Tomatina Season Is Here — Don't Go Alone

Today's the day the Fiestas de Buñol quietly kick off, which means the countdown to the messiest party near Valencia is officially on. La Tomatina lands on Wednesday, August 26 this year, right on schedule for the last Wednesday of the month, and if you've been in town a while you've probably already heard someone at a coworking space or a language exchange ask, casually, "so, are you doing Tomatina this year?"

If you're new here, a quick primer: for one hour, from noon to 1pm, more than 22,000 people pack the narrow streets of this small town outside Valencia and throw about 120 tons of overripe tomatoes at each other until the whole place looks like a crime scene from a ketchup factory. It sounds absurd because it is absurd. It's also, somehow, one of the best things you can do in your first year here.

What Actually Happens on the Day

The town of Buñol is small, so most people come in on organized buses or trains from Valencia early in the morning, hang around the plaza, watch the traditional palo jabón (a greased pole with a ham on top that nobody ever quite manages to climb), and wait for the starting cannon shot. Then chaos, for sixty minutes exactly. Afterward, fire trucks hose down the streets, locals hose down the tourists, and everyone wanders off looking like they lost a fight with a smoothie.

The Best Part Isn't the Tomatoes

Here's the thing nobody tells you before your first Tomatina: the tomatoes are fun for about twenty minutes, and then it's just an excuse to be shoulder to shoulder with a few thousand strangers who are all, for one hour, on exactly the same level. Nobody's watch or shoes or Spanish level matters when you're both covered in pulp. It's one of the few Valencia experiences that's genuinely easier, and better, in a group of people you barely know yet.

Almost every expat, exchange student, or nomad who's been through it will tell you the same thing: they didn't go with their oldest friends, because they didn't have any here yet. They went with people from a meetup group, a flatmate's coworkers, or someone they matched with in a Facebook group two weeks before. And somehow that's exactly what makes it work. Shared chaos is a shortcut to feeling like you belong somewhere.

• Tickets sell out, so book ahead if you plan to be inside the official throwing zone
• Wear old clothes and shoes you're ready to throw away, plus swim goggles if you have them
• Bring a dry bag for your phone, or better, leave it at your accommodation
• Go with people, even people you just met. Solo Tomatina is a much duller story to tell later

The tomato stains wash out eventually. The friends you make covered in them usually don't.

If You're Still Building Your Valencia People

Tomatina is a nice reminder that community here doesn't have to be complicated. It can be one chaotic Wednesday with strangers who become the people you text about brunch plans six months later. If you're still working on your circle, keep saying yes to the slightly ridiculous plans, the meetups, the group trips out of the city. That's usually where it actually happens.

Whoever you end up going with, or even if you're still figuring out your Valencia people this month, save the date. Fiestas de Buñol run through the end of August, but the big one is August 26, and this year, we'd rather you didn't watch it alone from your phone.