With the year drawing to a close, we’re seeing plenty of retrospective lists detailing the “best of 2016”—music, movies, TV shows, and sports highlights. But what are the best websites focusing on New Year’s Eve, year-end events and New Year's resolutions? Well, we've got them right here! Read on for our top 15 New Year’s websites.
Around the World
Australia knows how to do it right when it comes to NYE, and the city of Sydney is especially prepared this year. Site visitors are greeted with a festive backdrop, tourist info and a map featuring the best vantage points in the city to view the New Year's fireworks display.
The most exact NYE countdown clock we've seen yet--quickly counting down to 0. And you can tune into the site on New Year's Eve to see live streams of celebrations from around the world.
Although its design isn’t particularly innovative, the Times Square site makes up for it with the sheer wealth of information it provides to New Year’s Eve revelers. Whether you’re looking for an event schedule, travel tips or even the history of New Year’s Eve, you’ll find it here.
Sail off into the New Year aboard the legendary ocean liner the Queen Mary. This website immediately entices visitors to buy a ticket and get on board their New Year’s Eve cruise.
New Year’s Eve is called Hogmanay in Scotland and is a huge holiday steeped in tradition. Edinburgh's website features a fantastic event line-up, so you can party your way into the New Year.
If you're New Year's plans include braving the cold in Chicago, Navy Pier is a great place to be! You can attend one of the two New Year's parties, or do your countdown from one of several cruises that depart from the pier.
This is actually a blog post as opposed to a site, but if you want to start getting excited for New Year’s firework displays, this post has a great collection of gorgeous New Year’s fireworks from around the world.
Miscellaneous Events
This website for the annual White Wonderland party at the Anaheim Convention Center makes our list because of its icy theme and great use of a fixed background.
If you’re going to be in LA for New Year’s and you're feeling a little sluggish after all of your end-of-the-year festivities, start the New Year off on the right foot with a nighttime 5K or a 10K run. The race starts January 8th.
If you live on the West coast, there’s still time to sign up to run a 5K, 10K or half-marathon at the Brazen Running website. The site is a better example of straightforward information than design aesthetics—you can learn all about Castro Valley and the beautiful Lake Chabot, where the race takes place.
Turning Over a New Leaf
This resolution website has a minimalistic design and a great idea: people set a 21-day challenge or resolution and deposit $21. Every day that they meet a goal, they get $1. If you don’t stick to your resolution, though, it’s not all bad—the site donates the remaining money to charity. There's also a free version, if you're a little less sure about your willpower.
Don’t visit Goal Buddy unless you’re really serious about sticking to your New Year’s resolution. The site immediately presents you with space to enter 3 goals, then asks you to sign up in order to join a community that cheers you on as you share your progress.
Lifetick is designed for many kinds of goals, and it may be particularly effective if you have a lot of specific, long-term resolutions, like training for a marathon or writing the next great American novel. The site offers a task list, charts and graphs showing your progress and goal development advice—just to name a few features.
Get family and friends involved in your New Year's resolutions with StickK. Here, you can develop a Commitment Contract to ensure you follow through with your goal, put down money to raise the stakes, get a personal referee and (best of all) add people to your support network to keep motivated.
Set goal reminders with a sting! With Beeminder, you set commitments for yourself and pledge a certain amount to pay if you go off track. If you lapse, the next time, you'll be on the hook for an even higher pledge amount. Since it connects to a variety of devices, Beeminder is a good way to stay on the "straight and narrow!"