Im writing this because I recently attended the Cherry Blossom festival in Washington DC. I have lived a couple hours from DC for a couple years now. Since we will be moving soon, I decided to take the family and go.

Yes, there were tons of cherry blossoms. Yes, it was kind of pretty. But, the whole city was much more packed than usual with huge lines for all the popular museums. Traffic was horrendous. The area with cherry blossoms was full of wall to wall people. Overall, it was my least favorite trip to DC (I have been a few times). Unless you have a huge cherry blossom festish or love flowers, I would definitely skip it.

Anyway, it was definitely over-hyped in my opinion.

While on the subject, I also found Oktoberfest in Munich to be less than mind blowing. I lived close at the time and it was a fun experience. But, its really a big German fair with beer tents… similiar to a state fair in the US. I met tons of people who flew across the world (from the US or Australia, for example) to attend. Although it was a fun experience, I think there are festivals that are more fun and worth a huge trip.

Carnival in Rio, for example, was absolutely amazing and definitely worth it to me. I absolutely enjoyed all the activities in town during that time and the parades themselves were fantastic too.

I also loved visiting Kuekenhof in the Netherlands for the tulip festival. It truly exceeded my expectations.

I do love festivals and events, so I would love to hear of more that are worth it.