The April Travel Guide

What’s on?

Easter, Worldwide

If you’re travelling in April, you might end up discovering some new Easter traditions. While the UK’s bank holidays fall on the 29th March and the 1st April this year, Greece’s Orthodox Easter culminates on the 5th May. Across the country, celebrations take place in the week leading up to Easter Sunday: there are candlelit parades, and more unusually, hard boiled eggs are dyed red in preparation for tsougrisma. This is a game in which the red eggs are hit against one another until just one person is left with an uncracked egg — they are considered to be lucky for the coming year. In Corfu, Greece’s cracking Easter traditions are cranked up a notch — Corfiots drop and smash clay pots from balconies to symbolise the earthquake that followed Christ’s resurrection.

Meanwhile, across the rest of the globe, Spain’s semana santa — the week leading up to Easter Sunday — sees processions of elaborate floats; and in Finland, children dress up as witches, decorate willow twigs and knock on doors in the hope of a treat or two. One of our favourite Easter customs however, has to be Norway’s. Påskekrim involves cosying up in a cabin for a week and indulging in some crime fiction — even the milk cartons display cartoon thrillers!

Various dates

Earth Day, Worldwide

This year marks the 53rd annual Earth Day and there are events happening all over the globe to help raise awareness about climate change. Visit the organisation’s website to find out how you can get involved, and where your nearest cleanups and Artists for the Earth events are taking place.

22 April

Budapest Spring Festival

The Budapest Spring Festival is a two-week extravaganza that sees photography, classical music, opera, jazz, theatre, dance and even circus events take place at inspiring venues across the city. Some of the more unconventional experiences include open-air dance performances and a catwalk concert in the Memento Sculpture Park. The festival offers fantastic opportunities to explore parts of the city you might not ordinarily get to see, and you can learn about the country’s endemic music and performance while you do so.

29 April – 12 May

Songkran, Thailand

During Thailand’s New Year celebrations, it’s traditional for families and groups of friends to splash water over each other as a symbol of good fortune, but this ritual has escalated in recent years — as many holidays do — and evolved into a fully-fledged countrywide water fight. If you’re in Bangkok between the 13th and 16th April, you’re going to get soaked as soon as you step foot outdoors, but at least you’ll keep cool — temperatures can reach highs of 35°C around this time of year!

13-16 April

Hanami, Japan

The two-week period when the cherry blossom (sakura) blooms in Japan is one of the year’s hardest to predict events. In the south of the country, some of the blooms are already open. With this in mind, Sapporo is probably your best bet for seeing the candyfloss-coloured clouds in April. This pretty period of the year is known as Hanami, and is often considered a time of reflection upon the impermanence of beauty and the notion that nothing lasts forever.

March – April

Where’s hot?

Las Vegas

April is an optimum time to visit Sin City, because the desert climate isn’t as intensely hot as it can be in the summer months, but is still glorious compared to the UK’s often wet weather. The neon wonderland has a spectrum of tantalising events on offer too — you could bop the night away to Christina Aguilera or Smokey Robinson. Beneath the bright lights and Elvis jumpsuits, Vegas hides a mellow side, so if you’re looking for more relaxation than rock’n’roll, then choose a hotel with a winning spa where you’ll be treated like royalty — or in the case of Caesar’s Palace (which offers a 24-karat gold facial), like the goddess Cleopatra.