10 amazing festivals around the world you should experience

Because we know how much you enjoy things like this. We've rounded up 10 of the most amazing festivals from around the world.

1. Holi Festival, India

Holi is a spring festival also known as the festival of colours.

It is an ancient Hindu religious festival which starts with a Holika bonfire on the night before Holi where people gather, sing and dance. The next morning is free for all carnival of colours, where everyone plays, chases and colours each other with dry powder and coloured water.

Groups carry drums and musical instruments, go from place to place, sing and dance.

2. Boryeong Mud Festival, South Korea

A South Korean cosmetics company developed a line of beauty products which featured mud from the Boryeong mud flats. Then the Boryeong Mud Festival was born so potential customers could feel the benefits of the special mud firsthand. The festival features mud slides, mud prison, mud pools, and mud skiing, live music, acupuncture, and the festival's culminating fireworks display.

3. Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead), Mexico

Mexican holiday celebrated throughout Mexico and around the world in other cultures. The holiday focuses on gatherings of family and friends to pray for and remember friends and family members who have died.

It involves building private altars called ofrendas, honouring the deceased using sugar skulls, marigolds, and the favourite foods and beverages of the departed, and visiting graves with these as gifts.

4. Burning Man, Black Rock Desert, Nevada, USA

Burning Man is an annual event in Nevada’s Black Rock desert where people come to create art and express their individuality. It takes its name from the ritual burning of a large wooden effigy, which is set alight on Saturday evening. The event is described as an experiment in community, art, radical self-expression, and radical self-reliance.

5. Rio de Janeiro Carnival, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

The Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro is a world famous festival held before Lent every year and considered the biggest carnival in the world with 2 million people per day on the streets. The typical Rio carnival parade is filled with revellers, floats and adornments from numerous samba schools which are located in Rio.

6. Harbin Ice and Snow Festival, Harbin, China

A festival exhibiting the most exquisite ice and snow sculptures in the world. Every year people build incredible things out of ice and snow, decorating them with lights and lasers.

7. Up Helly Aa Fire Festival, Scotland

Up Helly Aa day involves a series of marches and visitations in a torch-lit procession and the burning of a galley. This is followed by hours of performing acts and dancing in halls throughout Lerwick.

8. Pingxi Lantern Festival, Taiwan

It's a festival that witnesses thousands of sky lanterns light over Pingxi District in Taiwan. It was originally celebrated to ward of evil and disease from the town. The Taipei Pingshi Sky Lanterns were released originally to let others know that the town was safe. These lanterns are decorated with wishes and images relating to the owner and finally they're released off into the sky together magically decorating the sky into a sanctuary of lights.

9. Songkran Water Festival, Thailand

The Thai New Year festival falls on some of the hottest days in Thailand, and people celebrate by throwing water on each other, using water guns, buckets, hoses- whatever they can get their hands on. Sometimes chalk or menthol (the latter causes a cooling sensation) is mixed into the water to create a paste which people smear on each other’s faces for good fortune.

10. Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta, New Mexico, USA

The Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta is a yearly festival of hot air balloons that takes place in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA during early October.

The event is the largest hot air balloon festival in the world.