10 wonderfully weird festivals to add to your bucket list this year

Every January, millions of kites take to the sky over India, dancing and diving in a colorful competition that lasts from dawn until well after dark. In October, 1,500 sheep parade through an Idaho mountain town, bells ringing as ranchers on horseback guide them down Main Street. Finland crowns a world champion for air guitar, where performers shred on instruments that exist only in their imaginations. Deep in the Louisiana bayou, a festival celebrates the Rougarou, the Cajun swamp werewolf, and features a hefty nutria named Neuty, whom organizers have ceremonially pardoned three times.

From Ahmedabad to Oulu to Terrebonne Parish, these are 10 destinations for travelers who crave the weird, the wacky, and the wonderful, including three festivals celebrating milestone anniversaries in 2026. 

(Seven of the world’s quirkiest coastal celebrations.)

1. International Kite Festival, Gujarat, India 

When: January 10-14, 2026
Gujarat's two-day kite festival transforms the entire state into an aerial battleground each January. Uttarayan—Sanskrit for "northward movement of the sun"—marks the end of winter and the start of harvest season in the Hindu calendar, and kites play the central role—tools for friendly combat in a sky-wide competition. Since 1989, the Tourism Corporation of Gujarat has organized the International Kite Festival at the Sabarmati Riverfront in Ahmedabad, drawing kite flyers from more than 40 countries and attracting an estimated eight to 10 million participants statewide.

Traditionally, Uttarayan centers on giving thanks for the harvest, gathering with family, and welcoming longer, warmer days. Rooftops fill before dawn as families cook special foods—undhiyu, jalebi, chikki, til ladoo—while children set alarms for 5 a.m. to catch ideal winds. Patang Bazaar, the famous kite market in old Ahmedabad, runs 24 hours a day the week before the festival. The celebration has evolved into a fierce aerial combat, where participants use manja, a string coated with glue and ground glass, to slice rival kites out of the sky. When a kite falls, the cry of "Kai po che!" echoes across the rooftops. After dark, tukkals appear—kites decorated with candles and paper lanterns that glow against the night sky. 

2. Knott's Boysenberry Festival, Buena Park, California

When: March 13–April 12, 2026
In 1934, Walter and Cordelia Knott started serving fried chicken dinners on their wedding china at a berry farm in Buena Park, California. Lines grew so long—people waiting hours for a table—that Walter built a replica Old West ghost town to entertain the crowds. That ghost town became America's first theme park, a decade before Disneyland opened down the road. The fruit that started it all was the boysenberry, a cross between raspberry, blackberry, loganberry, and dewberry that Rudolph Boysen created in the 1920s but abandoned on his Anaheim farm. Walter rescued the dying vines, and the original plants still grow beneath the Silver Bullet roller coaster.

The festival that celebrates this history now spans a whole month each spring. More than 80 boysenberry dishes fill the park: elote, short rib lasagna, craft beer, and cheesecake. Tasting cards let guests graze through Ghost Town while artisans sell boysenberry-inspired goods at the Crafts Fair. Kids compete in Boysen Bear's Pie Kitchen Games and the Pie Eating Contest while roller coasters run overhead. At Town Hall, the History of the Boysenberry Museum tells the story of "the little berry that had a big impact"—on the Knott family, Southern California, and every theme park that followed. 

3. Songkran (Water Fight Festival), Thailand

When: April 13-15, 2026
Thailand's epic water fight festival transforms entire cities into water battlegrounds for three days each April. Songkran—the Thai word for Thailand's traditional New Year festival—marks the beginning of the traditional Thai calendar year, and water plays the central role, both sacred and celebratory. The Tourism Authority of Thailand organizes celebrations in major locations, including Khao San Road and Silom Road in Bangkok, around the City Moat in Chiang Mai, and beaches in Pattaya and Phuket.

Traditionally, Songkran centers on family gatherings, housecleanings, and New Year’s resolutions, with people sprinkling water on elders for good luck. But the festival has evolved into an exuberant street celebration that takes over entire neighborhoods. Pickup trucks roll through the streets loaded with barrels of water and passengers armed with hoses. Vendors sell water guns of every size. Strangers drench each other from sidewalks, rooftops, and passing motorbikes. Since April marks Thailand's hottest month, most Thais gladly embrace the deluge. 

