Chinese New Year falls on January 28th this year, though the celebrations can’t be contained to a single day. This is a full-on festival — loaded with food, decorations, family time, and fireworks. It’s kind of like Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Year’s Eve, and Fourth of July all rolled into one well-lit bacchanal, lasting almost three weeks.
It’s also the most widely-celebrated holiday on the planet, with an estimated 2.9 billion trips taking place all over the world during the travel rush. In fact, Chinese New Year marks the largest movement of people on earth — dwarfing our Thanksgiving and Christmas travel by comparison.
Below you’ll find some of our favorite places to check out Chinese New Year festivities in 2017.
SAN FRANCISCO, USA
San Francisco has one of the most iconic Chinatowns in North America. The Chinese New Year Parade is one of the oldest in the Americas (dating back to the mid-1800s) and is the center of all the action. The parade takes place on February 11th this year and will weave its way into Chinatown for a party of food, fireworks, and ornate dragon-puppets that take 100 people to operate.
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NEW YORK, USA
On February 5th New York’s Chinatown will celebrate the Lunar New Year with a massive parade and festival. Although the Manhattan Chinatown will be the main focus, Flushing’s (Queens) and Sunset Park’s (Brooklyn) Chinatowns will also be celebrating the holiday with street food, performances, and more parades.
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VANCOUVER, CANADA
Vancouver’s Chinese New Year parade and festivals often draw over 100,000 people out into the streets. This year’s celebration of the Year of the Rooster will be no different. The 44th Chinatown Spring Festival Parade is being held on January 29th this year and is the centerpiece of a month of events taking place all over Vancouver.
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LONDON, UK
London’s parade and festival starts in Chinatown and winds through the West End towards a huge finale in Trafalgar Square — with partying, fireworks, and plenty of food to go around. The parade takes place on the first day of the Chinese New Year, January 28th, with festivities running through February.
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SINGAPORE
With one of the biggest and best Chinatowns on earth, Singapore is one of the best places to experience the holiday. The Chingay Parade, February 10-11, around Marina Bay will remind you of the wildness of Rio’s Carnival in the sheer size and intensity of the whole affair. Even if you’re not there for the parade the week leading up to January 28th and the weeks after are full of festivities, more parades, and some of the best food on the planet.
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HO CHI MINH CITY, VIETNAM
Tet in Vietnam is a much quieter experience than some of the bigger city options. A lot of Ho Chi Minh City’s denizens head out to the countryside to visit family for a week or two around January 28th. So the city is very quiet and you may feel like you have parts of it to yourself. However there are still plenty of people left and January 27th/28th are always the start of celebrations across the city with massive floral displays along Nguyen Hue and huge fireworks displays across the city.
And don’t forget to try a Banh Tet — a rice, mung bean, and pork cake that marks the holiday.
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GEORGETOWN, MALAYSIA
The island of Penang in Malaysia goes all in on Chinese New Year. Most streets are fully decked in massive amounts of lights, street vendors are out all night slinging various delicious treats for revelers, and the tropical climate means it’s warm enough to party all night.
Georgetown is the biggest city on the island the base for most festivities. If you show up on January 27th for New Year’s Eve, expect 15 days of festivities all culminating with Chap Goh Mei, the last day of celebrations, which offers a big finish to a wild few weeks.
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SHANGHAI, CHINA
Traveling to China for their biggest holiday is a blast. A lot of businesses are closed, but the celebrations and festivities are massive. It all starts a week before the new year with the worshipping of the kitchen god, shopping, and cleaning; then transitions to a solid week of feasting and partying. January 28th is biggest day of parties and fireworks then it all ends 15 days later with a massive lantern festival.
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HARBIN, CHINA
Harbin is a hard sell for any visitor to China. It’s in the very cold north of the country next to Russia and Mongolia. And in the middle of winter it’s bone-chillingly cold and covered in a lot of snow and ice. However, it’s also home to the Harbin Ice and Snow Festival, which offers a spectacularly unique way to spend the holiday. Add in winter activities like skiing and Harbin becomes a very popular destination for foreigners and locals alike during the holiday season.
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HONG KONG, CHINA
Once you’ve been to Hong Kong it’s hard not to start calling it ‘Hong-fucking-Kong’ every time. It’s a bacchanalian city that puts a little Blade Runner, a little of the west, and a lot of China into a blender and hits “frappe.” The city is a party capital of the world on a average day. On Chinese New Year, it’s fully bananas — parades, firework displays, and horse races fill the time between feasts and sleeping off hangovers.
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