Albuquerque, NM: International Balloon Fiesta

Just the coolest experience, ever.

I’ve traveled to Albuquerque more times than I can count over the last year. It has definitely grown on me and become one of my favorite places to visit! Along with the many breweries, delicious local restaurants, and amazing weather, Albuquerque hosts the International Balloon Fiesta for 1 week in October every year. During the whole week the entire sky is filled with colors and shapes of all sorts. It is truly like nothing I have seen before!

I was so sad when we missed it last year. This year I was very adamant about flying out for one of the weekends. Fortunately (with some creative planning and a super early Saturday flight) I was able to make it in time to see the sunset on Saturday and sunrise on Sunday! If you ever get the chance to go, I definitelyyyy recommend seeing the Mass Launch on the last morning. Although it was a bit of a struggle to wake up at 4:30am (again lol RIP), it was so worth it. Watching the sunrise over the mountains was amazing by itself, but then seeing all of the balloons light up and take off made it pretty magical. Really as long as you have warm socks and some coffee you’re good to go.

My favorite part was being able to stand right in the middle of everything. You can feel the warmth from the fires and see just how hard these people are working to get everything ready. Who knew how many people were involved?! It blew my mind watching it all happen right in front of us. The craziest part about the whole thing was seeing just how fast the balloons inflate and take off. One minute there is a basket in the middle of the field and the next minute there are like 4 balloons lifting off.

I think what makes Balloon Fiesta so magnificent is just how many different kinds of balloons there are. People travel from all over just to be there! The cutest balloon was definitely the penguin. Just look at his feet!!