4. Telluride Mushroom Festival, Colorado

When: August 12–16, 2026
Telluride, Colorado, sits at 8,750 feet in the San Juan Mountains, surrounded by alpine forests rich with wild fungi. The Telluride Institute hosts the annual Telluride Mushroom Festival in August, and for 46 years, it has drawn mycologists, artists, foragers, and enthusiasts to celebrate all things fungi. The five-day festival fills the town with workshops on cultivation and identification, lectures from founders like Paul Stamets, and guided forays into the surrounding wilderness. "They choose you," explains Giuliana Furci, founding director of the Fungi Foundation and festival adviser, speaking of mushrooms. "Once you're inoculated, you're inoculated, and you can't get out of it."

The Saturday parade transforms Main Street into what Furci calls “a cathartic manifestation of fungal love.” Hundreds march behind the Amanita mobile—a broken-down truck painted like a red-and-white-spotted toadstool that volunteers push because it doesn't run. The Silly Drummers provide West African rhythms while the crowd chants “We love mushrooms!” and “Nosotros amamos los hongos!” for an hour and a half. Children march alongside pets dressed as mushrooms. Past costume contest winners include a giant foot with toenail fungi and a “long distance spore dispersal” award for the costume that traveled farthest. The parade requires no ticket—anyone can join. 

5. Air Guitar World Championships, Oulu, Finland

When: August 28-30, 2026 (30th anniversary)
For 30 years, people have traveled from every continent to Oulu, Finland, to compete in the Air Guitar World Championships—performing on an instrument that doesn't exist. The motto: “Make Air Not War.” The philosophy: if everyone grabbed their air guitar and played, nobody could hold a gun, and the world would be a better place. Judges score on technical merit, stage presence, and “airness”—that quality where, as 2025 Finnish champion Aapo “The Angus” Rautio describes it, “the sound feels like it's coming from you and not at you, like you are creating the song as you perform it.” Expect costumes, characters, hair-tossing, smoke machines, and 60-second performances—with nothing but air between their fingers.

In 2026, the celebration expands as Oulu marks its year as European Capital of Culture. The competition spans three nights with a capacity of 10,000 per night, and organizers will build the stage on water in the river delta, where the city’s founders established Oulu 450 years ago. National champions from over a dozen countries compete alongside “dark horse” qualifiers, and the whole audience is invited to play air guitar together at the finale. 

(Oulu, Finland, is finally getting its moment to shine in 2026.)

6. National Storytelling Festival, Jonesborough, Tennessee

When: October 3-5, 2026
Jonesborough is Tennessee's oldest town and the self-proclaimed “Storytelling Capital of the World.” The International Storytelling Center is headquartered here, and each October it hosts the National Storytelling Festival—the largest in the United States. Five big-top tents rise over the historic downtown, drawing more than 10,000 people to hear over 35 oral storytellers from around the world. Attendees settle into chairs, spread out their seat cushions, and pull out their knitting—granny squares and quilts-in-progress—preparing for hours of listening. 

Storytellers range from Donald Davis, the 80-year-old patriarch of modern storytelling, who tells Appalachian tales of growing up in the mountains, to performers who share African folk tales, to Indigenous storytellers who combine narrative with drumming and dance. When storytelling begins, “you can hear a pin drop,” says Communications Associate Angela White. “All you hear in the distance are the storytellers.” Then the hour ends, and attendees flood back out, talking  and laughing. Between sessions, strangers become friends. “You can't get from point A to point B without people being friendly,” White explains.  

7. Trailing of the Sheep Festival, Ketchum, Idaho

When: October 7-11, 2026 (30th anniversary)
In Idaho's Wood River Valley, 1,500 sheep pour down Main Street in Ketchum each October—a river of wool, bells clanging, hooves clicking on pavement, border collies darting along the edges. Thousands line the route to watch. “This is not a reenactment,” emphasizes PR coordinator Carol Waller. “The sheep are actually trailing.” Look closely, and you'll spot black sheep scattered through the white—ranchers keep one for every hundred to help count the herd. The festival began 30 years ago because of a bike path. The local Recreation District wanted to pave where sheep traditionally traveled. The ranchers agreed with one condition: the sheep would still use their historic route. Then they threw a party for it. 

