Events & Festivals

Australia Day (National Holiday)

Australia Day on January 26th is marked by community events, citizenship ceremonies, and outdoor barbecues as Australians celebrate their national identity and achievements. The day features fireworks, concerts, and the prestigious Australian of the Year awards, though it is also a day of reflection for many Indigenous Australians.

Dubai Shopping Festival

The Dubai Shopping Festival is the world's biggest retail extravaganza, running from January through February with massive discounts, entertainment shows, fireworks, and live concerts across the city. The month-long festival attracts millions of shoppers from around the world with deals at hundreds of malls and souks.

Harbin Ice and Snow Festival

The world's largest ice and snow festival transforms Harbin into a fantasy of illuminated ice sculptures every winter.

Hoi An Lantern Festival

On the 14th day of each lunar month, Hoi An's ancient town turns off its electric lights and glows entirely by the light of hundreds of colorful silk lanterns floating on the Thu Bon River. The monthly festival preserves a tradition dating back centuries and creates an enchanting atmosphere throughout the UNESCO heritage town.

Lunar New Year

Carnival Peru

Peru's carnival season in February and March varies by region, from the water balloon battles of Lima to the elaborate dances and costumes of Cajamarca, considered Peru's carnival capital. The Andean regions celebrate with traditional yunza tree ceremonies and the unique Huayno music that fills mountain towns with festive energy.

Carnival Portugal

Portugal's carnival season features spectacular celebrations, with Torres Vedras hosting the most authentic Portuguese carnival and Loulé in the Algarve presenting a flower-filled Mediterranean-style parade. The festivities include satirical floats, elaborate costumes, and traditional entrudo celebrations rooted in centuries of Portuguese culture.

Carnival Veracruz

Veracruz hosts one of Latin America's most exuberant carnivals, with dazzling parades of floats, elaborate costumes, and nonstop dancing in the streets along the Gulf of Mexico. The week-long pre-Lenten celebration is famous for its Caribbean-influenced music, the mock burning of "Bad Humor," and joyful street parties.

Chinese New Year (Singapore)

Colorful celebrations with lanterns

Chinese New Year (Malaysia)

Lion dances and fireworks

Chinese New Year Singapore

Singapore's Chinese New Year is a dazzling two-week celebration transforming Chinatown into a sea of red lanterns, with vibrant street markets, lion dances, and the spectacular River Hongbao light-up along Marina Bay. The festivities reflect Singapore's multicultural heritage with events spanning the full 15 days.

Chinese New Year Spring Festival

The world's largest human migration sees families reunite for fireworks, dragon dances, and festive feasts across China.

Cologne Carnival

Cologne's three-day street carnival is one of Europe's biggest parties, famed for costumes and "Jecken" revelry.

Croatia Carnival

Croatia's carnival season features the Rijeka Carnival, one of Europe's largest and most flamboyant, with a massive international parade of over 10,000 costumed participants winding through the city streets. The two-week February festivities include masked balls, children's parades, and the symbolic burning of the pust (carnival effigy).

Greek Apokries Carnival

Greece's pre-Lenten carnival season culminates in the Apokries celebrations, with the most famous in Patras where elaborate floats and costumed revelers fill the streets in one of Europe's largest carnivals. The three-week festivities include masquerade balls, street parties, and the spectacular burning of the carnival king.

New Orleans Mardi Gras

The world-famous Mardi Gras in New Orleans features elaborate parades, masked balls, and a carnival atmosphere.

Nice Carnival

One of the world's largest carnivals, held in Nice each February with extravagant parades of giant floats, confetti battles, and flower parades along the Promenade des Anglais. The two-week celebration draws nearly a million visitors with its spectacular artistry and festive atmosphere.

Reykjavik Winter Lights

Tet New Year

Vietnam's most important festival celebrates the lunar new year with family reunions, ancestral offerings, and vibrant street celebrations lasting up to two weeks. Homes are decorated with peach blossoms and kumquat trees, and the night sky lights up with spectacular fireworks over major cities.

Venice Carnival

Historic carnival with masks and costumes

Bali Nyepi

Cherry Blossom Season

Japan's iconic sakura viewing season

Dublin St Patrick's Day

Easter Week Portugal

Portugal's Semana Santa (Holy Week) features some of Iberia's most moving processions, with Braga hosting the most famous celebrations including the dramatic Ecce Homo procession by torchlight. Churches across the country present elaborate passion plays and the air fills with incense and solemn music during these deeply spiritual days.

