Lunar New Year 2026 is landing on Tuesday, February 17, and if you’re traveling (or you’re just trying to travel without losing your mind), you’ll feel it well beyond “New Year’s Day”. The traditional celebration runs through the Lantern Festival, which this year brings us neatly to March 3.

And here’s the part that matters for your actual plans: this is peak movement season. In China, the wider travel rush around Spring Festival is known as chunyun, and for 2026 it’s being described as a 40-day wave running from Feb 2 to Mar 13. That doesn’t mean every destination is chaos for 40 days straight, but it does mean airline capacity, hotel inventory, and prices across Asia (and a bunch of long-haul routes) get pulled into the same gravitational field.

Lunar New Year isn’t one thing. It’s family reunions, big-city parades, temple visits, long lunches that become longer dinners, and a very real spike in travel demand across multiple countries and diaspora hubs. You can absolutely travel during it. You just need to travel like you know what’s going on.

Lunar New Year week isn’t “Just a holiday week.”

If you’ve ever tried to book last-minute accommodation in Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok, or Tokyo around this period, you already know the vibe: fewer “deals”, more “only two rooms left”, and suddenly your usual airline route has a pricing personality.

China’s rail operator has also been flagging peak days around the holiday, which is a good reminder that this isn’t only about international trips. It’s domestic migration at scale, and it impacts everything from airport traffic to last-mile transport and hotel staffing.

One more detail (because it’s genuinely fun, and it may affect crowds): Lunar New Year 2026 lines up with a new moon on Feb 17, and the date itself has been heavily referenced in coverage of major lantern events already opening in China. Translation: expect “special year” marketing, themed events, and more “once-a-year” travel itineraries built around it.

Where demand tends to surge (and where you can still win)

Here’s the pattern we keep seeing in platform data and tourism reporting around Lunar New Year: the obvious hotspots get hammered, and the smart money quietly moves one ring out.

Hot zones you should assume will be busy

Hong Kong and Macau (fireworks energy, high hotel compression), Singapore (events plus business travel overlap), Bangkok and Phuket (warm-weather escape effect), Seoul (shopping breaks), and big Chinese cities with iconic festival draws. Recent reporting has specifically highlighted a strong interest in Thailand as a top pick this season.

Underrated moves that often feel smoother

Second cities near the hotspots (think: one to two hours away by train), and “shoulder date” travel that starts a few days before Feb 17 or lands after the first weekend rush. If you’re building a trip for Feb 17 to Mar 3, the real trick is not the destination, it’s the timing inside the window.

Hotels: book like it’s a concert, not a weekend break

This is the season where hotel pricing behaves less like hospitality and more like airline revenue management. If you’re staying in a major city, you’ll often get better outcomes by choosing a brand with lots of inventory and operational muscle.

What tends to work well in peak weeks:

• Big footprint chains (Marriott, Hilton, IHG, Accor) in dense cities, because they can absorb spikes better, and you have more neighborhood options when one area sells out.
• Serviced apartments for families or longer stays, because Lunar New Year trips often run beyond a neat weekend.
• Club floors and lounges if you value calm. It sounds small, but during peak periods, a lounge can be your escape hatch when the lobby is a festival.

If you’re flexible, watch for the “two-night minimum” trap. Some properties add restrictions during peak nights. When that happens, pricing can look worse than it is because you’re being forced into longer stays.

Flights and airports: the five-minute strategy that saves hours

Chunyun is the reason you should assume airports are operating at full stress. If you only do one thing, do this: add buffer time and stop trying to “optimize” connections.

A practical rule:

• Domestic and regional flights: arrive earlier than you normally would.
• Connections: avoid 60–90 minute connection heroics. A minor delay plus crowding becomes a missed flight fast.

Also, if you’re traveling in China or through Chinese hubs, keep an eye on official local travel updates. Shanghai’s municipal transport authorities, for example, explicitly publish seasonal travel guides for the rush.

Connectivity: don’t let roaming be the thing that breaks your trip

Lunar New Year travel is one of those moments where “I’ll sort SIM later” becomes a bad idea, because airport kiosks can be slammed and Wi-Fi networks can be overloaded.

My go-to setup for this season:

• Install your eSIM before you fly, and test it (activate, toggle data, confirm the APN if needed).
• Keep Wi-Fi calling enabled if your home operator supports it, especially for banking and OTP texts.
• Carry a tiny backup plan (even 1–3GB) so you’re not stranded if your primary option has a network hiccup.

On the market, you’ll generally see three types of travel eSIM players:

• Marketplace-style (lots of country plans, easy checkout, wide choice): great when you want flexibility.
• Unlimited-focused (simple promise, often with fair-use realities): great if you hate monitoring usage.
• Premium/global-first (higher price, smoother support, sometimes better business tooling): great when the trip is high-stakes.

For Alertify readers, the trend is clear: eSIM has moved from “nice-to-have” to baseline travel infrastructure, and peak travel weeks are when that value becomes painfully obvious.

Small travel tips that matter more during Lunar New Year

Pack and plan for friction. Not danger, not drama. Just friction.

Quick wins:

• Pre-book airport transfers if you land late.
• Screenshot hotel addresses in the local language for drivers.
• Carry cash as a backup, but assume many places are heavily digital.
• If you’re heading to major parade zones, book hotels in the area so you can walk back, because ride-hailing surge is real.

Lantern Festival energy: why March 3 matters

If you’re traveling toward the end of this Feb 17 to Mar 3 window, you’re not “late”. You’re arriving for a different vibe. The Lantern Festival is the traditional wrap, and destinations with big lantern events and night markets get a second wave of visitors. Reuters coverage has already spotlighted major lantern festival builds ahead of the date, which is a good signal that “Lantern season” will be marketed hard again.

If you like photography, night food markets, and a more festive evening culture, the back half of this window can be the sweet spot.

Conclusion

The most important Lunar New Year travel story for 2026 is not “prices will be higher”. That’s the boring part. The real story is that peak travel has become platform-shaped.

Trip.com, Booking.com, Expedia, and their peers have trained travelers to expect instant inventory, transparent reviews, and frictionless changes. Airlines and hotels have responded with sharper yield management, stricter peak rules, and faster price swings. That’s why this season feels different from it did even a few years ago: the demand spike is old, but the market mechanics are new.

In the connectivity world, you see the same split. The “classic” travel SIM model is still alive, but eSIM-first players are now competing on who removes the most steps: fewer clicks, faster activation, better support, clearer plan terms. Peak travel weeks are when that competition matters, because convenience stops being a perk and becomes the difference between a smooth arrival and a 45-minute airport headache.

So if you’re traveling Feb 17 to Mar 3, the play is simple: treat it like a high-demand event week. Book earlier than your instincts. Choose hotels with operational reliability. Build a connectivity plan before you fly. And if you want the celebration without the crush, aim for the edges of the window, especially the Lantern Festival tail. The trip will still feel like Lunar New Year, just with a little more breathing room.