Travel: What's on worldwide

18-26 JULY

Canada

The highlight of many a post-pub telly session, Montreal's "Just for Laughs" comedy festival keeps on growing. This year's event features some 600 comedians playing more than 1,000 shows at both indoor and outdoor venues. The street festival - the world's largest comedy event - attracts more than a million people and features animation and experimental comedy. Over the years it has showcased Roseanne, Bill Hicks, Graham Chapman and Eddie Izzard. Expect the usual displays of surreal street art and kooky carnival processions from the Quebecoise plus, this year, a special Britcom appearance.

19-20 JULY

St Lucia

It's carnival time again. The first bands strike up at 4pm, so once you've got stuck in forget all thoughts of ever getting to bed. Costumed revellers parade through the streets virtually round the clock. On 20 July prizes are handed out for carnival kings and queens, as the rum-fuelled Street Jump-Up concludes. Only then is it time for some shut-eye.

19-25 JULY

United States

Do you bear an uncanny resemblance to the author Ernest Hemingway? Then get yourself down to Florida's Key West for the 10-day-long Hemingway Days Festival, including a hotly contested look-alike competition. Florida was Hemingway's home during the 1930s, and it was here that he wrote For Whom The Bell Tolls and A Farewell To Arms, among other books. Attractions include the running of the bulls, street parades, literary events, short story competitions, twilight parties and a Caribbean street fair.

20 JULY

Belgium

Meet some of the scariest characters outside of a Marilyn Manson concert at the Sabbath of the Macralles at Vielsalm in the Ardennes. Make your way through the town's winding streets to meet the Macralles - witches and spell-casters with noses like nutcrackers, ferocious glares and toothless mouths. Illuminated by torchlight, they stir cauldrons of tchatcha (a delicious bilberry cream) while gleefully recalling how they have plagued the locals throughout the year. Satan - in the form of the Neur Bo, or black goat - presides. Be very afraid.

21 JULY

Jordan

If you like your festivals to take place against a stunning backdrop then you could do no better than to attend the Jerash Festival of Culture and Arts. This two-week festival is set in the well-preserved city of the Decapolis, a confederation of 10 Roman cities dating from the first century BC. This event stars theatre troupes, ballet and folkdance groups from the Middle East and Europe, as well as exhibiting Jordanian craftwork such as Bedouin carpets, jewellery and ceramics.

Sound and light shows take place every day except Friday. The Original Shakespeare Company will be performing A Midsummer Night's Dream in their usual hectic seat-of-the-pants fashion, without any director, rehearsals or even script. This, apparently, was how Shakespeare himself created his plays.

24-25 JULY

England

The family festival at Richborough Roman Fort in Kent rewrites history as the invaders are routed by a terrifying army of puppets made of vegetables, led by the mighty Boudicca. Young volunteer legionnaires can practise drilling in formation, take part in a Roman wedding and try their hand at a spot of mosaic-making. Witness wild Celts and first-century Roman troops in the flesh, eat Roman delicacies and enjoy period crafts at this event, which is organised by English Heritage. Fulfil all those Asterix fantasies you've harboured for so long.