Top 5 International New Year's Eve Destinations

New Year's Eve is one of the most over-hyped holidays of the year. That's why I started a tradition of bringing a group of friends to various overseas destinations to celebrate New Year's Eve in totally new surroundings with no expectations*. 

*This is not an arbitrary listicle - being the journalist that I am, I road-tested all of these New Year's Eve street parties myself!

I figured New Year's Eve would be less fraught with stress and disappointment if we plunged ourselves into a foreign country rather than trying to hit up the swankiest clubs in London and then find black cabs home amidst the chaos. We always balanced out the revelry by spending a few days either side of December 31 exploring the cities. Is the formula successful? More than half a dozen New Year's Eve trips down, I'd say so.

There's one rule that unites all of these New Year's Eve experiences: each New Year's party had to involve us joining the city's biggest street party for the countdown to midnight. So here they are...

5 Paris

Better pic than mine - New Year's Eve on the Champs Elysees: Flickr/Falcon Photography

Paris is so much fun for New Year's Eve that we went twice. The main street party is along the Champs-Elysees, between the Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower, so we decided to ring in the New Year by drinking champagne on the Champs-Elysees. The entire street fills up with crowds and at midnight everybody turns to face the Eiffel Tower which has a light display on it and a fireworks show. The crowd was extremely friendly and we ended up dancing the hokey-pokey with them.

Actual evidence of  our hokey-pokey on the Champs-Elysees

I can still remember the British Airways steward on our flight from London City Airport. The cabin was almost empty, being as we were travelling late afternoon on December 31 (London is such a short flight from Paris that we didn't need much time to prepare).

The air steward asked how we'd be celebrating and when I told him we planned to celebrate with champagne on the Champs-Elysees he disappeared then returned with a bag full of mini white wine bottles for my group of 12 friends. "Here you go - this is to make sure you celebrate in style - the flight is almost empty anyway so you may as well take them," he said. Such a nice gesture. Yep, we'll be flying with them again...!

Afterwards we found a nightclub in Pigalle and danced until 5am. The nightclubs open late in Paris (around 1am or later) so the timing works well for anyone wanting to go after counting down to midnight outside. There's an ice rink on the second floor of the Eiffel Tower if you'd like to get some skating in beforehand.

Bonus points for: Iconic views of Eiffel Tower,  number of flight connections to Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport/Orly, and the legendary British Airways steward who surprised us. 

4 Berlin

Brandenburg Gate, New Year's Eve: Visit Berlin

This was one the coldest New Year's Eve parties I can remember. The thermometer said -13c but the wind seemed to whistle right through my skull, possibly because of the cold humidity. On the plus side, it's one of the biggest, if not the biggest, New Year's street party in Europe - and one of the best! Being as it's an official street party rather than just a congregation of revellers in the street, it was extremely well set up. There are dance tents and beer and sausage stalls all around Tiergarten, running down as far as the Brandenburg Gate and the Victory Column, which you probably recognise from movies.

The only problem is no beer is allowed in the dance tents. So you have to run outside to drink a beer then run back inside to warm up by dancing again! It was so cold that the beer got slushy ice inside of it within seconds, which was an incentive to get back in the tent.
We had started the night at a legendary bar called Kumpelnest3000 (one of the kitschiest and entertaining bars in this funky city) before joining the street party, which was so good that we stayed out until the street cleaning trucks arrived at dawn.

Beer, pretzels, live music - street party!

Bonus points for: Providing free dance tents for revellers, currywurst and beer stalls, iconic views of the Brandenburg Gate. 

3 Prague

New Year's Eve in Prague: Flickr/Jan Fidler

The main point to meet on New Year's Eve in Prague is at the astronomical clock in the Old Town. It's a beautiful Medieval clock dating from 1410 and when it strikes the hour, little clockwork figures of the 12 apostles and a skeleton (representing death) move around it. There's a firework show from on top of the hill and live music in the same square as the clock, and a compere from the live music stage leads the countdown at midnight. It gets smokey really fast so you need to take your photos as soon as the fireworks start, but it looks really beautiful!

