Ten cities where the night never really ends

Some cities close; others simply change gear. In the ten below, midnight is a starting pistol — dinner might begin at eleven, clubs peak at four and breakfast doubles as the afterparty. Each has its own flavour of late: techno cathedrals, rooftop cocktails, night markets, tango at dawn. Pace yourself like a local (late start, long night), keep the next day empty, and remember: nobody impressive arrives before one.

The undisputed heavyweight. Berlin's clubs open on Friday and close on Monday, bouncers are philosopher-kings and daylight inside is considered a design flaw. Beyond the techno temples of Berghain and about-to-be-legendary warehouses, there are lakeside bars, smoky jazz kellers and spätis — corner shops where the street party self-organises. Sleep is available in other cities.

Bangkok layers its nights: street-food feasts at midnight, rooftop skybars sixty floors up, live bands on Khao San, night markets that never quite finish. The city's genius is range — you can go glamorous, grungy or gloriously weird within a single evening and a handful of pounds. Finish with 3am boat noodles; the vendors have seen everything and judge nothing.

Nowhere treats sleep with such contempt. Porteños sit down to steak at 11pm, hit the boliches at 2am and consider sunrise a natural part of the evening. Between the mega-clubs of Costanera and the speakeasies of Palermo, find a milonga — a tango hall where every age dances with total seriousness. Fernet and cola is the fuel; Monday is for recovery.

The Mediterranean's most relentless party city runs on a simple loop: beach until sunset, dinner until midnight, dance until dawn, hummus to recover. Rothschild Boulevard and the Florentin district pack bars shoulder to shoulder, and Thursday is the big night of the local weekend. The music scene punches far above the city's size — and everything is walkable, including home.

Seoul's nights are a neon relay: Korean barbecue with soju, then noraebang — private karaoke rooms where dignity goes to die happily — then clubs in Hongdae or Itaewon, then 4am fried chicken. Whole districts function on a 24-hour clock, including saunas where you can sleep off the evening for a few thousand won. Round two, jimjilbang, round three: repeat.

Music leaks from every doorway in the French Quarter, but the real magic sits on Frenchmen Street, where brass bands, funk and jazz roll from club to club until the small hours. Drinks can legally walk with you between venues — civilisation, of a kind. Come for a festival if you can; the city treats Tuesday like a celebration and celebrations like religion.

Spanish hours turn every visit into endurance training: tapas crawls begin at ten, clubs like Razzmatazz and Pacha don't blink before two, and the beachfront xiringuitos catch the sunrise shift. Between them lie the Gothic Quarter's cave-like cocktail bars and El Born's vermouth joints. The metro runs all night on Saturdays — Barcelona has thought this through.

Belgrade's summer secret is the splavovi — floating clubs moored along the Sava and Danube, pumping everything from techno to turbo-folk until sunrise paints the water. Winter moves the party into cavernous basements downtown. It's raw, cheap and genuinely friendly, with a live-music undercurrent that ranges from gypsy brass to disco. The hangover breakfast is burek, always.

Madrid treats bedtime as a foreign concept: dinner at ten is considered eager, and the crowd drifts from vermouth in La Latina to indie dance floors in Malasaña and the vast clubs off Gran Vía without anyone checking a watch. Churros con chocolate at San Ginés — serving more or less around the clock — is the official full stop to the evening. Go out on a Thursday, when madrileños do the night for themselves rather than for visitors.

Africa's loudest, most self-assured night out. Lagos runs on Afrobeats and audacity, from rooftop lounges in Victoria Island and Lekki to the sweat-and-horns communion of the New Afrika Shrine in Ikeja, where Femi Kuti keeps his father's flame burning on Sunday nights. December — Detty December — is the season, when the diaspora flies home and the whole city becomes one long concert. Arrange drivers in advance; the traffic is part of the plot.