JANUARY
New Year
Beijing, China
Also known as the Spring Festival, this is the most important one on the Chinese lunisolarcalendar, when a new cycle begins and friends and families gather to welcome in the luck and prosperity that come with a new start. Big family feasts are about togetherness, honouring ancestors and exchanging gifts (it is a tradition to give children money in red envelopes). The festival lasts 16 days, from New Year’s Eve (January 21 this year) to the Lantern Festival (February 5). The first seven days (January 21-27) are public holidays in China.
The biggest party is of course on New Year’s Eve, when outdoor spectacles involve parades, fireworks and often dancing dragons — a symbol of power and good fortune — as well as lots of red, a colour denoting prosperity, which is also believed to ward off evil spirits and negativity.
You’ll find celebrations wherever there are Chinese communities but the capital, Beijing, is a good choice, not only for the myriad carnivals, worship ceremonies and parties in town squares, parks and temples but also because of its atmosphere enrichened by the backdrop of historic buildings and temples dating back to the 1700s. This year brings in the Year of the Rabbit, the luckiest animal in the zodiac.
FEBRUARY
Mardi Gras
New Orleans, US
Mardi Gras’s roots are in the Christian tradition of Lent, a period of fasting, repentance and reflection in the 40 days leading up to Easter Sunday. The day before Lent begins is known as Fat Tuesday, so called as it was a last chance for excess when Christians would use up all the fatty foods in their cupboards. This concept of a last hurrah has inspired carnivals around the world, but the most famous is perhaps in New Orleans, US, where Mardi Gras (French for Fat Tuesday) has been commemorated since the arrival of French explorers in the 1700s. Today, it is a notoriously hedonistic affair marked by street parties and parades with colourful costumes, lavish floats, live music and a lot of liquor.
• Celebrations begin on February 17, with Fat Tuesday falling on February 21.
MARCH
Holi
Udaipur, India
A national holiday in India, the Hindu festival of colours observes the arrival of spring and the triumph of good over evil. Specific traditions differ across the country, but the main celebration typically lasts two days, the big events being the Holika Dahan (burning of the demon Holika on a bonfire to celebrate the victory of good over evil) the night before Holi, and the colour fight on the day, when revellers douse each other in coloured powders and water. In the colour fight’s spirit of merrymaking, caste, gender, age and status become irrelevant and everyone is fair game.
If you want a party, you’ll find a wealth to choose from in Mumbai and Delhi, but for true tradition with a touch of royalty head to Udaipur, Rajasthan, where the royal family of the Mewar dynasty are central to the festivities. The celebrations begin with the maharaja lighting a bonfire in the palace courtyard, followed by folk dancing and a royal procession, in which the family rides on ornately decorated elephants, horses and camels.
• March 8.
APRIL
Sakura Festival
Yoshino, Japan
There is no better time to visit Japan than in spring when its famed sakura (cherry blossoms) — the national flower and a symbol of hope — are in full bloom, putting on brilliant displays of white and shades of pink.
The act of viewing the blossoms — known as hanami — has been ritualised for centuries, often with picnics, markets and music under the trees, with the singing of songs that celebrate their transient beauty.
The timing requires a little calculation and luck. As with Joburg’s jacarandas, every year is different. There are also several sakura varieties, each flowering at different times, but your best chance of catching them in the main tourist spots is from late March to mid-April.
There are 1,000 places across the country to see them, but some say the best is Yoshino in the Kii Mountains, east of Osaka, where the blossoms of more than 30,000 trees carpet the mountains surrounding the town.
MAY
The Cooper’s Hill Cheese Roll
Brockworth, England
Also known as the Cooper’s Hill Cheese Rolling and Wake, this annual event — estimated to be about 600 years old — involves hordes of people chasing a 3kg wheel of Double Gloucester cheese down a 182m hill in Brockworth, southwest England. The extreme steepness of the hill and the zeal with which participants throw themselves down it that several people get stretchered off every year. No-one ever actually catches the cheese but whoever makes it first to the bottom of the hill wins it. There are several other events, including an uphill race for children and another downhill race, sans cheese, in which many onlookers for the main event can take a turn tackling the hill.
• May 29
JUNE
Vivid Sydney
Sydney, Australia
This annual three-week festival is a forum for exchanging ideas, with public talks and debates on a variety of topics, plus musical performances by local and international acts. It began in 2009 as a way to talk about smart energy, but the touristy buzz is mainly around the multimedia interactive works, gigantic light installations and projections on buildings across the city, including landmarks such as the Opera House and Harbour Bridge, that turn all of Sydney into a thrilling night-time artwork. For the first time this year, the festival will include food creators.