Eid Al Fitr Morocco

Morocco's Eid Al Fitr celebrations blend Islamic tradition with Moroccan cultural heritage, filling mosques and city squares with communal prayers followed by elaborate family feasts featuring traditional pastilla and b'stilla. The festive atmosphere extends through the medinas with special markets, traditional music, and joyful gatherings.

Eid Al Fitr UAE

Eid Al Fitr marks the end of Ramadan with three days of joyful celebration across the UAE, featuring communal prayers, family gatherings, charitable giving, and festive meals. Shopping malls, parks, and public spaces host entertainment events, and the entire country is adorned with colorful lights and decorations.

Holi Festival of Colors

India's exuberant spring festival transforms streets and plazas into a riot of color as people chase each other with fistfuls of vibrant gulal powder and water-filled balloons. Originating as a harvest celebration, Holi is now a nationwide festival of joy, forgiveness, and the victory of good over evil.

Holi Nepal

Nepal's Holi festival marks the arrival of spring with two days of exuberant color throwing, water fights, and street celebrations across the country. The festival in Kathmandu's Basantapur Durbar Square is particularly spectacular, with thousands gathering to smear each other with vibrant powdered pigments.

Las Fallas Valencia

Valencia's spectacular Las Fallas festival fills the city with enormous satirical papier-mâché sculptures called fallas, which are set ablaze in the grand Cremà on the final night. The five-day March festival is a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage, featuring fireworks, parades, and floral offerings.

Lisbon Fado Night

Melbourne Food & Wine Festival

The Melbourne Food and Wine Festival is one of the world's great culinary events, celebrating Victoria's extraordinary food and wine culture with hundreds of events across ten days in March. From intimate winemaker dinners to the spectacular World's Longest Lunch, the festival attracts leading chefs and food lovers from around the globe.

Nyepi Balinese New Year

Bali's Day of Silence is a unique Hindu New Year celebration where the entire island shuts down for 24 hours of meditation, fasting, and self-reflection. The day before Nyepi features spectacular Ogoh-Ogoh parade of giant demon effigies that are burned to cleanse negative spirits.

Ramadan Iftar Season

Turkey's Ramadan season transforms city squares into communal gathering spaces where thousands break their daily fast together at elaborate iftar tables set up by municipalities. The evenings come alive with special food markets, traditional entertainment, and the beautiful call to prayer echoing from historic mosques.

Spring Flowers

Cherry blossoms and spring flowers

Spring in UK

Spring flowers in gardens and parks

Amsterdam Flower Market

Bali Spirit Festival

An internationally renowned yoga, dance, and music festival held in Ubud, Bali, celebrating world music, healing arts, and conscious living over five transformative days. The festival draws thousands of participants from around the world for workshops, performances, and spiritual practices.

Greek Orthodox Easter

Greek Orthodox Easter is the country's most important religious celebration, marked by midnight candlelight processions, the joyful cry of "Christos Anesti," and festive lamb feasts on Easter Sunday. The entire country pauses for the Holy Week with deeply moving ceremonies in churches from Athens to the smallest island villages.

Istanbul Tulip Festival

Each April, Istanbul's parks, gardens, and public spaces burst into color with millions of tulips planted across the city in a magnificent display celebrating the flower that was once the symbol of the Ottoman Empire. Emirgan Park hosts the main celebrations with art events and special exhibitions.

Khmer New Year

Cambodia's three-day Khmer New Year in April is the country's most important holiday, celebrated with temple offerings, traditional games, and communal water blessings to welcome the new year. Families dress in their finest clothes, clean their homes, and participate in Angkor Sankranta festivities at the iconic temple complex.

Seoul Cherry Blossom

Songkran Water Festival

Best Weather Season

Dry season for exploration

Cannes Film Festival

World's most prestigious film festival

Chelsea Flower Show

The world's most prestigious garden show at the Royal Hospital Chelsea showcases breathtaking floral displays each May.

Cinco de Mayo

Cinco de Mayo commemorates Mexico's unexpected victory over French forces at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862, celebrated most vigorously in Puebla with historical reenactments, parades, and cultural performances. The date has become a celebration of Mexican heritage and pride, marked with traditional food, music, and dance.

