Best cities to celebrate new year

New Year’s Eve is one of the most aggressively overhyped nights of the year. A perfectly ordinary change of date somehow requires champagne, fireworks, uncomfortable shoes and the expectation that everyone must be having the greatest night of their lives.

Turn on the television and the world appears to celebrate it in the same places: fireworks exploding over Sydney Harbor Bridge, more fireworks beside Big Ben in London, and a giant illuminated ball slowly descending over Times Square in New York while several hundred thousand people discover just how badly they need a toilet. This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Times Square ball drop, apparently worthy of a brand-new ball. Civilization marches on.

So when I stumbled across a list by Sherman’s Travel with their five best places to celebrate New Year’s Eve, it was refreshing to see a few alternatives to the usual suspects:

1. Aspen, Colorado
2. Bangkok, Thailand
3. Barcelona, Spain (bring your grapes!)
4. Edinburgh, Scotland
5. Goa, India

Fireworks in downtown Sydney.

Bangkok? Sure. Barcelona? Absolutely. Edinburgh knows a thing or two about drinking outdoors in questionable weather. Goa makes perfect sense. Aspen? That one I didn’t see coming.

Of course, deciding to celebrate New Year’s Eve somewhere exotic is the easy part. Actually doing it requires considerably more commitment, money and advance planning.

Hotels in the most popular destinations can sell out ridiculously early, sometimes a year in advance. Trust me, I’ve been down this road. And should you actually manage to secure a room, congratulations: you have earned the privilege of paying New Year’s prices for everything else as well. Hotels, restaurants, drinks. Apparently changing the final digit on the calendar causes a temporary collapse in conventional economics.

Last year I managed to do it properly and celebrated New Year’s Eve in Sydney. Fireworks over the harbor, summer instead of Scandinavian darkness and several million dollars apparently being converted into smoke above the Opera House.

This year I’m not quite so fortunate. No Sydney Harbor, no Bangkok, no grapes in Barcelona and, regrettably, no mysterious Aspen adventure.

Still, wherever you happen to be when the clock strikes midnight, on a beach in Goa, freezing in Edinburgh, packed into Times Square or sitting comfortably at home wondering what all the fuss is about, I wish all my friends and readers a Happy New Year. May the champagne be cold, the fireworks spectacular and the hotel bill someone else’s problem.