10 Best Festivals (Costs & Tips, 2026)

Watching from the street is free, always — the elaborate paid Sambadrome seats (from roughly $50) are only one part of it, and arguably not even the best part. The blocos, informal street parties that pop up in every neighbourhood for weeks beforehand, are where most of Rio actually experiences Carnival.

Free to enter the grounds — you only pay for what you eat and drink once inside, which for a litre stein of Oktoberfest beer runs around €12-14. Arrive before 10am on weekends if you want a table in one of the famous beer tents; they fill up entirely by mid-morning.

Colored powder (gulal) costs a couple of dollars for enough to last the whole day. Mathura, considered the birthplace of the festival, celebrates for over a week rather than the single day most of the world does — wear clothes you're fully prepared to never fully clean again.

A water gun and refills cost a few dollars, and for three days the entire old city becomes a genuinely citywide water fight — nobody stays dry, that's the entire point. Chiang Mai is widely considered the best place in Thailand to experience it, with a moat around the old town that becomes the epicentre.

Free to walk the streets and cemeteries, and Oaxaca is widely considered one of the best places in Mexico to see it done properly — families spend the night at graves lit with candles and marigolds, and outsiders are generally welcomed respectfully rather than treated as intrusions.

Free to watch from the ghats along the Ganges, where the Dev Deepawali celebration (the version held here, roughly two weeks after main Diwali) lights literally millions of oil lamps along the riverbanks. One of the most visually overwhelming free things you can witness anywhere in the world.

Free to wander and photograph the elaborately costumed participants around St Mark's Square — the costumes themselves are personal expense (rental from roughly €50), but you don't need one to enjoy the spectacle. Running in some form since the 12th century, making it one of the oldest festivals still celebrated anywhere.

Free to watch the Victoria Harbour fireworks and the street processions with lion and dragon dances — the biggest single celebration on Earth by number of people, since billions across Asia and diaspora communities worldwide observe it. Hong Kong's harbour setting makes for one of the most photogenic versions.

Tickets now cost around €15 (capped in recent years after overcrowding), and the entire event lasts exactly one hour — trucks dump 150 tonnes of overripe tomatoes into the street and thousands of people throw them at each other. Wear old clothes and goggles; the tomato acid genuinely stings your eyes.

Free to walk the Royal Mile and watch street performers — the world's largest arts festival, with thousands of ticketed shows also running (from around £10) if a specific performer catches your attention. Every August the whole city effectively becomes one continuous, overlapping performance.