Food Festival

Celebrate Singapore's culinary heritage

Marrakech Rose Festival

The charming Kelaat M'Gouna valley in Morocco hosts the annual Rose Festival each May, celebrating the harvest of Damascus roses with parades, folk music, and the crowning of a rose queen. The festival fills the air with the intoxicating scent of roses and showcases traditional Berber culture.

Royal Events

Royal ceremonies and celebrations

Vivid Sydney

Vivid Sydney is the Southern Hemisphere's largest festival of light, music and ideas, transforming the city's harbour, landmarks and laneways into a dazzling open-air canvas of large-scale light installations and projections each autumn.

Athens Epidaurus Festival

Greece's premier cultural event presents ancient Greek tragedies and comedies in the perfectly preserved ancient theaters of Athens and Epidaurus from June through August. Watching a classical performance under the stars in the 2,500-year-old Epidaurus amphitheater is an unforgettable cultural experience.

Bali Arts Festival (Indonesia)

Bali Arts Festival (Indonesia)

The Bali Arts Festival (Pesta Kesenian Bali) is an annual month-long celebration of Balinese culture held in Denpasar, Indonesia, showcasing traditional dance, music, crafts, and rituals that reflect the island's rich artistic heritage.

Copenhagen Summer

Da Nang Fireworks Festival

Glastonbury Festival

The UK's legendary music and performing arts festival draws over 200,000 people to Somerset's Worthy Farm.

Gnaoua World Music Festival

Essaouira hosts this internationally acclaimed world music festival each June, where the trance-inducing rhythms of Gnaoua musicians blend with jazz, blues, and global sounds on stages throughout the medina. The four-day festival transforms Morocco's Atlantic coast city into a vibrant hub of cross-cultural musical fusion.

Inti Raymi Sun Festival

The Festival of the Sun is one of South America's most spectacular indigenous celebrations, held at Sacsayhuaman fortress near Cusco on June 24th, the winter solstice. The ancient Inca ceremony honoring the sun god Inti is reenacted with thousands of participants in elaborate period costumes.

Lisbon Santos Populares Festivals

June is the month of the Popular Saints in Lisbon, when the entire city erupts into street parties honoring Saint Anthony, Saint John, and Saint Peter. The Alfama and Mouraria neighborhoods transform with colorful decorations, sardine grills, and traditional arraial dancing that continues through the night.

Summer Music Festivals

Glastonbury and major festivals

Bastille Day

France's national holiday on July 14th commemorates the storming of the Bastille in 1789 with a magnificent military parade down the Champs-Élysées, followed by spectacular fireworks over the Eiffel Tower. Festivities spread across the entire country with public dances and celebrations.

Budapest Summer

Dubrovnik Summer

Dubrovnik Summer Festival

Croatia's most prestigious cultural event transforms the UNESCO-listed old city of Dubrovnik into an open-air stage each July and August, with over 80 theatrical, musical, and dance performances in spectacular historic venues. The 45-day festival has showcased world-class art within Dubrovnik's ancient walls since 1950.

Independence Day

The 4th of July lights up the night sky nationwide with spectacular fireworks and patriotic celebrations.

Osaka Summer Festival

Palio di Siena

The Palio di Siena is a historic bareback horse race held twice each summer in Siena's shell-shaped Piazza del Campo, where the city's contrade (districts) compete in a fierce, centuries-old rivalry amid pageantry and medieval tradition.

Rambu Solo (Toraja Funeral Ceremony)

Rambu Solo is the elaborate Torajan funeral ceremony of Sulawesi — a days-long rite of music, dance, processions and ritual sacrifice that is among the world's most distinctive cultural spectacles, drawing anthropologists and travellers from around the globe.

San Fermin Festival

Bull running and week-long party

Burning Man Festival

An annual gathering in the Nevada desert celebrating art, self-expression, and radical community each August.

Edinburgh Festival

World's largest arts festival

Edinburgh Fringe

Ferragosto

Italy's beloved mid-August holiday when the entire country takes a collective summer break, filling beaches, mountains, and historic towns with celebrating Italians. Originally a Roman festival honoring Augustus, Ferragosto is now a national holiday marked by fireworks, outdoor feasting, and community gatherings.

