Rose Parade Travel Guide
How to plan your trip to the Rose Parade and Rose Bowl
The Rose Parade in Pasadena is one of America’s most iconic New Year’s traditions, attracting visitors from across the country and around the world to Southern California each year. With spectacular floral floats, marching bands, equestrian units, and the excitement of the Tournament of Roses, attending the Rose Parade is an unforgettable experience.
Planning a trip to the Rose Parade involves more than finding a hotel and showing up on New Year’s morning, there are many details to consider. Selecting the hotel that matches your needs, choosing the best place to watch the parade, arranging transportation on one of the busiest mornings in town, choosing the perfect additional tours to round out your trip, and deciding whether to attend the Rose Bowl Game as the cherry on top are part of the planning process.
With more than 40 years of experience creating unforgettable Rose Parade and Rose Bowl travel experiences, Diamond Travel can help you make the absolute most of your visit to Pasadena. Use this guide to learn how to plan your Rose Parade trip and discover what you need to know before you go.
The ultimate Rose Parade travel guide
When is the Rose Parade?
The Rose Parade traditionally takes place on New Year’s Day, January 1, in Pasadena, California. When January 1 falls on a Sunday, the parade is held on Monday, January 2, following the Tournament of Roses’ longstanding tradition of never holding the parade on a Sunday.
The 138th Rose Parade will take place on Friday, January 1, 2027.
The parade begins at 8am in the morning and travels along a 5.5 mile route through Pasadena lined with spectators eager to welcome the New Year. Because the Rose Parade is one of the most popular annual events in Southern California, visitors should plan their trip well in advance.
Where is the Rose Parade?
The Rose Parade takes place in Pasadena, California, approximately 10 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles, California. The parade travels along a route that begins near Orange Grove Boulevard and continues through Pasadena before ending near Sierra Madre Boulevard.
For visitors traveling to the Rose Parade, Pasadena is the center of the action. However, hotels throughout the greater Los Angeles area are generally the preferred places to stay because they provide convenient access to the event, more availability, various options for budgets, amenities, locales, and transportation arrangements.
Where is the best place to watch the Rose Parade?
One of the most important decisions when planning your Rose Parade experience is choosing where you will watch the parade. Some spectators arrive very early, or even the night before, to claim a spot standing along the parade route, while others choose reserved grandstand seating for a more comfortable and convenient viewing experience. Reserved grandstand seating provides a designated seat along the parade route, allowing you to enjoy the floats, bands, and equestrian units without having to compete for a viewing spot. For many travelers, reserved seating is an important part of creating a more comfortable and stress-free Rose Parade experience.
When considering your seating options, think about the location of the grandstand, your preferred viewing experience, and how you plan to get to the parade. Transportation and logistics are especially important on New Year’s morning, when large crowds gather throughout Pasadena. It can be quite easy to miss a portion of the parade due to traffic or poor viewing locations.
Diamond Travel offers Rose Parade travel packages that include fully reserved seating, helping guests enjoy the parade while leaving the logistics to our experienced travel team. Based on our years of experience, we offer the best grandstand seating location along Colorado Boulevard, where most of the parade bands perform for the television cameras. Our sections are also selected to keep the sun at your back and out of your eyes, while providing optimal lighting conditions for photos.
Where should you stay for the Rose Parade?
Choosing where to stay is an important part of planning a Rose Parade trip. While Pasadena is the heart of the festivities, accommodations in the greater Los Angeles area provide travelers with the most options. Guests can choose the type of hotel, beach or city locations, amenities, price, and the overall experience they want from their trip.
Some travelers choose to stay close to Pasadena, but most enjoy staying in destinations such as Downtown Los Angeles, Santa Monica, or Redondo Beach to explore more of Southern California during their visit.
When choosing a hotel for your Rose Parade trip, consider:
Overall hotel location
Transportation options to Pasadena & parade route
Length of your stay
Hotel property amenities
Whether you plan to attend the Rose Bowl game
What other attractions you would like to visit
We pride ourselves on providing a variety of high-quality accommodations in the heart of Downtown LA, Redondo Beach, and Santa Monica. Our guests appreciate the distinct character of these locations, and we are pleased to offer these superior properties as opposed to limited service hotels or standard airport lodging.
Getting to and around Pasadena during the Rose Parade
Transportation is one of the most important considerations when attending the Rose Parade. Pasadena becomes exceptionally busy around New Year’s Day, with visitors arriving from throughout Southern California and around the world. Road closures, large crowds, and limited parking can make getting to the parade route much more complicated than visitors might expect. That’s why it is crucial to plan your transportation before arriving in Pasadena.
If you are staying outside Pasadena, consider how you will travel to the parade, how early you will have to leave to make it to your seats before the parade begins, where you will be dropped off, how you will return to your hotel after the event, and how you will find your transportation through the departing crowds.
Diamond Travel’s Rose Parade packages are designed to simplify the travel experience by coordinating all of the transportation details as part of your itinerary. We provide round trip transportation for all of your events on our deluxe motor coaches with a restroom. On parade day you are picked up from your hotel and taken by motor coach, accompanied by our knowledgeable tour guides, to our reserved parade route parking near your seats, guided to your section and returned to your hotel at the conclusion of your parade day festivities. Our itineraries are carefully curated to provide a seamless experience.
