It became one of my golden travel rules: Try to time your visit when there is a great party.  Take Rio. The cidade maravilhosa is always great but even greater when Cariocas celebrate Carnival, with its parades in the Sambódromo and the even better street blocos taking double as long as Carnival does anywhere else. Burnouts are unheard of in Rio, as Carnival, each year anew, is cleansing the locals’ souls.

 There are not many places which keep the promise of a great New Year’s Eve party. Forget NYC, forget Berlin (it’s winter in the Northern hemisphere). Sydney is cool if your friend owns a yacht with a fridge full of ice-cold beer and Sauvignon blanc, otherwise it’s just beautiful fireworks illuminating the iconic opera building.

At New Year’s Eve, it’s again Rio which reigns supreme as the best world party place. Do as the Romans do, dress in immaculate white, down several Caipirinhas, listen to Bossa Nova (preferably “Cariocas” from Adriana Calcanhoto), dance with the sand, count the beijos around you or simply join, and, come midnight, witness the most spectacular fireworks ever seen while jumping over seven waves – and you will have a great new year.

Not just Rio – be it Easter Island during Rapa Nui festival when the Polynesian island’s two preeminent clans compete in disciplines like canoeing in the lake of a volcanic crater. Or the holy cities of Hinduism during Kumbh Mela, each time the largest gathering of humankind,  when you can, at full moon, wash away your collection of sins in a joint bath with a million holy men in the Ganges.  Or be it Stockholm on the longest midsummer night, when you learn about serious Swedish drinking. Every summer, 250.000 people spend a week in the alternate universe of the Burning Man and transform the Nevada desert into Black Rock City, to express themselves, in a spectacle without spectators, through art. 

The dead come alive in a wonderful way at Mexico’s Day of the Dead. At the little village of Mixqic on the outskirts of Mexico City and on the islands of Lago Patzcuaro, locals celebrate with their deceased loved ones, and let outsiders like me participate. Again, serious drinking. No alcohol is of course involved in the Ashura celebrations at Kerbela in Iraq. 22 million people, Shia from all over the world, pilgrim in the first month of the Islamic calendar to the holiest city of the Shia, annually commemorating the death of Imam Hussein, celebrating the victory of good over evil, and even inviting non-believers like me to feel the universal power of religion. In Kerbela as all over the world, places undergo an alchemic process when transformed by spectacle. And nothing beats the power of shared experience of spectacle. Great spectacle connects great people.