Rough Guides' Top 5 Flaming Great Travel Experiences

For over 25 years Rough Guides’ writers have been travelling the globe, uncovering some pretty astonishing events and places along the way. Here is our pick of happenings that will set your heart on fire. All these experiences can be found in the new edition of Make the Most of Your Time on Earth. Playing with Fire – Five flaming great travel experiences: 1. Las Fallas, Spain In mid-March Valencia’s streets combust in a riot of flame and firecrackers, ostensibly in celebration of St. Joseph. As a recent local article put it: “Gunpowder is like blood for any Valencian festival” and that goes double for Las Fallas; it’s (barely) controlled pyromania on a scale unrivalled anywhere in Europe. 2. Lewes Bonfire Night, England Imagine a head-on collision between Halloween and Mardi Gras and you’re well on your way to picturing Bonfire Night, Lewes-style. Rowdy torchlit processions make their way through the streets, pausing to hurl barrels of burning tar into the River Ouse before dispersing to their own part of town to stoke up their bonfires and burn huge papier-mâché effigys of villains of the day. 3. Burning Man festival, USA Every year during the last week of August, several thousand digerati geeks, pyrotechnic maniacs, death-guild Goths, crusty hippies and too-hip yuppies descend on a prehistoric dry lakebed in the Nevada Desert. Basically, this is the most survivalist, futuristic and utterly surreal show on Earth. The highlight of the week is the burning of a 50ft-tall effigy of a man, built from wood and neon and stuffed with fireworks. 4. A Volcanic trip up Mount Yasur, Vanuatu The walk up to the continuously erupting Mount Yasur on Tanne Island takes about ninety minutes. Just below the summit, a battered letterbox proclaims itself the world’s only Volcanic Post – it’s quite literally a chance to send postcards from the edge. At the rim, a pleasant waft of heat rises up and drives the mist away. But booms accompany tremendous eruptions of red-hot rocks – pyroclasts – that crash into the edge of the crater, and either fizzle or explode. Often the balls of fire soar high into the air; you’ll have to guess where they’re going to land. Most people, it seems, get lucky. 5. Hot coals for Constantine, Greece In a handful of sleepy farming villages in northern Greece, the fire-walking ritual is an annual celebration of a thirteenth century miracle, when locals rescued icons from a burning church – without being burned themselves. Fire-walkers limber up for the main event with rhythmic dancing, which escalates into frenzied writhing as they channel the spirit of St. Constantine, believed to save them from harm. Clutching icons for further protection, the fire-walkers step out onto the coals, stomping the smouldering embers wtih gusto, as though kicking up autumn leaves.

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