The Balloon and Wine Festival at Lake Skinner

The balloons are the reason to be there, and they happen at dawn

The balloon and wine festival is the largest event on the Temecula calendar, held out at Lake Skinner on the open grassland east of town. It combines the two things the valley is genuinely known for, and the wine half runs all day. The balloon half does not.

Balloons go up in the early morning, when the air is still and cool, and that is the part people remember. If you arrive at midday for the tasting and the music you have seen a festival on a field. If you get out there before dawn you have seen a couple of dozen envelopes inflating in the half-dark with the vineyards behind them. The gap between those two experiences is the whole decision.

The standing caveat with anything involving balloons here applies: flights and mass ascensions cancel for wind and fog, and nobody can promise you otherwise. Treat the morning as likely rather than certain, and bring something warm, because the launch field before sunrise is far colder than a Temecula afternoon suggests.

This is one of the weekends the whole valley sells out

Event weekends here fill lodging valley-wide months in advance, and this is the biggest of them. The balloon and wine festival, the Old Town car shows, spring graduation weekends and every holiday weekend all do it. Book early or take different dates, because there is no late-availability version of this weekend.

Where you stay changes the day. Old Town is the only walkable option and the natural base if you want dinner without driving, but Front Street stays busy on Friday and Saturday nights and event weekends bring crowds and street closures right past your window. Wine Country along Rancho California Road and De Portola Road puts you among the vineyards and closer to Lake Skinner, at the cost of driving for everything else.

The traffic is predictable enough to plan around. Interstate 15 congests southbound on Friday afternoons and northbound on Sunday afternoons as weekend traffic moves between San Diego and the Inland Empire. Rancho California Road backs up heading east through late morning on busy Saturdays and again when the tasting rooms empty out. In Old Town the street parking and the public structure off Sixth Street both fill by mid-morning on festival weekends.

Dates move year to year. Confirm this year's with the organiser before you book the house.