Indonesian Independence Day

Indonesia's Independence Day on August 17th is celebrated with patriotic ceremonies, traditional games, and community festivities across the archipelago. Unique neighborhood competitions like panjat pinang (greasy pole climbing) and sack races bring communities together in joyful celebration.

Kuta Beach Festival

La Tomatina

World's largest tomato food fight

Obon Festival

A traditional Buddhist festival honoring the spirits of ancestors, celebrated with bon odori folk dances, lantern lighting, and family gatherings across Japan. The festival typically spans three days in mid-August and features beautiful fireworks displays.

Singapore National Day

Singapore's National Day on August 9th commemorates independence with an elaborate parade at the Padang featuring military displays, mass performances, and a breathtaking fireworks show over Marina Bay. The annual celebration showcases the nation's progress and multicultural unity.

Singapore Night Festival

Autumn Foliage

Mountain colors

Mid-Autumn Festival China

Families gather under the full moon to share mooncakes and lanterns in this ancient harvest celebration.

Mid-Autumn Moon Festival

Vietnam's beloved Tet Trung Thu fills the streets with colorful lantern processions, mooncakes, and dragon dances celebrating the harvest moon. Children carry star-shaped lanterns through the streets while lion dancers perform to ward off evil spirits.

Mistura Food Festival

Lima's Mistura is Latin America's largest and most celebrated food festival, showcasing the extraordinary diversity of Peruvian cuisine from indigenous ingredients to Japanese-Peruvian nikkei fusion. The ten-day September event draws celebrity chefs, food artisans, and hundreds of thousands of food lovers from around the world.

Oktoberfest

World's largest beer festival

Pchum Ben

Cambodia's Festival of the Dead is a 15-day Buddhist celebration in September and October when Cambodians visit pagodas at dawn to offer food to the spirits of deceased ancestors. Believed to be when the gates of hell open, Pchum Ben is a deeply solemn and important occasion for honoring family lineage across seven generations.

Busan Film Festival

Dashain Festival

Nepal's most important Hindu festival, lasting 15 days in October, celebrates the victory of good over evil with family reunions, kite flying, and the ritual receiving of tika blessings from elders. The country comes alive with enormous bamboo swings, festive markets, and the sacrifice of animals to honor the goddess Durga.

Deepavali (Malaysia)

Festival of Lights

Deepavali (Singapore)

Hindu Festival of Lights

Diwali Festival of Lights

India's most beloved holiday, the Festival of Lights, fills the country with millions of clay diyas, colorful fireworks, and elaborate rangoli designs for five days in October or November. Families exchange sweets, worship Lakshmi the goddess of prosperity, and illuminate their homes in a nationwide celebration of the triumph of light over darkness.

National Day Golden Week

China's week-long holiday around October 1st sees hundreds of millions travel domestically to landmark destinations.

Tihar Festival of Lights

Nepal's five-day Festival of Lights honors crows, dogs, cows, and oxen before celebrating Laxmi puja with thousands of oil lamps illuminating homes and streets. The festival also includes Deusi and Bhailo singing traditions where groups go door-to-door performing songs in exchange for blessings and gifts.

Turkish Republic Day

October 29th marks the proclamation of the Turkish Republic in 1923 with grand ceremonies, military parades, and spectacular fireworks displays in cities across Turkey. Atatürk's memory is honored with solemn commemorations alongside joyful public celebrations and vibrant cultural events.

Advent in Zagreb

Zagreb's Christmas market has been voted Europe's best Advent destination multiple times, transforming the Croatian capital into a magical winter wonderland from late November through January. Ice skating rinks, mulled wine stalls, artisan craft markets, and spectacular light installations create an enchanting festive atmosphere throughout the city.

Athens Marathon

Bonfire Night Guy Fawkes

On November 5th, Britain lights up with bonfires and fireworks commemorating the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605.

Christmas Season

Festive decorations

Day of the Dead

Mexico's UNESCO-recognized Día de los Muertos is a vibrant two-day celebration honoring deceased loved ones with elaborate altars, marigold-strewn processions, and cemetery vigils on November 1st and 2nd. Far from mournful, the festival is a joyful reunion with ancestors featuring music, food offerings, and the iconic calavera face paintings.

German Christmas Markets

Germany's enchanting Weihnachtsmärkte from Nuremberg to Cologne are the world's most beloved Christmas markets.