Destinations known | Why Lunar New Year is the worst time to travel in Asia – everyone else is doing it too
With more than 400 million Chinese hitting the roads, rails and skies, not to mention travellers from South Korea to Thailand, mass migration makes getting around the region miserable
Lunar New Year is many things: the world’s largest annual human migration; one of the most widely celebrated festivals across the planet; and a welcome few days off from the grind. It is also the worst possible time in which to holiday in Asia.
China’s largest online travel agency, Ctrip, predicts that a staggering 400 million Chinese will travel domestically to celebrate the Year of the Pig, while seven million are opting to celebrate the Spring Festival overseas.
And China is not the only place to celebrate what is often referred to as Chinese New Year.
Chronically overworked South Koreans partake in their own mass migration, albeit one on a less mind-boggling scale. Reporting on the impossibility of booking travel for last year’s Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, which sensibly coincided with the Lunar New Year period, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation noted that 33 million Koreans made the journey home for the festival, most by using the nation’s high-speed rail network, buying up train tickets in a matter of minutes and making cross-country transit for others a near impossibility.
So that’s China and South Korea off the table, where else? Singaporeans get two days off, as do Malaysians, while the good citizens of Indonesia and Thailand get just the one, inspiring many to take long weekends off work. Vietnamese New Year, or Tet, is also celebrated next week, and much like in China and South Korea, public transport systems become clogged by millions on the move.
