A guide to events worth planning a trip around. Events are listed by location first, and then date. For a comprehensive calendar, see www.honoluluadvertiser.com/travel.

IN THE ISLANDS

KAUA'I

Koke'e State Park, Oct. 13, Eo e Emalani i Alaka'i (Queen Emma Festival) Opening Hours: The historic re-enactment at Koke'e State Park involves a procession into the swamp followed by hula, crafts fair and live music. The event marks the time in 1871 when Queen Emma took a journey from her Lawa'i beach house up to the Alaka'i Swamp to see the fabled views. The resulting journey gave birth to a burst of creativity as her subjects followed her, creating new songs, chants and dances along the way. 10 a.m. Free.

ON THE MAINLAND

NEW YORK

Lake Placid, Olympic Centre, through Oct. 7: Are you ready to ride? At the Olympic Centre at Lake Placid is one of the fastest bobsled tracks in the sport. Rocket down the Olympic bob run at 90 mph complete with high swings up the sidewalls and bone-jarring slams on the backstretch. Each four-man sled carries staffers fore and aft and two tourists in the middle. Minimum height to ride is 48 inches and the price includes complex admission, guided bus tour, commemorative pin and photo. Mt. Van Hoevenberg Sports Complex. Cost: $55; ages 13-17, $50; ages 7-12, $45.

CALIFORNIA

San Francisco, Sept. 27-30, ArtCar Fest. Every year more than 100 weird and wonderfully modified cars cruise San Francisco then head for the ArtCar Fest at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art, and remain for the How Berkeley Can You Be? Festival. ArtCar Fest is the perfect marriage of the American love of cars and the American love of self-expression — from the Cowasaki (a life-size, cow-shaped motorcycle) to the Carthedral (unsurprisingly, a car with a cathedral attached to the back). A highlight of each festival is the building of a brand-new ArtCar which is then raffled off, allowing visitors the chance to join the inner sanctum of the ArtCar community that parades creations every year. www.artcarfest.com.

San Diego, Sept. 30, Dec. 2, Maritime Museum of San Diego. Each year the Maritime Museum of San Diego hosts several family fun days on San Diego Bay. Families are invited on a free trip aboard the museum's historic 1914 pilot boat and to explore the museum's fleet of historic ships. Mini-boat races, sail-raising, sea shanty sing-alongs and souvenirs. Children 12 and younger are free when accompanied by an adult (two children per adult); 11 a.m.-4 p.m., 1492 N. Harbor Drive. www.sdmaritime.org.

EUROPE

FRANCE

Chartres, Sept. 28-30 Chartres Cathédrale Music Festival. The festival combines some of the most sublime classical music ever written with one of France's greatest cathedrals, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Concerts take place in the grand cathedral on the festival's opening night and then move to nearby venues for the following evenings. This year's highlights include a performance of Handel's "Te Deum" and a homage to Maria Callas.

GERMANY

Munich, December, Air and Style. The world's biggest and best straight-jump snowboarding contest, plus a one-day festival of music and entertainment at Munich's Olympiastadion. Around 30,000 come to watch the huge TV wall screen as the snowboarders take off for the massive ramp, competing for height and difficulty of their jumps. An Audi and $250,000 go to the winners. www.air-style.com.

ASIA AND THE PACIFIC

JAPAN

Tokyo, Nov. 1-30, Takao Momiji Matsuri (Maple Leaf Festival). Festivals celebrating seasonal changes are a Japanese hallmark, and well represented on the leafy slopes of Mount Takao in the fall. Street entertainers. Visitors can ascend Mount Takao by cable car or chairlift to hear Ohayashi festival music, taiko drum beatings, koto harps and shakuhachi bamboo flutes. Settle into the beautiful bronzed hues of the Takao-zan foliage and say a final sayonara to the summer. 11 a.m.-4 p.m.

— Chris Oliver

SEPT. 15

MARIACHI IN LAS VEGAS

The Las Vegas International Mariachi Festival was first held in 1991 to celebrate Mexican Independence, but the real festival originated in western Mexico in the late 19th century. Mariachis used to find work playing in the haciendas, but after the Mexican Revolution (1910-20) they wandered from town to town playing in public for a fee. Mariachis will convene in Las Vegas dressed in wide-brimmed hats and studded charro suits. Their songs speak of machismo, love, betrayal, death and politics. 8 p.m. Aladdin Theatre, Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino. www.mariachi.org.

JAN. 10-12

MALI'S DESERT FESTIVAL

Put this on your list of things to do once in a lifetime: Mali's Festival in the Desert.

Each January, the festival explodes across the landscape outside the 12th-century city Timbuktu, the gateway to the Sahara and home of the Tuareg people, or "Blue Men of the Desert." Tuareg families from the furthest reaches of the Sahara meet to play music, race camels, sell their wares and make deals. They're joined by filmmakers, writers, photographers and, of course, travelers. Musicians journey from across Africa, Europe and North America; it's been billed as "the remotest music festival in the world."

But mostly it's a fleeting insight into the Tuareg culture: the festival represents reconciliation of ethnic rivalries and a chance for commerce to grow.

Beneath the desert sky, visitors sleep on woven mats in skin tents; meals are cooked onsite.

The festival is Jan. 10-12 in Essakane, an oasis town 40 miles from Timbuktu.

— Advertiser staff