The world’s best birdwatching destinations

Buying Travel Insurance is just one piece of the puzzle when heading abroad – the bigger question is where you’re going and why. We all travel for different reasons: some of us to see beautiful landmarks, some to relax on a beach and many to spot wildlife we simply don’t get at home. And while the likes of whale watching and Big Five safaris have long been among the most popular options, there’s been a surge in interest among those looking to the skies instead for their fix of the world’s fauna. 

New research from the RSPB has revealed a 47% increase in birdwatching in the UK, suggesting that there’s now more than four million of us who love to study birds in their natural habitats. And while the UK offers some of Europe’s finest birdwatching, there are incredible destinations all around the world where you can spot species you’d never see at home. We decided to dig into the data to find out which are the best ones of all. 

How did we score the best birdwatching destinations?

To find the world’s best birdwatching hotspots, we analysed a list of over 100 of the world’s most popular birding sites across the following metrics: 

• The number of bird species recorded
• The number of notable species recorded (those unique to that area)
• Standout species score (notable species, weighted by how likely you are to spot them)
• How comfortable the birdwatching conditions are (looking at average annual temperature, wind and rainfall)
• How far away the nearest airport is 
• Average daily tourist costs (food, drinks and transport) 

We then combined and weighted them to achieve a ‘Best Birding’ score out of 100. 

The world’s top 20 best birdwatching destinations

1. Manú National Park, Peru

‘Best Birding’ Score: 83.1/100 
 
Located in the Amazon Jungle, Peru’s Manú National Park is one of the world’s most biodiverse areas, and accounts for more than 10% of the world’s total bird species. Climbing from just 150m above sea level at the Amazon basin, to well over 4,000m in the Andes cloud forests, 95% of the park is strictly off limits to the public.  
 
Visiting requires booking through licensed operators but will treat birders to sightings of Peru’s national bird, the Andean Cock-of-the-Rock, as well as macaws, parrots, eagles, hummingbirds, toucans and hoatzins.  

2. Tambopata National Reserve, Peru

‘Best Birding’ Score: 67.5/100 
 
For those wanting to experience Peru’s biodiversity but who don’t want to venture as far, the Tambopata National Reserve is far easier to reach than Manú National Park. A must-see is the macaw clay licks, where on clear mornings you can see macaws, parrots and parakeets gathering on collpas (clay riverbanks) to eat the clay (which neutralises toxins they ingest from unripe jungle fruits).  
 
Adventurous travellers who venture here will also see giant Ceiba trees, animals like pumas and tapirs and can even sample termites which taste like fresh mint.

3. Tsavo East National Park, Kenya

‘Best Birding’ Score: 59.8/100 
 
Kenya’s Tsavo East National Park is one of the world’s oldest and largest wildlife sanctuaries, home to the world’s longest lava flow and the Somali Ostrich among hundreds more bird species. Birdwatching here comes with some added wildlife value too, the park’s “red” elephants and maneless lions are infamous and attractions in themselves.

4. The Pantanal (Porto Jofre), Brazil

‘Best Birding’ Score: 59.2/100 
 
Porto Jofre is situated at the southern end of the Transpantaneira Highway in Brazil’s Pantanal – a globally renowned birdwatching and wildlife sanctuary. The landscape consists of open wetlands and river systems which play host to incredible species like the massive Jabiru Stork (the symbol of the Pantanal) and Hyacinth Macaws (the largest flying parrot species with cobalt-blue plumage).  
 
Birders will very likely be treated to jaguar sightings too. It’s considered the best place on earth to see them in the wild and most stay in floating hotels on the Cuiabá River, making a trip here an exciting one all around. 

5. Milpe Bird Sanctuary, Ecuador

‘Best Birding’ Score: 58.2/100 
 
Milpe Bird Sanctuary has the smallest area out of our global top 10 but it packs a punch by offering nearly the same levels of bird species, and many endemic varieties that are more likely to be spotted here than anywhere else in the region. Situated in Ecuador’s Chocó-Andean region it’s most famous for its dancing Manakins, birds that rub their wing feathers together at supersonic speeds to produce a violin-like sound. 

