(FORTUNE Magazine) – Have you heard enough about the millennium? Too bad. The talk has barely begun. Millennium watchers predict that the two years of promotional run-ups that lie ahead of us will reach peak intensity six months before the precious date. From then on it'll be a flat-out din, to say nothing about the post-game wrap-ups. Already the lemmings are lining up for millennial cruises and hotel extravaganzas and global sat-link parties and expeditions to Kilimanjaro and Machu Picchu. Perhaps you, too, are feeling anxious that in order not to miss out on the biggest bash in history, you'll have to do something really spectacular--and expensive--on the night of Dec. 31, 1999.

Well, we have a different approach: Just skip it. Because while the Big 2000 might be capitalism's best invention since Christmas, the night won't ever be able to live up to its fabulous expectations. In light of that, we're here to offer a few ways you can smartly turn your back on the entire event. In fact, most of our destinations and strategies should prove effective for those wishing to blow off New Year's not just in 2000 but this year, next year, and well into the new century.

First, let's look at the millennium hype to understand why it's not worth getting sucked into. For starters, the date itself turns out to be just another scam put over on us by crooked politicians. Originally a new year in most cultures began at planting time--late March in our hemisphere, the natural time to start anew. Then, in Roman times, officials attempting to lengthen their terms of office stretched out the years by throwing in some extra days. Others resisted, and the start of the year slipped up and down the calendar for centuries; in fact, it wasn't until 1752 that Britain and its colonies (including us) gave up on March 25 as the start of the new year.

Of course, all this pertains to only one calendar: our Christian, Gregorian one, which has been insinuated upon the rest of the world by way of Western businesses and governments. Yet other cultures have alternative ways of counting to 365, and when our own clock strikes 2000 there will be some people out there who won't be on the same page.

This is good news for those of us looking to miss this party: "One-third of the world will care significantly, one-third will notice it, and one-third will barely be aware of it," estimates historian Peter Stearns. Here, then, are five places on the planet where you can be sophisticatedly unaware--to thumb your nose at the New Year's tradition in general, and the millennial czars in particular.

--Timeless Yemen. Muslims measure time not from a birthing in Bethlehem but from the year the Prophet Mohammed took his message from Mecca to Medina. By the Islamic calendar, our Big Two Thou falls on an ordinary day seven months into the year 1420. In rural parts of the most isolated Islamic countries, like Saudi Arabia and Iraq, you wouldn't ever have to worry about getting hit in the eye by a champagne cork. But you might not be allowed into those countries either.

Egypt, Jordan, and the other more globally integrated Muslim nations officially observe both calendars, but the Christian one vastly predominates. Even in the distant sultanate of Oman, remote villages have satellite dishes for keeping up with the world.

So to get away--to really get away--you'd want to go to Yemen. Here is a country, stuck off at the end of the Arabian Peninsula, that has let tourists poke around for less than 20 years. It's still a tribal society. The men often have daggers hanging from their waists. (Admittedly, Western travelers occasionally get kidnapped by tribes trying to blackmail the government. But the captives are treated well, returned after a few days, and always end up with better travel stories to tell than anyone else.)

Turtle Tours (602-488-3688) leads customized four-wheel-drive explorations of Yemen for two or more people into the deserts and mountains, through the Empty Quarter, past Bedouin camps, to ancient skyscraper cities carved out of stone by the legions of the Queen of Sheba. When you're standing in the ruins of the Land of 1,001 Nights, says Irma Turtle, who has been there, "it's hard to imagine anyone would be thinking about blowing noisemakers at midnight."

--Orthodox Israel. The Jewish calendar is dated from the time the world began, which makes a lot of sense. By this reckoning, our Celebration 2000 will come during the third month of the year 5760. Still, most of Israel lives and breathes by the Christian calendar. Plans are afoot for snazzy celebrations in Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Nazareth.

To get lost, you'll need to return to the past. The neighborhood of Mea Sha'arim, in Jerusalem's New City, offers some hope; it's the last remaining example of a Jewish shtetl, or village, from pre-Holocaust Eastern Europe. From St. George's Cathedral Guesthouse (011-972-2628-3302), you can walk into Mea Sha'arim, where the people dress as their forebears did 200 years ago, covered from head to toe. They are dedicated to opposing the blasphemies of modern Israel and have fought with police to protest such innovations as coed swimming pools and driving on Saturdays. Modesty squads patrol the narrow streets to enforce the community dress code. A few women caught in the shtetl wearing bare-shouldered dresses have been attacked by moralists swinging chains, throwing stones, and slashing tires.

Kissing in public is also taboo. Thus, if you have the slightest inkling that you're going to celebrate a deux, stay away from Mea Sha'arim. This is no place for a traditional New Year's smooch.

--Among the calendarless. By the Hindu calendar, our 2000 will be the year 1921. Nevertheless, in India the big cities will be observing the millennium. If you want to fall off the calendar completely, go to India's Andaman Islands out in the Bay of Bengal (tourist information: 212-586-4901). Here two indigenous tribes of Negrito hunter-gatherers, the Jarawas and Great Sentinelese, have used their bows and arrows to ward off almost all contact with the outside world. Do these people count the days that fall within the seasons of a year? No one gets close enough to find out, except for parties of anthropologists who go bearing gifts.

The nearest that travelers can approach is the village of Kadamtala, on the edge of the Jarawa reserve. There's a comfortable government rest house there that serves meals, and sometimes when the moon is bright, late at night, you might be lucky enough to catch a glimpse of the Original Ones, who sneak into the village to steal things made out of metal.

--Savai'i Island, Western Samoa. In December's waning days two years from now, the countdown crowds will be massing in bewildering numbers on those South Pacific islands of Tonga, Kiribati, and Fiji, which lie just west of the International Date Line, to earn the fleeting privilege of being the first humans to experience the new millennium. Later that day they'll hop east across the date line to some island where it will still be the last day of 1999, and start partying all over again.

To avoid the double hangover, try the same route in reverse. Spend the night of the 30th on unspoiled Savai'i, the westernmost island in Western Samoa, which has a richly conservative Polynesian culture. Stay at the Safua Hotel (011-685-51271), or have its savvy proprietor, Moelagi Jackson, arrange a stay in a native village.

Then, on the 31st, when the millennial double-dippers are streaming east across the date line to recelebrate in Samoa, you can hop the other way over to Tonga or Fiji, where the hallowed midnight hour will have passed.

--Lost in flight. A man in Florida is chartering a Concorde and inviting people to join him in chasing after the departing millennium by surfing the time zones--touching down for successive midnight galas in Paris, then Newfoundland, then Vancouver, then Hawaii. The cost for this extravaganza is $65,000, and 80 people are said to be on the waiting list.

But there's a cheaper way to fly in the same direction, and it turns out to be the easiest scheme of all for being able to boast to your grandchildren some day: "I blew off the Big 2000!"

Book a seat on Qantas Airlines' flight No. 8, which is scheduled to leave Los Angeles at 12:50 P.M. on Dec. 31, 1999. As you're approaching the magic date line, it will be eight that evening, Samoa time. Down below, the double-dippers will just be putting on their stupid hats for the second round.

Four hours later you'll land in Sydney at 10:25 p.m., the end of New Year's Day. All the Aussies will have hit the sack, exhausted. Before it has even begun for you, the party will be over--at last.