According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary there are nearly one million words in the English language. But we’re not sure any of them can adequately explain the inspired madness that goes down in the northwestern Nevada desert every summer.

Burning Man started in 1986, when Larry Harvey and his buddy Jerry James assembled a 8-foot tall makeshift wooden figure and dragged it to San Francisco’s Baker Beach on the Summer Solstice. They lit it on fire, a curious crowd of around 20 people watched it burn, and thus one of the world’s weirdest, wildest parties was born.

From those humble beginnings, the Man grew (hitting 105 feet in 2014), as did the number of attendees (nearly 70,000 in 2017). Once an intimate gathering of friends and family, the festival is now an arty, apocalyptic paean to the wonder of self-expression, attracting a tight-knit community of bohemians and misfits from all around the world.

It’s part Mad Max, part Survivor, and part Comic-Con (see: CRAZY costumes), with an emphasis on experimental creativity, cooperation, and civic responsibility. It takes place from the last Sunday in August to Labor Day. And after the man is burned in the climactic culmination, the entire “city in the desert” disappears without a trace.

Arguably the world’s biggest festival (not to mention its wildest party), Brazil’s Carnival is widely considered “the greatest show on Earth.” The event attracts nearly 5 million people each year, with a half-million or so being visitors traveling to see the spectacle..

Historically, Carnival is a religious celebration. The festival takes place in February or March, over the 5 days preceding the Catholic season of Lent, which starts 40 days before Easter. It also coincides with the end of the long, brutally hot Brazilian summer..

So picture 5 million people who’ve been baking in the heat for months, preparing to give up the things they love for 40 days, set loose in a city filled with lively music and half-naked dancers shaking what their mama gave them.

Yeah, it’s THAT crazy. And colorful, thanks to creative costumes worn by the 70+ samba schools (each representing a different neighborhood) who compete for cash and national fame.

The festival culminates with a rowdy, raucous 2-night extravaganza at Rio’s remarkable Sambadrome, where 90,000+ spectators pay top dollar to watch the top 12 samba schools compete for the grand prize.

There are annual themes for the competition, and the carnival parades are usually the stuff of legend. Carnival is celebrated in many Latin American nations, but nobody does it like Rio.

Launched way back in 1945, La Tomatina is one of the oldest festivals on our list. It’s also easily the messiest, coming off like the world’s biggest food fight..

Legend has it that the whole thing started when some local boys joined a parade alongside musicians, “Giants” on stilts, and “Big Head” figures. The unruly boys knocked one of the performers off his stilts, he became enraged and started lashing out, and a vendor’s vegetable stand fell victim to the mayhem until the police arrived to break it up...

The festival was banned for much of the 1950s, but in 1957 locals protested with a mock funeral, carrying a coffin with a giant tomato inside as bands played a funeral march. Eventually the powers-that-be relented, and La Tomatina has grown into a huge tourism draw in the decades since..

If you go, please follow some simple rules: Don’t throw hard objects, squash the tomato before throwing it, stay a safe distance away from tomato trucks, and stop when the starter pistol indicates that the hour of mayhem has ended. In other words, have fun, but don’t hurt anybody and don’t be a jerk..