Ophidiophiles rejoice: the Chinese Year of the Snake is upon us – an excuse to explore the world’s scaliest, slitheriest spots. This article is an excerpt from Lonely Planet’s Best in Travel 2013.

Hell on earth for Indiana Jones: twice a year these limestone crevasses and caverns host the world’s biggest concentration of serpents – more than 50,000 red-sided garter snakes slithering, swarming and seducing. During the first weeks of May, masses of males emerge from their winter hibernation; frisky in the spring air, they descend in scores on receptive ladies as they appear, forming frantically writhing ‘mating balls’ – up to 100 males wrestling for the right to mate with each female. For a slightly less intense experience, return in September to see the snakes return to their hibernacula to enter their winter torpor.

Narcisse is 130km north of Winnipeg; viewing platforms are spaced along a 3km trail looping around the snake dens. See www.gov.mb.ca/conservation/wildlife/viewing/narcisse.html.

Venomous serpents? In Britain? Oh yes: to paraphrase the famous song, mad dogs and English snakes go out in the midday sun – and Dorset’s the place to see these beautifully zigzag-patterned vipers basking in sheltered, sun-kissed spots, typically among clumps of heather along the cliff paths, on commons or in woodland clearings. This southerly county boasts the full complement of the UK’s snake species, with rare smooth snakes and larger grass snakes making up the numbers. Walk softly on warm spring days to witness adders, newly woken from hibernation, coiled like ammonites – try Powerstock Common or Fontmell Down for reliable sightings.

Dorset Wildlife Trust manages several reserves where adders can be spotted – see www.dorsetwildlifetrust.org.uk.

Celebrate sacred serpents alongside India’s Hindus with a day of fasting and festivities at the height of the monsoon – when flooding forces many snakes from their lairs. Various legends connected with gods – Krishna’s defeat of the serpent Kalia; Vishnu’s snaky seat; Shiva’s reptile companions – inspire offerings of milk and flowers to cobras (both images and real, slithering specimens collected for the purpose), in the hope of securing protection against snakebites and evil in the home. The festival is celebrated most actively in West Bengal, Maharashtra and the southern states; in 2013 Naag Panchami falls on 11 August.

Head to Mannarsala Temple in Haripad, near Alappuzha, Kerala, for year-round snake-worshipping action. See www.mannarasala.org.

Do you do voodoo? If the thought gives you the heebie-jeebies, it might be an idea to give the coastal town of Ouidah a hiss – sorry, a miss. Here, in the heartland of West Africa’s traditional religion, the annual Voodoo Festival is celebrated each January with singing, dancing, drinking and sacrifices. Central to the worship of the snake-god Dan (or Dangbé) is the Temple des Serpents, where several dozen royal pythons doze, curled in a central hut until needed to communicate with the deity (and ready to be draped over your shoulders by a persuasive guide).

Ouidah is on Benin’s Atlantic coast. The Temple des Serpents is typically open from 8am to 7pm.

Snakes and spirituality are inextricably linked: these death-dealing, egg-laying reptiles allude to both the beginning and end of life, gods and demons, protection and destruction. We don’t know why the Great Serpent Mound was built – though alignment with celestial events suggests some astronomical significance – who built it, or when. Was it a product of the Adena culture in the first millennium BC? Or the work of the Fort Ancient culture around AD 1070? Whoever made it, it’s impressive: a 420m-long, turf-covered snake coiling through the trees in southern Ohio, mouth gaping to swallow the moon, the sun or perhaps a frog… A marvellous mystery.

The grounds are open daily, sunrise to sunset; the museum opens 10am to 5pm, weekends only in March, November and December (closed January and February).

There are plenty of big reasons to explore this wet and wild wonderland, which straddles the borders between Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay: capybara (the world’s biggest rodent), jaguars (the Americas’ biggest cat), giant river otters (the world’s biggest… oh, you guessed?). And then there’s the anaconda, the world’s heftiest snake – 8m and 200kg-plus of scale-clad muscle. They’re not venomous – no, instead they’re designed specifically for squeezing the life out of tasty mammals. That’d be you, then… With their beautifully patterned olive-brown skin, full-grown anacondas are entrancing to watch – just don’t get too mesmerised, or too close.

Watch for basking snakes on the Estrada Parque, a dirt road that runs through the south-centre of the Pantanal.

If a couple of very large snakes decide to take up residence, it pays to be nice to them. That’s the philosophy adopted by the monks of the Yadana Labamuni Hsu-taungpye Paya, the pagoda better known as Hmwe Paya, or ‘Snake Pagoda’. Here, some 40 years ago, a pair of pythons reportedly appeared, coiled around a statue of Buddha at this temple in Patheik, southwest of Mandalay. Today, their successors are treated with such reverence that the pagoda is virtually a snake spa: the reptiles receive a daily bath in a flower-filled pool, regular feedings and the freedom of the village.

Bath time is 11am daily; do explore the surrounding area, which is littered with hundreds of stupas and pagodas.

In the deepest waterholes lurks a gargantuan snake. Some call her Almudj or Ngalyod, others Myndie or Bunyip; she sings and names places, creates and shapes landscapes, protects and punishes. The Rainbow Serpent is a character that dominates the creation myths of Aboriginal peoples across Australia; where she passed, she left her mark in geological formations and ancient art painted on rocks. At Ubirr, in Kakadu National Park, Northern Territory, astonishing images – some daubed over 10,000 years ago – recreate legends and daily life. Among them, the Rainbow Serpent, known here as Garranga’rreli, writhes with power in her own rock gallery.

Ubirr is open 8.30am to sunset 1 April to 30 November, 2pm to sunset 1 December to 31 March.

Make a date with Kukulcán, the feathered serpent-god of the Maya, and head over to his place – the millennium-old step pyramid known as El Castillo at Chichén Itzá, in Mexico’s Yucatán. How does 20 March suit? Or perhaps 22 September? On those evenings – the spring and autumn equinoxes – the shadows cast by the setting sun against the northern slope create the illusion of two serpents (whose stone heads guard the base of the staircase) crawling down the pyramid, their slender bodies wriggling down the steps. Visit a day or two either side of the equinox to avoid the biggest crowds.

The site is open 8am to 5pm daily. Day trips from Cancún or Mérida are possible; stay overnight to devote more time to exploring.

A well-fed snake is a happy snake – and everyone prefers to be near a happy snake (hungry, bad-tempered snakes tend not to make the best companions). That’s why Isla Pájaros in Costa Rica’s Palo Verde National Park is the place to see boa constrictors: the national park attracts the greatest concentration of waterfowl and water birds in Central America – which means nests, which means eggs and chicks, which means dinner. Spot the serpents from the safety of a boat tour down the Río Tempisque, led by a ranger who can point out both reptile predators and avian prey.

Visit in the dry season – in January, water-bird nesting peaks, providing ample food for the boa constrictors.