Things worth building a trip around.

Hundreds of millions of monarchs turn whole fir forests orange; densest clusters Jan–Feb.

Directly under the auroral oval, Sep through late Mar; polar-night darkness gives near round-the-clock windows.

A full-scale illuminated city of ice palaces, built new every winter; officially opens January 5.

Carnival season builds from Jan 6 to Fat Tuesday; the biggest parades come in the final two weeks.

The festival of colors follows the Phalguna full moon: late Feb to late March, streets erupt in thrown pigment.

February carnival season in Argentina's northwest: brass bands, coplas, and diablos dancing through the gorge towns.

The blossom front sweeps south-to-north, late March to early May; each city's full bloom lasts about a week.

Sawdust-carpet processions through the streets for Holy Week, and one of our Guatemala places is the meal to time it around.

A mountain village in our catalogue glows after dark, April to June.

One of our Indonesia places is at its most surreal on clear dry-season nights, roughly April through October.

One of the only synchronized firefly displays in the Western Hemisphere; ~8 lottery-access nights in late May–early June.

Over a million wildebeest brave the crocodile-filled Mara River; Aug–Sep is peak, sometimes several crossings a day.

The world's largest religious gathering, rotating cities on a 12-year cycle; main bathing days Aug–Sep 2027 on the Godavari.

A millennium-old festival filling all of July: 12-ton wooden floats hauled through downtown by hand on the 17th and 24th.

The world's most famous pop-culture convention, four days each late July since 1970.

~70,000 people build a temporary city in the Nevada desert, always the week ending Labor Day.

One of our Taiwan places blooms gold with daylilies for a few weeks in August and September.

The world's largest beer festival: ~16 days from mid-September to the first Sunday of October.

Thousands of sky lanterns and candlelit river baskets on the Thai lunar November full moon.

Marigold altars and candlelit cemetery vigils, late October through November 2; Oaxaca's are the most deeply rooted.

500+ balloons in mass dawn ascensions for nine days each October, the world's largest balloon event.