• 26 May — 17 June 2023
JULY
The Calgary Stampede
Calgary, Canada
With roots going back to 1912, when American trick roper Guy Weadick organised an event in Calgary, Canada, as an ode to the “disappearing” Old West, the Calgary Stampede is the world’s largest rodeo, attracting a million visitors per year.
Dubbed “The Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth”, it offers 10 days of live music, a funfair, agricultural exhibits and an enormous parade — this year led by actor Kevin Costner. The highlight, though, is the rodeo, where the world’s best cowboys and cowgirls face off every afternoon in events such as barrel racing, tie-down roping, steer wrestling and bull riding, hoping to make it into the final contests on Showdown Sunday and take home a piece of the $1.5m (about R25.5m) prize money.
• July 7-16
AUGUST
La Tomatina
Buñol, Spain
“The world’s biggest food fight” takes place every year on the last Wednesday in August in the town of Buñol, 38km west of Valencia. Its origins are murky, but a popular story goes that in 1945, during a parade in honour of the town’s patron saints, a fight broke out in which the participants started throwing tomatoes.
Decades later, the annual event swells the town’s population from 9,000 to about 24,000. The action begins around 10am with a pre-fight ritual called Palo Jabón, in which a giant ham is placed at the top of a greased pole. The challenge is for revellers to climb the pole and capture the ham. At 11am, a water cannon signals the start of the fight and several trucks roll in to dump giant piles of over-ripe tomatoes across the square, after which the free-for-all begins. When the time is up a firework shot is heard, and all tomato throwing must cease.
SEPTEMBER
The Cure Salée
In-Gall, Niger
The Cure Salée, or Festival of the Nomads, is a yearly gathering of thousands from the nomadic Tuareg and Wodaabe tribes in In-Gall, a small town on the edge of the Sahara in northern Niger. Marking the end of the rainy season, it is a moment for smaller groups to come together, catch up on each others’ news and partake in some traditional music and dance. A special aspect of the festivities is the Gerewol, a sort of male beauty pageant through which young men attempt to find a partner. Participants spend hours perfecting their painted faces and elaborate costumes before performing marathon dances and songs to impress the women. As white eyes and teeth are most prized in the culture, the men will roll their eyes and bare their teeth to emphasise these characteristics. In the end, a jury of females picks the winner, who will carry acclaim and fame for years.
• Exact dates depend on the rains, with this year's yet to be decided.
OCTOBER
The Sun Festival
Abu Simbel, Egypt
In the 13th century BCE, Egypt’s Ramesses II had two gigantic temples built. Both were designed so that the innermost temple room, featuring statues of the gods Ra, Amun and Ptah and Ramesses himself (as pharaoh, he was considered a god) would only be lit up by the sun on two days every year — February 22 and October 22. Both are days for celebration in Abu Simbel in the south, where spectators gather before sunrise to watch as the light starts to edge into the room and fall across the statues’ faces. As it continues to rise and the statues fall back into shadow, the party begins with food, drink and traditional singers and dancers. The October edition is believed to mark Ramesses’s birthday.
NOVEMBER
Día de los Muertos
Oaxaca, Mexico
Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) is the culmination of a two-day holiday when the border between the living and spirit worlds dissolves. It starts at midnight on November 1, called Día de los Angelitos (Day of Little Angels), when people reunite with children they have lost. The next midnight is dedicated to deceased adults. It’s a joyous occasion at which the departed are considered honoured guests. People visit graves with their loved ones’ favourite food and drinks (sweets and toys for children) or throw parties and construct ofrendas (altars) in their homes with photos of their loved ones alongside their favourite things. It is observed all over Mexico, but is especially popular in Oaxaca where festivities include dressing up and face-painting with the popular calavera (skull) and parades.
• November 1-2
DECEMBER
Krampusnacht
Kitzbuhel, Austria
Krampusnacht, or the night of Krampus, marks the arrival of the horned, half-goat, half-devil Krampus, who punishes naughty children. Instead of doling out gifts like his jolly counterpart St Nicholas (who comes on December 6), this bogeyman arrives the night before and — as the legend has it — beats misbehaved children with bundles of twigs. Of course no children are actually harmed but there is much fun to be had in the theatrics.
It is traditionally observed across Europe’s Alpine region in countries such as Germany and Austria, a number of other European countries, Australia and, more recently, in North America. Celebrations include the Krampus parade and Krampus run in which men dress up like him and — usually bolstered by alcohol — run through the streets. Many towns across Germany and Austria hold parades but the Austrian town of Kitzbuhel is the only town that ’s home to a Krampus museum.
• December 5
