Best Party Hostels
25 January 2026 · 8 min read
Sziget, Primavera, Sonar, Exit, and 6 more European festivals worth building a trip around. Dates, costs, and how to get there on a backpacker budget.
Why Festival Season Is the Best Time to Backpack Europe
European festival season runs from late May to early September, overlapping perfectly with backpacker high season. Festivals give structure to a Eurotrip: pick 2-3 festivals as anchor points and fill the gaps with city stops. Rail passes make it easy to connect the dots. The social atmosphere at festivals mirrors party hostels: everyone is there to meet people and have a good time.
Costs range from $60 for a weekend at a small Eastern European festival to $350 for a week at Primavera Sound. Camping is included in most ticket prices (bring your own tent). Food and drinks inside festivals cost 2-3x city prices, so eat before you go in and pace yourself with the beer tokens.
Book tickets early. Most festivals sell out or move to final-tier pricing by March. Volunteer programmes (working shifts at the bar or gate in exchange for a free ticket) open in January and fill fast.
Sziget Festival, Budapest (August)
Sziget is Europe's largest island festival, held on Obuda Island in the middle of Budapest. Seven days, 1,000+ acts across 60+ stages, 500,000 attendees. It is like a small city built for music. Main stage headliners in recent years: Arctic Monkeys, Dua Lipa, Florence + The Machine, Foo Fighters.
The backpacker appeal: it is in Budapest, one of Europe's cheapest party cities. Fly in, do the ruin bars for a few days, then head to the island for a week. Full week passes cost $250-300 including camping. Day tickets are $70-80. The festival grounds include a beach, a giant swimming area, and stages for everything from techno to world music to comedy.
Getting there: the island is accessible by bus and tram from central Budapest. Most festival-goers camp on the island for the full week. Bring earplugs, a quality sleeping pad, and a portable phone charger. The on-site supermarket sells basics but charges premium prices.
Primavera Sound, Barcelona (May-June)
Primavera Sound is the curation king. The lineup consistently balances indie, electronic, hip hop, and experimental music better than any other major festival. Held at Parc del Forum on Barcelona's waterfront, with stages overlooking the Mediterranean. 2026 dates: late May to early June.
Weekend passes cost $250-350. There is no on-site camping, which means you stay in a Barcelona hostel and travel to the festival each day by metro (L4 to El Maresme/Forum). This actually works well: you get Barcelona's nightlife after the festival ends at 4am. St Christopher's Inn and Kabul Hostel both run Primavera shuttle buses.
Primavera added a second weekend edition in Madrid in recent years. If Barcelona is sold out, check Madrid dates as an alternative with a similar lineup and cheaper city costs.
Exit Festival, Novi Sad, Serbia (July)
Exit is the best-value major festival in Europe. Held inside the Petrovaradin Fortress above the Danube river in Novi Sad, Serbia. Four days, world-class electronic and mainstream acts, inside a 17th-century fortress. Full passes cost $100-150, camping included. Food and drinks inside are absurdly cheap by festival standards: $2-3 beers, $3-5 meals.
Serbia is visa-free for most nationalities and Novi Sad is a 90-minute bus ride from Belgrade ($8). The combination of Exit + a few days in Belgrade's floating river clubs (splavovi) makes one of Europe's best party weekends, all for less than a single night out in London.
The festival's Dance Arena (inside the fortress moat) is consistently voted one of the world's best festival stages. Previous headliners: The Cure, Iggy Pop, David Guetta, Carl Cox. The sunrise set from the fortress walls overlooking the Danube is the defining Exit experience.
More Festivals Worth Your Time
Sonar, Barcelona (June): electronic music's prestige festival. Split between daytime (experimental, art installations, conferences) and Sonar by Night (club-scale stages, headline DJs). Weekend pass $200-250. Smaller and more curated than Primavera.
Hideout, Zrce Beach, Croatia (June-July): a beach festival on the Adriatic island of Pag. Five days of electronic music across 3 open-air clubs built on a pebble beach. Festival pass $150-200 plus accommodation. Boat parties between sets.
Tomorrowland, Boom, Belgium (July): the world's biggest electronic music festival. Two weekends, 400,000 total capacity, production values that make every other festival look amateur. Full madness passes $350-450 including camping. Sells out in minutes; register for the waiting list by January.
Glastonbury, Somerset, UK (June): the original. 200,000 people on a dairy farm in Somerset. Impossible to get tickets (lottery system, sell out in 30 minutes) but if you do, it is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Tickets $340-380 including camping. Alternative: volunteer through Oxfam for a free ticket in exchange for 3 shifts.
NOS Alive, Lisbon, Portugal (July): a mid-size festival on the Tagus riverfront. Strong rock and indie lineups, excellent food area, and you are in Lisbon for the week. Three-day passes $170-200.