The five-day celebration now includes sheepdog trials, folk music concerts featuring Basque, Peruvian, and Scottish traditions from families who settled this valley, and wool-working workshops from knitting to weaving. Over 30 events span the weekend, including three farm-to-table dinners featuring local lamb and produce. “Everything is based on the sheep industry and the families and the ranchers and the land and the animals,” explains Laura Musbach Drake, the festival’s executive director.  

8. Rougarou Fest, Houma, Louisiana

When: Late October 2026
In Houma, Louisiana, grandmothers once warned children: “You better come inside before the streetlights come on or the Rougarou is going to get you.” The Rougarou—a swamp-dwelling werewolf—has been part of bayou folklore for generations. But when festival founder Jonathan Foret mentioned the creature to local students, they had no idea what he was talking about. Bayou kids were losing their own stories. So in 2011, he launched Rougarou Fest. “Our version of the Rougarou is a little more like Smokey the Bear,” Foret explains—a nine-foot mascot with a new message: “Only you can save Coastal Louisiana.” 

Each fall, 45,000 visitors eat food—cooked entirely by volunteers from bayou communities—such as turtle soup, alligator sauce piquant, shrimp boulettes—recipes passed down for generations. The Folklife Village hosts cooking demonstrations and craftspeople building traditional Palmetto huts. Friday night kicks off with a howling contest, where participants howl into the darkness. Inside the civic center, Rou-Ga-Con draws cosplayers and vendors. Sunday evening, the Krewe Ga Rou parade rolls down Main Street, rain or shine. The festival’s main highlight is the Cajun Critter Pardoning, where each year a local creature receives an official pardon, serving as a lesson for visitors to learn why invasive species threaten Louisiana's vanishing wetlands. If you're lucky, you'll meet Neuty, a 22-pound nutria who lives with a local family and has been pardoned by officials three times.  

(Louisiana's underrated St. Martin Parish is brimming with Cajun culture.)

9. Dickens on the Strand, Galveston, Texas

When: December 5-7, 2026
Galveston, Texas, sits on a barrier island in the Gulf of Mexico. Its historic Strand District holds the largest concentration of pre-1900 homes per capita in the United States, as well as Victorian-era buildings constructed during the lifetime of Charles Dickens, the British author of A Christmas Carol. For one December weekend, the annual Dickens on the Strand festival transforms the city’s streets into Victorian London.

A Christmas Carol sets the tone. Ebenezer Scrooge's redemption tale echoes through the streets alongside choral groups, violinists, and tuba players. No contemporary Christmas songs are allowed. Gas lamps line the route while stop signs hide beneath Dickens trivia panels, and parking meters disappear under burlap bags. Descendants of Charles Dickens attend each year; Oliver Dickens, the author's great-great-great-grandson, often MCs. Show up in costume for half-price admission, then warm yourself by the fire barrels as evening falls. Grab a Scotch egg from a street vendor—a hard-boiled egg wrapped in sausage, breaded, and fried. On Sunday, the weekend ends with bed races. Teams of five racewheeled beds down the street, and stop midway to swap nightgowns between runners. 

10. It's a Wonderful Life Festival, Seneca Falls, New York

 When: December 2026 (80th anniversary)
Seneca Falls, New York, is home to the It's a Wonderful Life Museum—dedicated to Frank Capra's beloved 1946 film It's a Wonderful Life, where a small-town man discovers how many lives he's touched when his community rallies to save him. The town may have inspired the film's fictional Bedford Falls. The connection traces back to a barber who remembered cutting Capra's hair in 1945 and speaking Italian with him about a bridge where a plaque honors Antonio Veracalli, who drowned saving a stranger. Before Capra's visit, three scripts ended with George Bailey fighting himself on a bridge. After Capra saw the plaque honoring someone who gave his life for another, he rewrote the ending and saved George. 

The museum opened in 2010 and displays George Bailey's car, Zuzu's petals, and original scripts. The festival that grew around it now spans five days each December. At the Capra Preview Dinner, guests eat the 1946 premiere menu—including a “Los Angeles salad” that organizers commissioned a University of Southern California researcher to identify—while a swing orchestra plays “Dance by the Light of the Moon.” Carolyn Grimes, who played Zuzu, first visited in 2002, and stepped out of her car as snow began to fall, saw the bridge, and declared, “I'm home. This is as close to Bedford Falls as you're ever going to get.” Now 85, she still stands for hours meeting fans. “This movie has actually saved people's lives,” says museum director Onway Law.

(Six of the best summer festivals to experience, according to an expert.)