The 15 best places to celebrate New Year around the world

Best for: all-out partygoers

Pretty much everywhere these days belts out ‘Auld Lang Syne’, but there’s still no New Year’s celebration quite like Scotland. There are few ways to get in the spirit of the season quite like Edinburgh’s legendary Hogmanay, with the city’s dancing, drinking, fireworks and general reverie sometimes lasting for three whole days.

Best for: fruit fans

Madrid’s NYE celebration takes place on the Puerta del Sol public square, with the party broadcast to Spaniards across the country. But if you really want to get the full Spanish New Year experience, you’ve got to get involved in an essential local custom. Spaniards typically cram 12 grapes into their mouth at midnight, one by one, as the Puerta del Sol bell tolls. Eat them all and you’re in for a happy, prosperous new year, apparently. And if you fancy doing it all again, just wait for an hour until 1am: since 2018, the bell has chimed again to mark midnight in the Canary Islands.

Best for: skywatchers

Chiang Mai in December isn’t just a magnificently cultural city with toasty daytime temperatures of 29C. It also has a really, really spectacular New Year’s Eve tradition which sees thousands of paper lanterns released into the night sky on December 31. Releasing a lantern symbolises new beginnings and supposedly brings good luck – but even if you don’t release one yourself, the sight is otherworldly.

Best for: charitable displays

Reykjavik doesn’t have an official fireworks display, but that doesn’t stop the Icelandic capital from having one of the world’s most spectacular pyrotechnics every New Year’s Eve. Virtually every one of the city’s inhabitants buys fireworks from ICE-SAR, Iceland’s search-and-rescue department, and lets them off at midnight. It’s a way of both funding the institution for another year and having a marvellous time.

Best for: indecisive celebrators

South Africa’s ‘Mother City’ is the place to go if you’re not quite sure how to spend your final evening of 2023. You can head to the beaches for a chilled-out launch into the New Year, but the V&A Waterfront, where Time Out just opened a brand-new market, is the place to be for a well-rounded boogie. Carnival-themed performances, food trucks and live music are dotted along this vibrant patch, so eat, drink and dance your night away. 

Best for: community spirit

There aren’t many odd or quirky traditions to be found with New Year’s Eve in London: it’s simply a very wholesome and visually spectacular affair. Revellers line the banks of the Thames and overload the bridges, everyone in the jolliest of moods and with a magnificent view of the UK capital’s skyline, before a countdown at Big Ben and fireworks around the London Eye. Simple, but tremendously effective. Just make sure you buy your ticket as soon as they go on sale.

Best for: jumping the gun 

Sydney has one big advantage over other major NYE celebrations: thanks to its easterly time zone, it’s one of the first big parties to welcome the new year. More than a million attendees gather on boats or on the shore, ready to gaze at light displays over the Harbour Bridge and Opera House. And with festivities taking place in the height of the Aussie summer, the weather is decidedly less chilly than most northern-hemisphere NYE parties.

Best for: wavy undergarms

Whether you’re partying on the beaches of Cancun and Playa del Carmen or amidst the street festivities of Guadalajara and Mexico City, you’d do well to join in with Mexico’s key NYE tradition: colourful underwear. The colour depends on what you’d like from the year ahead; red means love, yellow means money or luck and white means peace.

Best for: the classic New Year’s

Sure, it‘s predictable – but few cities around the world boast quite such a dizzying amount of action on NYE. Whether you’re there for the classic ball drop in Times Square or the fireworks displays at Central Park, South Street Seaport and Prospect Park, New York at New Year’s has an event on every corner.

Best for: the culturally curious

When it comes to welcoming in the new year, Japan has no shortage of customs to fill an entire night. You could join the countdown at Tokyo Tower, tuck into a meal of toshikoshi soba (a special kind of New Year’s Eve noodles), or listen out for the temple bells, which ring out 108 times in the lead-up to midnight.

Best for: letting off steam

Been a tough year? Looking to take out your anger on something – anything? Head over to Denmark, where there’s a New Year’s tradition of launching plates and crockery at your neighbours’ doors. The more dishes you break, the better luck you’ll have over the next year. And Copenhagen, with its waterside fireworks, also makes for a very pretty – if rather nippy – place to spend NYE.

Best for: getting rid of furniture 

While we’re talking about throwing stuff, it’d be rude not to mention Naples. While the tradition is dwindling nowadays, some residents in Italy’s third-largest city throw household goods out of the window on NYE. That’s usually pots, pans and pillows rather than chairs or cupboards, but maybe watch your head anyway, or you could miss out on the spectacular city-wide fireworks display. Head up high to the city’s hills for the best view.

Best for: pyromaniacs 

Also getting in on the ‘destroying-stuff-to-welcome-in-the-new-year’ hype is Ecuador, where it’s a thing to burn scarecrow-like dolls filled with paper at midnight on NYE. Intended to banish the demons and bad luck of the past year, the fires – combined with plenty of fireworks displays –  turn Ecuador’s capital Quito into a pyromaniac’s dream.

Best for: beach bums

The appeal of welcoming in the new year at Rio’s legendary yearly Copacabana beach NYE party is pretty self-evident, but it’s even more special if you take part in local customs, too. Be sure to dress in all white and, at midnight, jump over seven waves. Barefoot on an iconic sandy beach, dallying around in warm water as fireworks crash overhead: it’s quite a way to start the year.

Best for: spud fanatics

As America’s (and the world’s) potato capital, Idaho is home to a unique New Year’s Eve tradition: the ‘Idaho Potato Drop’. Here’s the lowdown: as the clock strikes midnight and fireworks light up the sky, a freakishly large polystyrene potato falls to earth in front of Idaho’s state capitol. With live music, snowboarders doing tricks and delicious food stands, this is something you definitely won’t see anywhere else. For the full spud experience, book out the Big Idaho Potato Hotel, which is also – you’ve guessed it – a giant potato.