What to Expect on Rose Parade Morning
One of the biggest surprises for first-time visitors is just how early Rose Parade morning begins. Many guests are leaving their hotel before sunrise to arrive comfortably before the parade starts. That’s one reason our guests appreciate having transportation coordinated for them rather than trying to navigate Pasadena on one of its busiest days of the year. Expect large crowds, jam-packed streets, and an energetic atmosphere throughout Pasadena. Depending on your seating location and transportation arrangements, you may need to leave your hotel fairly early in the morning.
Dress comfortably and with layers. Prepare for the possibility of cool morning temperatures. Even in sunny Southern California, New Year’s morning can be chilly, particularly when you are outdoors for an extended period of time.
Once the parade begins, you’ll experience the sights and sounds that have made the Rose Parade famous around the world. The parade features intricately designed floral floats, spectacular marching bands, equestrian units, and the excitement of thousands of spectators lining the parade route.
Diamond Travel offers an exceptional grandstand seating location for optimal viewing and comfort.
What else can you do while in town for the Parade?
A trip to the Rose Parade is an opportunity to explore Pasadena and the surrounding Los Angeles area.
Depending on your interests and the length of your stay, you may want to visit local attractions, enjoy Southern California dining, explore historic neighborhoods, or simply take time to experience the region’s unique atmosphere.
Pasadena is known for its beautiful architecture, cultural attractions, shopping, restaurants, and historic landmarks. Our Parade-Only tours do have inclusions or options to Pasadena-based events such as BandFest, FloatFest, and lunch at a local Pasadena restaurant. Check our packages for more details!
The area surrounding Pasadena also offers easy access to many of Southern California’s best-known destinations. Diamond Travel offers travel package add-ons that let you take in the local popular attractions, such as tours of The Warner Bros Studio, The Ronald Reagan Library, The Getty Center, Los Angeles city highlights, and Huntington Gardens.
Can you attend both the Rose Parade and the Rose Bowl game?
Yes! For college football fans, attending the Rose Parade and Rose Bowl Game during the same trip can create an unforgettable New Year’s experience.
The Rose Bowl Game, known as “The Granddaddy of Them All,” is rich in history and one of college football’s most celebrated traditions. Held at the historic Rose Bowl Stadium in Pasadena, the game brings together top college football teams that have qualified for the College Football Playoff Quarterfinals and fans of the teams and the bowl game from across the country. Combining the Rose Parade and Rose Bowl Game allows visitors to experience two of the country’s most iconic New Year’s traditions during one trip.
Diamond Travel offers Rose Parade and Rose Parade + Rose Bowl Game travel packages that bring together accommodations, reserved Rose Parade seating, Rose Bowl Game tickets, transportation, carefully planned experiences, and on-site tour hosts.
How early should you book a Rose Parade trip?
Because the Rose Parade is one of the most popular annual events in Southern California, visitors should plan their trip well in advance. The earlier you begin planning your Rose Parade trip, the more options you are likely to have when it comes to accommodations, seating, travel packages, and optional excursions.
The Rose Parade attracts visitors from around the world, and popular travel dates can create high demand for hotels and other travel services. Travelers who want specific hotels, preferred seating, or a particular package should consider planning as early as possible in the year to take advantage of the best availability in tour selections.
In our experience, late August or early September is when people start to make travel plans. However, booking early can also give you more time to organize flights, secure your hotel reservations, and plan additional Southern California experiences around the parade.
Why choose Diamond Travel?
The benefit of booking a professionally planned travel package is that all of the details, some of which you may have never knew were important, are coordinated for you. Instead of arranging every part of your trip separately with different vendors, hoping they are reputable or have the best quality, you can enjoy a thoughtfully designed itinerary, created to maximize the Rose Parade experience and planned by some of the most experienced professionals in the industry. Because we attend the event every year and work directly with local partners, we know all of the exact details that make a Rose Parade trip memorable.
At Diamond Travel, our team has more than 40 years of expertise carefully creating Rose Parade and Rose Bowl travel experiences. We carefully plan all of the travel elements so our guests can spend less time worrying about logistics and more time enjoying their trip. We are very highly rated by our guests because they very much appreciate our attention to detail.
For over four decades, Diamond Travel has specialized in creating unforgettable travel experiences centered around the Pasadena Rose Parade and Rose Bowl Game. Our team understands that a great event trip is about more than simply purchasing a ticket. It is about bringing together the right accommodations, transportation, seating location, activities, tour guides, and experiences to create a seamless and memorable journey.
When you travel with Diamond Travel, you benefit from:
More Than 40 Years of Experience
Our decades of experience help us understand the details that can make a difference when planning a Rose Parade or Rose Parade + Game trip.
Thoughtfully Designed Travel Packages
Our packages combine key elements to make your comfortable and convenient, including transportation, on-site tour hosts, and keen attention to detail.
Reserved Rose Parade Seating
Enjoy the parade from a designated grandstand seat rather than worrying about finding a viewing location on your own. We also include a souvenir seat cushion and the sun will be at your back and out of your eyes.
Expert Travel Planning
Our experienced team of planners and guides handle the details so you can focus on enjoying Pasadena and the excitement of the Tournament of Roses!
