New Year calls for cities that know how to celebrate in style! Places and hotels where the occasion feels genuinely special, where the fireworks or festivities leave you with memories, and where the hotel you come home to afterwards is worth the stay. Here are five cities that do New Year exceptionally well according to our hotel gurus.

Edinburgh, Scotland

Edinburgh's Hogmanay is simply the best New Year's celebration in the world: three days of concerts, ceilidhs, the Torchlight Procession on the 30th, and a street party on Princes Street that draws 80,000 people on the night itself. The fireworks over the Castle at midnight, with the New Town lit below and the Firth of Forth glimmering in the distance, are among the most spectacular in the world. The city then celebrates First Footing well into the small hours and beyond. Hogmanay tickets sell out months in advance — plan accordingly!

• Gleneagles Townhouse is the Edinburgh outpost of Scotland's most celebrated country house hotel, occupying a former Earl's mansion and Royal Bank of Scotland building on St Andrews Square in the New Town. The 33 rooms carry the Gleneagles DNA — moss greens and dusky pinks, antique furnishings, velvet upholstery — alongside the intelligence of an urban hotel: a rooftop bar that becomes one of the city's hottest spots on Hogmanay, a spa in the original bank vaults, and a sense of occasion that suits the season exactly.
• The Inn on the Mile is a boutique hotel on the Royal Mile in the heart of the Old Town, with individually designed rooms and a bar that is a destination in its own right. The position on the Royal Mile puts guests at the centre of Hogmanay's action, and the hotel's warm, unfussy personality is a very good thing to come home to after a night on the streets.
• The Balmoral is Edinburgh's grand dame of New Year, a Victorian railway hotel at the eastern end of Princes Street whose clock is kept two minutes fast by tradition so that travellers don't miss their trains. The 187 rooms and suites are impeccably appointed, Number One restaurant does wonderful fine dining, and the hotel's position at the top of the Hogmanay street party makes it the single most coveted New Year address in Scotland.
• Tigerlily is a boutique hotel on George Street in the New Town with a personality entirely its own: bold, design-forward, sociable. The rooms are extravagant and individually conceived, the bar is one of Edinburgh's liveliest on any night, and on Hogmanay the whole property raises its already considerable energy to something that suits the occasion very well.

New York, USA

New York on New Year's Eve is the Times Square ball drop, and the ball drop is one of the most watched events on earth. Whether you go to Times Square (dress warmly, arrive early, and accept the crowds as part of the experience) or watch from a rooftop bar across the city, New York makes the occasion feel genuinely momentous. The days around New Year are also some of the best for the city's restaurants and cultural institutions, which run full programmes through the holiday period.

• The William is a boutique hotel in the Murray Hill neighbourhood with a strong design identity and individually appointed rooms, giving it a more personal character than many of New York's larger properties. The location between Midtown and the Flatiron District makes it a practical base for the New Year period.
• Boro Hotel is the Long Island City property in Queens with spectacular Manhattan skyline views from its rooms and rooftop — on New Year's Eve, watching the fireworks from across the East River is a very different and considerably more comfortable experience than standing in Times Square. The rooms are generous by New York standards, the service is warm, and the views are outstanding.
• The Nolitan is a boutique hotel in Nolita, the neighbourhood between SoHo and Little Italy, with 55 rooms, each with a private balcony, and a rooftop terrace with strong views of lower Manhattan. The neighbourhood is among New York's most characterful for restaurants and independent shops, and the hotel's design personality reflects the area's creative identity.
• 11 Howard is a design-forward boutique hotel in SoHo with 221 rooms conceived by Danish design firm Space Copenhagen and an art programme that includes works by leading contemporary artists. The ground-floor Soda restaurant, the bar, and the hotel's strong creative identity make it one of the more interesting addresses in the downtown New York hotel scene.

Paris, France

Paris at New Year is the Champs-Elysées fireworks and the sense that the world's most beautiful city is at its most celebratory. The New Year illuminations along the boulevard are spectacular, the restaurants are at their most festive, and the city's cultural life — opera, theatre, jazz clubs — continues through the holiday period without pause. Paris in late December and early January is also one of the least crowded times to see the major monuments, and the winter sales (soldes) that begin in early January draw a knowing crowd.