6. Carara National Park, Costa Rica

‘Best Birding’ Score: 58.2/100 
 
Another incredibly biodiverse ecosystem, over 5,200 hectares of sprawling dry tropical forest and lush rainforests make up Costa Rica’s Carara National Park. The park is home to incredibly exciting birds like the Scarlet Macaw and is the first in Costa Rica to feature a fully paved access trail to allow people of all physical abilities to explore the rainforest. It is also famous for its enormous crocodiles, so birders who like to spot other types of wildlife should keep an eye out, particularly around the Tarcoles River.

7. Corcovado National Park, Costa Rica

‘Best Birding’ Score: 57.5/100 
 
Costa Rica’s second feature in the top 10, Corcovado National Park is an iconic birdwatching paradise. Next to Carara National Park, it’s one of the best places in the country to see the Scarlet Macaw flying in pairs around the rainforest canopy, as well as six different species of toucans, Turquoise Cotingas, Blue-capped Manakins and occasionally Great Green Macaws.  
 
Though the park itself spans just 424 square kilometres, it houses an estimated 2.5% of the world’s biodiversity and as such has been famously dubbed by National Geographic as the “most biologically intense place on Earth”.

8. Keoladeo National Park, India

‘Best Birding’ Score: 57.4/100 
 
A former private royal duck shooting preserve, Keoladeo National Park is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site and sees enormous congregations of birds from Central Asia gather throughout the winter. Birders in the area get around via cycle rickshaw, in an effort to reduce noise pollution and support local livelihoods.  
 
The park used to be home to the critically endangered Siberian Crane, which sadly hasn’t been spotted here since the early 2000s, but these days you can spot hundreds of avian species including Sarus Cranes (the tallest flying bird), tiny warblers and raptors.

9. Costanera Sur Ecological Reserve, Argentina

‘Best Birding’ Score: 54.8/100 
 
Buenos Aires is home to one of the most accessible ecological reserves in the world, a 350-hectare urban oasis known as the Costanera Sur Ecological Reserve. The reserve came about almost by accident – an abandoned urban project that gradually transformed into a thriving wetland and forest which is now a birdwatcher’s paradise framed by the skyscrapers of Puerto Madero. 
 
Nearly a third of Argentina’s bird species have been spotted here, from the Coscoroba Swan, to the Guira Cuckoo, Nanday Parakeets and European Starlings, and many birders have been known to spot 50 different species in just two hours. 

10. Kruger National Park, South Africa

‘Best Birding’ Score: 53.3/100 
 
No list of best birdwatching sites would be complete without an entry from Africa, with Kruger National Park, home to a dizzying array of wildlife, completing the top 10 and home to the “big six” of birding. These include Pel’s Fishing Owl, the Southern Ground-Hornbill, the Kori Bustard, the Lappet-faced Vulture, the Martial Eagle and the Saddle-billed Stork, but the park’s immense size means that roughly a third of all bird species in southern Africa can be found here too.

While birding sites from Sweden and England make the global top 20, there are plenty of locations closer to home worth exploring too. They may have less biodiversity than the Americas which dominate the top 10, and cost tourists a little more per day, but they still offer sightings of hundreds of species – and are significantly closer to their nearest airports.

Europe’s top 15 birdwatching destinations 

1. Falsterbo Peninsula, Sweden

‘Best Birding’ Score: 50.7/100 
 
At the southwestern tip of Sweden sits the Falsterbo Peninsula, a hotspot for birders where each autumn up to 500 million birds pass over during their migration, actively avoiding the Baltic Sea. It is also the raptor capital of Europe, globally renowned for sightings of birds of prey like the Peregrine Falcon and the rare Pallid Harrier. Just an hour from Copenhagen, it’s an incredibly accessible birding destination.

