The 5 Best Thailand Festivals – and How to Improve Your Experience

Thailand festivals are popular with locals and visitors alike. The Thai calendar is full of traditional festivals all year. Some of them are location-dependent, while others happen anywhere in the Land of Smiles. From Songkran to Loy Krathong and Yee Peng, here’s TAGTHAi’s pick of the five best celebrations in the kingdom, including Phuket events and festivals in Chiang Mai and Bangkok. We also cover how you can improve your experience with the City Pass.

1. New Year’s Eve

The last of the Thailand festivals 2023, New Year is celebrated throughout the kingdom.

Whether you’re off to Snoozeville as soon as it’s midnight or prefer partying into the wee hours, New Year’s Eve in Thailand is fun. Phuket’s Patong area awaits with a big countdown event, plenty of alcohol, and neon-lit bars and clubs. Expect people to dance and flirting in the street until sunrise.

If boozing in Phuket’s Soi Bangla or Bangkok’s Khao San Road isn’t your thing, the candle-lit lantern ceremony in Chiang Mai should be. It’s a chilled-out alternative to count the seconds down before midnight, with a friendly crowd and cool live music. Other sights to behold are the fireworks in Bangkok’s business district Siam and at the riverside.

To enhance your experience, get a city pass and hop on a tuk-tuk in Bangkok, or feel the wind in your hair as you pass temples and landmarks on the Chao Phraya Tourist Boat.

2. Songkran – in April

Formerly a festival to show respect to the elderly, Songkran today is an all-out water fight. It’s a nationwide festival that celebrates the Thai New Year for three days.

If you visit the Land of Smiles between April 13 and 15, you’re bound to become part of Songkran, one of the festivals of Thailand you have to experience once in your life. The moment you leave your hotel room, participants waiting at the roadside will pour buckets of iced water over you or use hoses to ensure you’ll be soaking wet.

Others wander the roads with high-pressure water guns slung over their shoulders, drenching anyone they run into. While Songkran happens throughout the country, arguably the best to experience it is in Chiang Mai. The northern Thai city combines culture and fun, and the watery fray around the Thapae Gate is awash with locals and foreigners alike. Many people are clad in traditional Thai costumes, and stages are set up all around the area.

One of the most popular Thailand festivals, Songkran means “step into” or “pass into” in Sanskrit, the ancient language of Hinduism.

3. Visakha Bucha Day – in May

A Buddhist festival that marks the birth of Buddha, Visakha Bucha Day is one of the most important Buddhist holidays in Thailand’s calendar – across the country.

Thai people start celebrating early morning, making merit by visiting temples and giving food to monks. At the evening procession, they carry flowers, three fragrant joss sticks, and a lit candle while going around the main chapel ceremoniously three times. During the celebration, they also listen to Dhamma's teaching and keep the precepts.

At the Flower Worship Redemption Center next to Bangkok’s Erawan Shrine, TAGTHAi gives you a free marigold flower set, and a bunch of mint- and lemon-scented Mexican marigolds. The Bangkok Day Pass also includes other attractions that enhance your experience, e.g., a visit to Museum Siam, where you can “decode Thainess.”

4. The Vegetarian Festival – in September or October

Wrongly called the Nine Emperor Gods Festival in some of the Western media, Phuket’s annual Vegetarian Festival is a Taoist celebration that usually happens in September. 

One of the most intriguing festivals in Thailand, the Vegetarian Festival is known for wacky firework explosions as well as cheek-piercing and tongue-slashing rituals. Needless to say, there’s plenty of vegetarian food, too. Technically, the event is more of a vegan festival as people only use plant-based ingredients during the nine-day purge, so no milk products or eggs.

While Phuket is the birthplace of Thailand’s Vegetarian Festival – hence, it’s one of the best festivals in Phuket – celebrations also take place in Bangkok. In Phuket, the festivities center on Phuket Town. Yet, you can see the Ma Song, or Horses of the God, in Chinese shrines across Phuket Island. Don’t miss the rituals where religious devotees walk barefoot on burning coal while “wuo-wuo-wuo”- shouting Taoist followers toss rice onto the embers that glow with heat.

If you need a break from the bursting firecrackers or sightings of some bleeding men, why not have a massage? Massage parlors and spas are a dime a dozen in Thailand, and if you have a Bangkok Day Pass or a Phuket Day Pass, several establishments are included.

5. Loy Krathong and Yi Peng – in November

One of the largest Thailand festivals, Loy Krathong, is rightly called the Festival of Lights. Expect to see Thais and tourists gathering around rivers, canals, and lakes to release floating baskets – and, with them, negative emotions and sorrows. 

The Krathong, lotus flower-shaped baskets made of banana leaves, are adorned with candles, flowers, and incense sticks, illuminating waterways near and far. Occasionally, Thai people add coins or other small offerings.

Aside from getting rid of negativity, locals join Loy Krathong nationwide to pay respect to the Goddess of Water and Buddha. There’s also Yi Peng in Chiang Mai, undoubtedly the best of the lantern festivals in Thailand. Chiang Mai’s people tend to celebrate Loy Krathong and Yi Peng together.

Both Thais and farangs will carry paper lanterns around Chiang Mai before releasing them into the air. Made from thin rice paper, the lanterns stretched and glued to a bamboo frame, turning the night sky into a sea of lights. To make merit, locals also embellish their homes and gardens with lit candles.

Next year, Loy Krathong will happen on the evening of November 16, the evening of the 12th full moon of the Thai lunar calendar. Yi Peng will take place from November 15 to 16. Experience the festivals in Chiang Mai, Bangkok, or Phuket with TAGTHAi’s vacation pass; all come with free benefits like meals or coffee at cafes and restaurants, massages, workshops, and more.

How to Improve Your Experience

If you go to Chiang Mai, don’t miss the city orientation trip and step into or onto an EV tram that operates in the evening. The electric tram is one of many benefits of TAGTHAi’s budget-friendly Premium Pass.

You can also improve your Songkran experience by visiting numerous restaurants and cafes that our Bangkok, Phuket, and Chiang Mai passes include. Whichever city you choose, TAGTHAi’s vacation passes are wallet-friendly ways to discover the best of the kingdom and its Thailand festivals.