• Pulitzer Paris is a newcomer to the 9th arrondissement, in the Opéra district, with adjoining stuccoed townhouses converted into a warm, art-filled hotel with a golden glow and a plant-strewn covered patio that is the property's centrepiece. The rooms are smart and quiet, the location between the Opéra Garnier and the Grands Boulevards is excellent, and the overall atmosphere — convivial, design-conscious, very Parisian — makes it a very good hotel to come home to after a night on the Champs-Elysées.
• Hotel Thoumieux is a small hotel in the 7th arrondissement, a few minutes from the Eiffel Tower and the Musée d'Orsay, with 15 rooms designed by India Mahdavi in her signature palette of rich, warm colours, curved forms, and unexpected detail. It is one of Paris's most design-coherent small hotels and the neighbourhood — residential, excellent for restaurants, quieter than the main tourist districts — is particularly pleasant at New Year.
• Les Dames du Panthéon is a 35-room boutique hotel directly facing the Panthéon on the Place du Panthéon in the Latin Quarter, with rooms decorated in a feminine, literary style that references the great women whose lives and ideas connect to this part of the city. Several rooms have direct balcony views of the monument, the vaulted cellar breakfast room is beautiful, and the Latin Quarter location is among the most atmospheric in Paris.
• Hotel de L'Abbaye is a 16th-century building in the heart of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, once a convent attached to the Abbey of Saint-Germain, now converted into a hotel of considerable charm with 44 rooms around a flower-filled courtyard and garden. The interiors are warm and refined, the neighbourhood is among Paris's most sophisticated, and the hotel's long-standing reputation for excellent service makes it one of the most reliably welcoming bases in the city.

Berlin, Germany

Berlin at New Year is one of Europe's wildest celebrations: the central Brandenburger Tor party draws one million people, private fireworks are legal and explode from every street corner from midnight, and the city's club culture means that the evening continues without interruption until well into the following day. Berlin in winter is also at its most dramatically beautiful: the Christmas markets run until early January, the Berliner Dom and the Museum Island are dramatically lit, and the city's enormous cultural programme is at full stretch.

• Chateau Royal is a design hotel in Mitte with a strong personality and rooms that combine Berlin's creative identity with genuine comfort. The bar is a social hub, and the hotel's central location makes it an excellent New Year base.
• Telegraphenamt is a historic conversion of one of Berlin's great 19th-century buildings — the former central telegraph office — into a design hotel of considerable scale and ambition. The original architecture has been preserved and given a contemporary interior programme, creating one of the city's more dramatic hotel spaces.
• Lulu Guldsmeden is the Berlin property of the Danish Guldsmeden group of eco-conscious boutique hotels, with organic textiles, sustainable materials, and the warm Scandinavian design sensibility that defines the brand. In the Mitte neighbourhood, it offers a quieter, more personal alternative to Berlin's larger hotels, and its New Year programming is well organised.
• Wilmina Hotel occupies a former women's prison in Charlottenburg, a building of considerable historical resonance transformed into a hotel of genuine originality, with a garden, a spa, and a design that takes the building's history seriously without sentimentalising it. It is one of the city's more unusual hotel experiences and reflects Berlin's particular gift for finding new uses for buildings with complicated pasts.

Sydney, Australia

Sydney on New Year's Eve is quite simply the finest fireworks display in the world. The Sydney Harbour, with the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge as backdrop, is unmatched as a setting for the midnight show, and the city's celebrations — which begin with the 9pm family fireworks and culminate at midnight — are broadcast globally as the world's unofficial first major New Year event. The challenge is position: the best viewing spots fill hours in advance, and hotel rooms with harbour views on this night are among the most sought-after in the world.

• Veriu Broadway is a well-designed aparthotel in the Broadway neighbourhood of the CBD, with a rooftop and easy access to the city's New Year celebrations. The kitchen facilities and spacious rooms make it an excellent base for a longer New Year stay.
• The Strand is a historic Sydney hotel that has been part of the city's accommodation landscape for decades, with a CBD location and warm service that brings guests back year after year. Its New Year programme is well-established.
• 202 Elizabeth is a boutique hotel in the CBD with a strong design identity and a position that makes the harbour and the Rocks immediately accessible — both essential for New Year's Eve in Sydney. The rooms are well-conceived, and the service is personal.
• Bondi Beach House is a very different proposition: a boutique guesthouse at Bondi, where the New Year is celebrated on the beach with the Sydney Harbour fireworks visible from the coastal headlands. For those who want the Sydney New Year without the harbour crowds, Bondi's own celebrations and the morning-after swim are a very good alternative.

Still not sure? 

• Browse through our full list of accommodation options in Sydney
• Refine your search to include our recommendations for the Best 7 Hotels in Edinburgh's Old Town
• Alternatively, you could contact one of our friendly Gurus for personalised advice.