2. Titchwell Marsh, England

‘Best Birding’ Score: 50.2/100 
 
RSPB Titchwell Marsh, on the North Norfolk coast, is one of the UK’s most celebrated birdwatching hotspots. From reedbeds to freshwater lagoons and saltmarshes, the reserve is home to both native breeders and rare migrants.  
 
Titchwell is one of the only places in the UK where you can spot the “big four” breeders, the secretive bittern, the Marsh Harrier, the Bearded Tit and the avocet. It’s even home to the European Water Vole and Chinese Water Deer, so keep your eyes peeled in more than just the skies. 

3. Fair Isle, Scotland

‘Best Birding’ Score: 49.7/100 
 
Scotland’s Fair Isle, the UK’s most remote inhabited island, is situated halfway between Orkney and Shetland. A five-km-long stretch of land, it has made a name for itself as one of Europe’s most exciting birding sites thanks to its isolated location lending itself to being a prime location for tired migrants. 
 
Birders often spot Siberian species well outside of their normal ranges here, and the island is also home to its own subspecies of bird – the Fair Isle Wren. From April to August the cliffs host over 50,000 breeding seabirds, including thousands of Atlantic Puffins, Northern Gannets and the largest known population of Black Guillemots. 

4. Kalloni Saltpans, Greece

‘Best Birding’ Score: 47.7/100 
 
In the middle of the Aegean Sea sits the Greek island of Lesvos, where the Kalloni Saltpans – one of Europe’s most important wetlands – has become a popular birding spot. Similarly to Fair Isle, the area acts as a refuelling station for thousands of birds travelling long distances, and it is home to well over 2,000 Greater Flamingos at a single time, as well as the Broad-billed Sandpiper, Whiskered Terns and the rare and endangered Cinereous Bunting.

5. Minsmere, England

‘Best Birding’ Score: 46.4/100 
 
Managed by the RSPB, Minsmere is home to hundreds of bird species, and thousands of other wildlife species like otters and Konik ponies. The Minsmere Scrape is a system of shallow lagoons and islands which was built within the reserve in the 1960s and is the first of its kind, designed to attract breeding terns and waders, and now fondly referred to as the “Wembley Arena of birdwatching”. 

The rest of the European top 10 features more entries from Greece and England, with Portugal rounding it out. Greece’s next entry, in the form of the Lake Kerkini National Park, is the most important wintering area for the Dalmatian Pelican in Europe, while England has three more entries: Rutland Water, Slimbridge Wetland Centre and Bowling Green Marsh. Portugal’s entry is the Ria Formosa National Park, a birders’ paradise where more than 200 species of birds can be seen in a single day, and which regularly sees more than 20,000 waterbirds in winter. 

Feeling inspired to grab your binoculars and head somewhere new to spot some birds? Always secure comprehensive travel insurance before you jet off and remember to check your policy covers the region you’re travelling to, and all your activities, especially if you’re venturing anywhere more rural.  

Methodology

To determine the world’s best birdwatching destinations for tourists, we analysed 115 globally recognised birdwatching hotspots across six continents using eight metrics: number of bird species, number of distinctive species, distinctive bird score, mean annual temperature, mean wind speed, mean annual precipitation, distance from nearest airport and estimated daily tourist cost. 

Bird species and distinctive species data was sourced from recorded bird sighting observations collated across recognised birdwatching locations worldwide. The distinctive bird score measures how distinctive and reliably spotted a location’s rarer species are. 

Climate data was sourced from timeanddate.com using the nearest available weather station. 

Daily tourist cost estimates were calculated using a standardised basket of meals, drinks and transport sourced from Numbeo. Where possible, the nearest city was used; where no city data was available, country-level figures were used. Any locations missing cost data were excluded from that metric. 

Each metric was scored out of 10 and combined into a weighted total score out of 100. 

All data accurate as of June 2026.