the reader-voted ranking for “World’s Most Fascinating Countries 2026,” published by major U.S. travel magazine Condé Nast Traveler, Japan was named the number one country. It was followed by Italy at #2 and France at #7, with Vietnam at #10 and South Korea at #11. On 5ch, threads raised questions about Cambodia’s #4 ranking and noted that the magazine is a travel publication aimed at high-income readers with a circulation of 720,000 copies. Meanwhile, many posters pointed to great food, excellent infrastructure, and low medical costs as reasons why Japanese people who go abroad end up coming back home.
U.S. magazine’s “World’s Most Fascinating Countries 2026”: Vietnam ranks 10th, Japan ranks 1st
Major U.S. travel magazine Condé Nast Traveler (CN Traveller) released its reader-voted “Readers’ Choice Awards 2026,” covering both the U.S. and U.K. editions, and announced the ranking of “World’s Most Fascinating Countries.” Vietnam was ranked 10th in the U.S. edition, with a score of 92.99 points.
The top 10 “World’s Most Fascinating Countries” in the U.S. edition are as follows.
Source: viet-jo.com / Original article here
What people said
Eating pumpkin (kabocha) while gazing at Angkor Wat (a pun — "Cambodia" and "kabocha/pumpkin" sound alike in Japanese)
It's actually a pretty nice place. The air is fresh and the people are kind.
Summers are hot and winters are cold though
I feel like Cambodia became a really rich country. Never been there, so I wouldn't really know
"Condé Nast Traveler"
Also, being selected in the country category is the most prestigious award
Founded in 1987, Condé Nast Traveler is one of the major travel magazines with a readership centered on high-income earners.
It features the latest information on high-quality travel, hotels, restaurants, shopping, and more, and is published worldwide including in the U.S. and U.K., with a circulation of about 720,000 copies in the U.S. and about 70,000 in the U.K.
Because the Republic of Korea is far more fascinating
Unfortunately, Korea's minimum wage is now about the same as Japan's, and it's become a country with high prices.
South Korea's minimum wage for next year has been set at 10,700 won per hour (about 1,170 yen). This will be the minimum applied to roughly 22 million wage workers nationwide.
South Korea: Next year's minimum wage set at 10,700 won, up 3.7% from this year
Wed, 7/15
https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/219edd8315e9380fe2e37c5e361d4c9c240a9607
I read that with a straight face and snot came out laughing
People complain but never actually leave Japan
And even when they do leave, they end up coming back
Though a massive capital outflow has actually started
They're desperately propping up the Nikkei to try to stop it
The food's great and there are hot springs
The infrastructure, like trains, is excellent too
With national health insurance and the high-cost medical care system, even an illness costing over 100 million yen can end up costing you only around 100,000 yen out of pocket
There's no country with this kind of cost performance
You only realize how great Japan is once you've left it
Even for Japanese people, Japan is dirt cheap these days
Japan is in a league of its own when it comes to good food
British food is basically inedible
America's all junk food too
Eat that stuff all the time and you'll get diabetes or heart disease in no time
#4: Cambodia (93.57 points)
LMAOOOO
Glad we at least beat Cambodia
> #4: Cambodia
Why Cambodia though, lol
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
This ranking is part of Condé Nast Traveler’s reader-voted awards, based on votes from actual travelers — it is not a rating by experts. The U.S. and U.K. editions are tallied separately, and this article covers the results from the U.S. edition; the ranking may differ in the U.K. edition. A long back-and-forth in the thread confused the ranking of “world’s most-visited country” (France) with that of “most fascinating country,” but the former is based on visitor statistics from bodies like the UNWTO, while the latter is a reader-survey score — they measure entirely different things to begin with. Cambodia’s #4 ranking drew plenty of questions, but since this is still a reader poll involving tens of thousands of votes, it likely simply reflects the preferences of whoever happened to vote. Note that later posts in the thread included comments touching on historical views and xenophobic remarks; since these have little bearing on the facts of the ranking itself, they are not covered in this article.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Express+) thread “[Breaking] Major U.S. magazine’s “World’s Most Fascinating Countries 2026”: #1 Japan, #2 Italy, #7 France, #10 Vietnam, #11 South Korea.”
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