The Old Town Square, right next to the astronomical clock

The square is lined with late-night bars so there are plenty of options to choose from after midnight. We ended up at a Cuban bar (randomly) because everywhere was quite full, although the further you are from the square the cheaper it gets. The cocktails were great and it was extremely cosy inside.

Prague is extremely cold this time of year and there was snow on the ground, but it felt less cold than Berlin, perhaps because it was a drier cold.

Bonus points for: Counting down to midnight at one of the most beautiful clocks in the world, excellent Italian restaurants nearby.

2 Salzburg 

Salzburg on New Year's Eve: Pixabay

This was a wild card as a New Year's Eve destination goes. It was actually the first New Years trip I organised, and managed to round up about 10 friends for it. We had no idea what to expect, having never visited before, and it not being a big city compared to Paris or Berlin.

We gathered in Residenzplatz (a square next to Salzburg Cathedral, in the historic centre) just before midnight, where everybody was drinking beer and dancing. Most of the crowd was Austrian but I heard a few foreign accents there too. There were a handful of stalls selling drinks including 'gluhwein' which helped warm us up a lot! The square itself was very picturesque and was overlooked by the castle, which is on a slight hill.

Drinking gluhwein to stay warm on NYE

Everybody was very friendly and we were able to chat in English, French and broken German to strangers in the crowd, wish them "prost" and dance with them. The atmosphere actually got quite chaotic when some revellers started throwing fireworks and bangers around the streets and off the castle hill, and the historic monuments, but it seemed to make everybody even more excited. Perhaps the

Although it was one of the smallest crowds compared to the turnout in bigger cities like Berlin and Salzburg, it was one of the most wild, fun and friendly crowds - despite the Austrian stereotype of being rather insular and conservative. Just goes to show that stereotypes are often wrong!

Bonus points for: The welcoming crowd, proximity to Untersberg Mountain (where The Sound of Music was filmed) for skiing or just enjoying 'gluhwein' at the top of the ski lift on New Year's Day.  

1 Sydney

NYW in Sydney - Pixabay

This one had been on my bucket list for years. Not only because Australia is one of the first countries in the world to welcome in the new year, but also because Sydney's New Year's Eve celebrations are legendary. 

Before I get into how amazing it is, you need to know it takes a bit of preparation because it's such a big event. Something like 1.6 million attend the free public firework show in Sydney on December 31 and over $5 million AU is spent on it. You'll be able to tell that a lot of money was spent on it. But you need to get there early to grab a spot to stand and watch the show. And if you want to sit somewhere with a good view, you'll need to get there late afternoon/early evening (no exaggeration!) and settle in for a long wait... 

Here we are at our spot next to Sydney Harbour Bridge

We found a great spot in Bradfield Park (Milsons Point), right next to Sydney Harbour Bridge, and directly opposite Sydney Opera House. The downside was there are no drinks stalls and strict controls on alcohol, so you can't bring any with you. There are security checks and staff look through your bags, so if you want to be close to the action AND have a drink, forget joining the crowds and buy a ticket to a hotel, bar or casino party instead. 

As you can see, it was getting quite crowded even by late afternoon...

That said, there is lots of live entertainment including an air show, and when the firework show actually started...it gave me goosebumps. It was undoubtedly the best and most dramatic firework show I've seen to date (and I've seen a lot, including Fallas in Valencia!). There was a huge show right on Sydney Harbour Bridge but also one behind the Opera House that we could see at the same time, and many other smaller ones, too. 

The build-up to midnight on New Year's Eve in Sydney was excellent

The size, the shapes, the sounds...I didn't even know fireworks could make some of those shapes - it was clear a lot of money had been spent on those fireworks. It was nothing short of incredible, and by the end of it, my friends and I were literally shaking with excitement! No drinks until after midnight, but absolutely worth it. Check out the video I shot of the finale of the New Year's Eve firework show in Sydney: 

Honourable mention: New Year's Eve in Krakow (similar to Prague in terms of set-up around the Medieval clock - and the coldness!).

A truly great New Year's Eve party can be affected by the company you're with, so you might not agree with all of these choices but I've tried my best to explain what made them such fantastic places to welcome in the New Year. So this is dedicated to all my incredible friends who have joined me for New Year's Eve over the years.