Cyprus Times

New Year... Twice: How Some Celebrated 2026 and Returned to 2025!

Published January 2, 2026, 18:05
New Year... Twice: How Some Celebrated 2026 and Returned to 2025!

Some airplane passengers managed to celebrate New Year's Eve twice, simply by changing time zones and crossing the International Date Line. A flight from Guam to Hawaii departed on New Year's morning and landed in Hawaii on New Year's Eve, allowing passengers to experience 2026 and then return to 2025. A similar situation occurred with a flight from Tokyo to Los Angeles, although in this case the 'double New Year' was accompanied by inconvenience due to waiting at airports. Besides airplanes, there's also the possibility of celebrating New Year's twice on land. The cities of Tornio in Sweden and Haparanda in Finland have a one-hour difference, allowing someone to welcome the new year in one city and relive it a few minutes later in the other. This phenomenon arises from the way different countries and regions of the world adopt and implement time zones and the International Date Line, which determines the change of date. Thus, while 2026 has arrived in many countries, there are still areas where 2025 is in effect, creating this unusual opportunity for a double celebration.