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The Why And Where Of New Year’s Eve Breaks

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The Why And Where Of New Year’s Eve Breaks
Image: Salvatore Vuono
New Year Break
Image: Salvatore Vuono

Where To Go On Your Next New Year Break

The idea of a Christmas in the sun has personally always seemed massively incongruous with everything I associate the season with. This leads me to personally discount the climates of over half the world, even though the chances of a white Christmas in my London base are a rather unimpressive six percent (So much for Dickens’ idea of a Christmas Carol then). But perhaps that’s something unique to being British: living in anticipation of something unlikely happening, taking it as a massive part of our national identity. For an analogous state of delusion, see our love of Football.

Conversely, the appeal of a New Year away is not inconsiderable. New Year’s traditions are typically muddled together along with the rest of the Christmas leftovers. Nobody talks of the ‘White New Year’ that would surely form the hangover of the White Christmas. Stodgy snow and impassable roads are the leftover turkey of holiday weather. The joy of meeting up with your family has a shelf life (and yes, I’m talking with a rather cruel sense of experience): if after a week of attempted games of Trivial Pursuit you’re not itching to get away, you’re spending New Years with whoever you passed over for Christmas. Nobody likes being the B team, and even the reheated dinner coldly accuses you of betrayal.

Going out for New Year’s Eve in the UK is frankly extortionate, but it marginally edges out the greater cost of staying in. By going out, you’re starting as you mean to go on, though a celebration based around wishing away time has its own element of bleakness. Still, anything is better than crying into a stale can of cider in front of Jools Holland’s Hootenanny, reminding yourself that if you were somebody, you too could attend a pre-recorded version of New Year’s Eve and celebrate the whole miserable thing twice. How extravagant.

There Is An Alternative

Though in recent years the weather has rather jealously guarded the northern Atlantic nations, people are increasingly seeking a New Year getaway in the sun. After all, summers are becoming increasingly erratic, leaving families and sun-lovers unfulfilled or simply unsure how the next year will pan out. Booking well in advance for a sunny New Year is increasingly essential: as the season draws in closer, flights begin to cost more and more.

Even as early as September, a flight to anywhere in the tropics or the Southern Hemisphere is going to cost considerably more than it did six months earlier. Popular long haul destinations currently include the Caribbean, South Africa, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, the Maldives and Thailand. The island of Koh Phangan is particularly renowned for its full moon beach parties, with many DJs entertaining over a thousand revellers. With the wide availability of red bull and whiskey punch buckets, this is one for the young at heart wanting the ultimate New Year’s countdown.

In the last two years, the perpetual warmth and affordability of Northern Africa and the Middle East have won a lot of fans. This was especially true of both Egypt and Tunisia, but clearly, present conditions in these and neighboring nations have put a degree of uncertainty over travel. Thankfully, though discounts do apply to early bookings, it will be possible to book a reasonably priced stay in both countries in the mid year, when their stability is assured. In previous years, New Years hotels in Sharm el Sheikh have been booked by the end of October

Sidestepping the issue somewhat, a trip to Tenerife will get you the competitive prices and year-round pleasant weather of Tunisia and Egypt, if not the desert heat and ancient landmarks. Families and older couples are particularly drawn to the island wide festivities of new year, and both groups are particularly well served by the rentable seafront villas of Parque Santiago 3. However, the popularity of the island may require you to book before the spring is over.

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