Tired of spending Diwali fighting through traffic choked roads and coughing your way past polluted streets to get to a private, snazzy celebrations? It’s time to get out of your comfort zone and travel across India to find the best place for you to get a truly memorable Diwali experience. If you’re a foreigner visiting during this festive season, even better! Enjoy the four day weekend in one of these five places across India, where the Diwali celebrations are some of the best you will ever have the opportunity to witness.

Agra

Go there for: Diwali with the Mughals

Spend a happy Diwali in culture hotspot, Agra. It’s a great way to get in a little sightseeing along with getting into true Diwali spirit. Visit the Agra Fort, which will be surrounded with lights and sounds on the occason and don’t forget to pay a visit to the Taj Mahal of course. You can also learn more about Diwali by taking a little trip to the Mahadev Temple, where you can see the rituals taking place on the day and even participate in a few of them. The grounds are decorated spectacularly during this time of the year. The city will be awash with festivities through the night, so make sure you get involved, and walk through the streets instead of staying cooped up in a fancy hotel. You can also light your own diyas and candles, or buy some fireworks and get involved in the celebrations with the locals. Celebrating Diwali here is not only fun, it’s also a really good way to get in touch with your Indian roots.

Varanasi

Go there for: A truly traditional culture experience

Nothing is more culturally significant than celebrating Diwali in Varanasi, home to everything that epitomises the festival of lights. Make sure you’re ready for lights, firecrackers and a lot of noise, because this is where people will celebrate with truly wild abandon. The entire place shuts down to everything else but the festivities, and you’ll be up all night watching fireworks light up the sky and diyas floating down the Ganges. The streets are filled with processions of deities and houses on every street corner are decorated with earthen lamps, colourful designs, banners and lights. Several devotees visit Varanasi during the festival and so there are numerous rituals performed across the city – you can participate in them or watch from afar for a truly enriching cultural experience. It’s a very tourist-centric festival here though, so you will have to make sure you’re ready for a slew of exposure, colour and sound.

Kolkata

Go there for: Kali puja & the food pandals

If you’re looking for a city centric celebration, Kolkata is one of the best cities to head to in order to celebrate Diwali with true pomp and grandeur. While it usually has its own version of Diwali, the entire festive season is a great time to head over here, because the entire city is lit up and celebrations continue well into the night. They also celebrate Kali Puja much more than any other city in the country, with little lamps and diyas lighting up the city through the night until the fireworks for Diwali go off the next day. The best place to be during the festival is the streets, where you can watch the processions go past and see the pandals as they’re taken through the cheering crowds. Also sample some delicious Bengali food and sweet treats while you’re there.

Purushwadi

Go there for: a comparatively calmer village festival experience

While Mumbai is one of the best places in Maharashtra to see a colourfully lit city for Diwali, if you’re tired of the chaos and commotion of city life and want to take a trip out of the city, there’s no better place to be in than the little town of Purushwadi. It’s located near Nashik and is a beautiful place to celebrate a Diwali that is peaceful, but not eerily silent or devoid of celebrations – because the locals have quite a ball on the day. Learn a few of their traditional songs, light diyas with the rest of the village and move from door to door with the children of the village – this is quite an experience and will leave you with one of the most memorable Diwali’s you’ve ever had. It’s a beautiful place for a weekend getaway through the year and especially during the festivities. In fact, celebrating in this quiet local village is becoming such a hit with tourists that several places now organise tours and packages for Diwali, so you can get the entire experience, along with a rural trek, accommodation in special tents set up for visiting tourists and eat with the locals. An addition to joining a tour is that you will be privy to your own local village tour guide, so you can get the real experience without worrying about language or cultural borders.

Mysore

Go there for: More than MysorePak

While Mysore may not be a popular city on Diwali lists, we say it’s as good a time as any. There’s a lot to see and hear here, and the several temples dotting the areas often have special events that you can take part in. If you’re staying close to a residential area, you can ask some of the local women and take part in making the rangolis that they do outside their homes in the smaller suburbs of the city. The best thing to do is walk past the shops near Town Hall, buy a few firecrackers and celebrate with the city.

Visit a handicrafts store to buy some souveniers, during Diwali you’ll get gorgeous metal and rosewood artifacts as well as some carvings of deities that are sold through the markets. If you’re looking for a more silent Diwali celebration, this is a great place to be. Even areas that are devoid of firecrackers and processions are well illuminated. Paying a visit to Mysore Palace if you’re there during a holiday or a Sunday (and Diwali in particular) will be a spectacular experience. You can watch the palace completely illuminated and during Diwali, you’ll be lucky to catch a show as well.

Nicole

A poet with a penchant for prose and the itch to travel, Nicole Reed is an assistant editor and features writer for a daily newspaper, struggling to find a way out of the concrete mess by dreaming of one day living and breathing off words in an idyllic country setting somewhere. Having been editor of her college magazine, written for a number of publications including Shamiana’s short film newsletter and as a current student of Literature from the University of London, Nicole sees writing like travel - an adventure – a journey to find her place, to define and redefine who she is over and over again and to live and learn through the process.