14 Festivals to Add to Your Bucket List

14 Festivals to Add to Your Bucket List

Festivals are celebrations put on by all of the world's communities to celebrate special aspects of their culture and hertige. Yet out of all the international festivals, these 14 definitely top the list! Here's a jaw-dropping look at how the rest of the world celebrates!

1. Snow & Ice Festival in Harbin, China

This annual festival has been held in Harbin, a city in northeast China that is not far from cold and wintry Siberia, since 1963. The average winter temperature in Harbin is -16.8 degrees Celsius, what creates the perfect climate for the wondrous ice and snow sculptures. The highlight of the festival are the life-size buildings created out of 2-3 feet thick blocks and lit up at night in a rainbow of colors.

2. The Hindu Holi Festival

Holi is the Hindu festival of colors that is celebrated throughout the world in the months of February and March. Holi celebrates the coming of spring and its abundant colors and for many Hindu's it marks the beginning of a new year. Children and youth spray the colored powers, known as gulal, all over each other to celebrate new beginnings, or just to experience becoming a human tie-dye.

3. Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, Spain

In Spanish the 'encierro' festival occurs every July to celebrate a 14th century Spanish tradition. The bulls would be transferred from their pens to the bullring, where they would participate in a fight the next evening. Today, about a dozen bulls are let loose on the streets, while thousands of on-lookers in red and white risk their lives to get close to the fierce bulls.

4. Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque, New Mexico

A yearly festival displaying some of the world's greatest hot air balloons that takes place in the month of October. The festival began in 1972 to mark the 50th birthday celebration of a popular New Mexico radio station. Then, only 13 balloons went on display, while today 600 balloons fly high in what is the largest balloon convention in the world.

5. Songkran Water Festival in Chiang Mai, Thailand

This huge water fight marks the New Year on the 13- 15 of April, known as songkran. During the celebration, Thais roam the streets with hoses, buckets and water guns that they spray on their friends and family, or innocent by-passers. The water is meant to cleanse the soul and spirit for the new year to come, and sometimes the buckets are even filled with fragrant herbs.

6. The Mexican Day of the Dead

The Mexican holiday, Dia de Muertos, is celebrated in Mexico and all around the world, and as t's name suggests, its purpose is to remember the dead. Friends and family gather together on October 31- November 2 to visit the graves of their deceased loved ones, and along the way dress up in spooky skeleton costumes. Some scholars believe that the origins of the holiday may trace back to an ancient Aztec festival that celebrated the spirits of the dead.

7. Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Louisiana

The day before the Christian celebration of Ash Wednesday, the crazy carnival of Mardi Gras begins to take over the city of New Orleans. Also known as Fat Tuesday, this is the last opportunity for Christians refraining from meats and fatty foods during the Lent season to get in their final binge. Millions of tourists from around the world flock to the jazz-filled and parade ridden streets of New Orleans to bathe in green, yellow and purple, the holiday's traditional colors.

8. La Tomatina in Bunol, Spain

If you ever dreamt of being smeared with tomatoes, this Spanish festival is your chance! Every year in this small Spanish town a huge tomato fight occurs every August of which the origins are unknown. A crowd of people gathers in the town square with their tomatoes and dirting clothes, ready for a whole lot of red fun!

9. The Carnival of Venice in Venice, Italy

Much like Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Carnevale marks the beginning of Lent and ends the day before Ash Wednesday. The style of the Carnevale celebration is thought to have originated in the 12th century when the people of Venice celebrate the victory of the Republic of Venice. For over two centuries Carnevale was banned, until the celebrations started up again in 1979. The festival, however, hasn't lost any of it's medieval flavor and the party-goers still wear traditional masks and dress.

10. Cascamorras in Baza and Guadix, Spain

Every year on September 6 two Spanish towns of Baza and Guadix in Granada fight for possession of the Virgen de la Piedad statue. The festival is named for Cascamorras, a man from Guadix that worked in Baza and found an image of the Virgin Mary. Since then, the battle for possession of the statue created in her image is celebrated in a three-day reenactment and festival of the ancient battle.

11. Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany

One of the world's most popular and celebrated festivals, this 16-day celebration takes place from late September into the first week of October. This beer-drinking and merry frolicking festival was initiated by King Ludwig I to celebrate his royal wedding and to promote Bavarian agriculture. Today, millions of visitors flock to cities all over Germany to celebrate the event with pints of beers and old-fashioned merry-go-rounds to wash them down.

12. Burning Man in Black Rock Desert, Nevada

This iconic event has only been around since the 1980s, but it's popularity among young people around the world has spiked its current attendance to over 50,000! The first burning man was held by Larry Harvey on a beach near San Francisco, when he burned a 9 foot tall effigy as an act of "radical self-expression". Today, the festival has been moved to the desert in Nevada and is filled with music and entertainment of all kinds, but still burns and effigy every year.

13. Up Helly Aa in Shetland, Scotland

These fire festivals are held every year in the middle of winter to mark the end of the Christmas season. People dress up as guizers, or characters from folk plays, and carry torches through their village. The first Christmas torch procession of this kind took place in 1876, and today the festival takes place throughout Scotland. The final touch of the festival harks back to Scotland's Viking roots, when a torch is thrown into an old ship and burned.

14. Lantern Festival in Pingxi, Taiwan

One of the world's most beautiful celebrations, the Lunar Festival throughout the Asian world marks the last day of the lunar New Year celebration. The use of lanterns to mark the end of the festivities traces back to the Chinese emperors that decide to light the cities up for the celebrations. Today, there are lanterns in all shapes and forms, some that are even too big and detailed to be true!