Rarotonga, Cook Islands—one of the last places in the world to experience the New Year (Photo: Gilles/TravelGumbo)
If you haven’t finalized your plans to celebrate New Years, the Telegraph (UK) has come up with a list of places that make it easy to celebrate twice within 24 hours. Of course, it could also leave you with a double hangover.
One of their selected sites involves a four-hour flight between New Zealand and its dependency, the Cook Islands. Because of where the International Dateline falls, New Zealand will be one of the first places to slide into 2020, while the Cook Islands are one of the last. The Guardian’s plan: take the flight that leaves Auckland at 8:45 am on January 1, landing in Rarotonga, Cook Islands at 1:45 pm on December 31, with time for sightseeing before your next party.
The other locations don’t offer a whole day; in fact they only give you one hour to live over, because they are not on the dateline, but on the border between two time zones. That happens in many places, to be sure, but not all are as picturesque as those on their list.
Karesuando, Sweden and Karesuvanto, Finland are actually one town in Lapland, with both a border and a time zone running through it. Spain and Portugal share a long border, you can do the trick anywhere along it because Portugal keeps to Greenwich time, while Spain is one hour east, along with most of west and central Europe.
In the U.S., two internal borders offer similar choices. In Florida, the western panhandle observes Central time, while the rest of the state is in the East. Nevada (Mountain) and California (Pacific) offer opportunities, too. The Guardian’s pick is Needles, CA and Arizona Village, NV, facing each other on the Colorado River.
