The 2025 Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta Guide

Welcome to the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta!

This broad greeting applies to out-of-town visitors as well as locals. The out-of-towners need to be ushered into our fair city, given patient directions and gifted with a few whispered secrets about where to score green chile and Breaking Bad T-shirts. The locals need to be reminded it’s that time of year again and that certain parts of town should be avoided like the plague — particularly if you hate crowds.

The Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta began as an intimate gathering of 13 hot air balloons in a shopping mall parking lot in 1972. In the past 53 years, it has grown into one of the most popular and most photographed tourist events in the world. Held each year during the first week in October, the Balloon Fiesta now features more than 600 balloons of all shapes, sizes and colors. Hundreds of thousands of folks from all over the world descend on our city in October hoping to witness the eye-popping wonder of those 600-something balloons rising aloft in the chilly fall air over the Rio Grande Valley. Heck, even a few locals have been known to brave the early-morning hours, fight the traffic jams and inch their way to Balloon Fiesta for a giant breakfast burrito, a large cup of coffee and some hot-air-filled spectacle.

The Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta began as an intimate gathering of 13 hot air balloons in a shopping mall parking lot in 1972. In the past 53 years, it has grown into one of the most popular and most photographed tourist events in the world. Held each year during the first week in October, the Balloon Fiesta now features more than 600 balloons of all shapes, sizes and colors. Hundreds of thousands of folks from all over the world descend on our city in October hoping to witness the eye-popping wonder of those 600-something balloons rising aloft in the chilly fall air over the Rio Grande Valley. Heck, even a few locals have been known to brave the early-morning hours, fight the traffic jams and inch their way to Balloon Fiesta for a giant breakfast burrito, a large cup of coffee and some hot-air-filled spectacle.

If you’re attending this year’s Balloon Fiesta, we here at The Paper. –Albuquerque’s only weekly news, arts and culture paper — have assembled a handy guide to get you through these crowded coming days. We have a center spread from the Balloon Fiesta itself, encompassing the entire daily schedule and plenty of easy-to-access information (QR codes, even!) on prices, location, hours and more.

And since you can’t spend all your time at Balloon Fiesta Park, our staff has assembled a “best of” guide, showing you some of our favorite places to eat, drink, shop and relax around the Albuquerque metro area. Use it as a jumping-off point to check out all that our city has to offer. (Heck, even some of us locals could use a reminder of the great restaurants, bars, stores, galleries, dispensaries and more that call the Duke City home.) So stick around Route 66 (Central Ave.), go cruise through the quaint shops of Corrales, jump on the train for a day-trip to Santa Fe, head out to the other side of the Sandia Mountains and drive the picturesque Turquoise Trail from Cedar Crest to Madrid. Or dig through The Paper.‘s two-week calendar of events and find some cool stuff to do that doesn’t involve propane, huge wicker baskets and the whims of Mother Nature. See all that Albuquerque and the surrounding area has to offer while you’re in town. And don’t be afraid to ask a local for information — so long as they’re not stuck in traffic on I-25 near exit 233, they’re a very pleasant and welcoming bunch of people.