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These Are the 20 Safest U.S. Cities for Solo Female Travelers — 10 Are in California

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Whether you're globe-trotting with a group of your closest friends, or embarking on a trip as a solo female traveler, it's important to know that your destination is safe.

TripIt, a travel organizing app, shared their list of the top 20 safest cities in the U.S. for women travelers exclusively to CNBC Make It.

Using data from GeoSure, a platform that analyzes metadata to determine the safety of particular destinations, TripIt ranked the cities using a score from 1 to 100. The cities on the list were scored based on variables like:

  • rights and liberties
  • environmental factors
  • opportunities to meet needs.

All of the cities on the list landed a score of 71-80. According to GeoSure's methodology, this "indicates a high level of women's safety, representing an area with very good protection of equal rights and liberties such as reproductive autonomy, access to education and justice, and anti-discrimination laws."

Jen Moyse, VP of product at TripIt, tells CNBC Make It that the safest destinations in the U.S. have a few things in common. Several of them, including Cambridge, Thousand Oaks, and Fort Collins, are college towns. Other top destinations are notable tech hubs.

"Not only do these destinations report low risk of violence, but due to nearby organizations, there's very good access to education, healthcare, and financial resources for women," she said.

Top 5 safest U.S. cities for solo female travelers

  1. Cambridge, Massachusetts (74/100)
  2. Roseville, California (73/100)
  3. Thousand Oaks, California (73/100)
  4. Fort Collins, Colorado (73/100)
  5. Bellevue, Washington (73/100)

The majority of the cities in the top five are college towns. Cambridge, Massachusetts, is home to two of the best universities in the world: Harvard and MIT.

Roseville, California, is only about a 20-minute drive from Sacramento, so the city is considered a college town since it's close to California State University, Sacramento and the University of California, Davis.

Fort Collins, Colorado, which ranked no. 4 on the list, is home to Colorado State University.

Another California city that made the top five is Thousand Oaks. According to the FBI, the Los Angeles suburb has consistently ranked among the safest cities.

Bellevue, Washington, rounded out the top five. The city is a notable tech hub with companies like T-Mobile and Microsoft. Bellevue is also the birthplace of Amazon — Jeff Bezos started the company there in 1994, and Amazon still maintains a headquarters in the city.

Here's the full list.

The 20 safest U.S. cities for solo female travelers

  1. Cambridge, Massachusetts (74/100)
  2. Roseville, California (73/100)
  3. Thousand Oaks, California (73/100)
  4. Fort Collins, Colorado (73/100)
  5. Bellevue, Washington (73/100)
  6. Irvine, California (73/100)
  7. Temecula, California (72/100)
  8. Fremont, California (72/100)
  9. Naperville, Illinois (72/100)
  10. Sunnyvale, California (72/100)
  11. Simi Valley, California (72/100)
  12. Amherst, New York (72/100)
  13. Stamford, Connecticut (72/100)
  14. Edison, New Jersey (72/100)
  15. Orange, California (72/100)
  16. Scottsdale, Arizona (71/100)
  17. Torrance, California (71/100)
  18. Boulder, Colorado (71/100)
  19. Berkeley, California (71/100)
  20. Sterling Heights, Michigan (71/100)

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