Thai Festival Calendar 2026

Yaowarat Road explodes with dragon dances, firecrackers, and street food stalls. Bangkok's Chinatown hosts one of the largest Chinese New Year celebrations outside China — a week of red lanterns, lion dances, and some of the best street food of the year.

Chiang Mai celebrates the blooming season with elaborate flower-covered floats parading through the Old City. Three days of parades, beauty pageants, flower exhibitions, and the fragrance of orchids, roses, and marigolds filling the moat-encircled streets.

Thai New Year and the world's largest water fight. From April 13–15, the entire country erupts in water battles with super soakers, hoses, and buckets of ice water. Khao San Road in Bangkok and the moat area in Chiang Mai are ground zero — but nowhere is dry.

Isaan's wildest festival — homemade bamboo rockets are launched into the sky to encourage the rain gods to bring a good monsoon season. Music, dancing, parades of suggestively-shaped floats, and rocket competitions where the biggest launches win.

The "Ghost Mask Festival" — villagers in Dan Sai don colorful, hand-painted ghost masks and costumes for a three-day festival blending Buddhist tradition with animist spirit worship. One of Thailand's most photogenic and bizarre festivals.

Giant beeswax candle sculptures — some standing over 4 meters tall — are paraded through the streets to mark the beginning of Buddhist Lent. Master craftsmen spend months carving intricate scenes from Buddhist mythology into the wax.

Nine days of Chinese-Thai purification rituals that range from peaceful vegetarian feasting to extreme acts of devotion — spirit mediums pierce their cheeks with swords, walk on hot coals, and climb blade ladders. Not for the faint-hearted.

Water buffaloes race down a muddy track in Chonburi to celebrate the end of rice planting season. Jockeys cling to the backs of charging buffaloes while spectators cheer — part agricultural tradition, part pure entertainment.

The Festival of Lights on water — Thais float small banana-leaf krathongs carrying candles, incense, and flowers on rivers, canals, and ponds. A way of paying respect to the water goddess and letting go of the past year's troubles. Sukhothai's historical park is the most magical setting.

Thousands of paper lanterns — khom loi — are released into the night sky above Chiang Mai, creating one of the most photographed moments in Southeast Asia. The mass release at Mae Jo University draws visitors from around the world. Often coincides with Loy Krathong.

Over 200 elephants gather in Surin for Thailand's largest elephant festival — parades, mock battle reenactments, elephant football, and buffet banquets for the elephants. A celebration of the deep bond between the Suay people and their elephants.

A massive banquet is laid out for Lopburi's resident macaque population at the Prang Sam Yot temple. Over 2,000 kilograms of fruit, vegetables, and Thai desserts are served to hundreds of monkeys — a thanksgiving celebration for the tourism the monkeys bring.