The Best Winter Sports Destinations

If you love the cold or take vacations a few times a year, you'll love these winter sports destinations. Keep reading to learn more!

If you’re thinking of taking a vacation when it’s cold, you won’t want to miss this article. Here, we’ll tell you about the best winter sports destinations in the world.

The best winter sports destinations

More and more people are choosing to take vacations outside of the summer, either as a second option for the year or a way to avoid large crowds. Whatever the case, if you love winter sports, we’ll tell you the best destinations to practice them:

1. Grandvalira (Andorra)

It’s one of the most beautiful ski resorts in the world. It’s located in the Pyrenees, from the center of Andorra to the border with France. Grandvalira- on the cover- is great for alpine skiing, since its skiable domain is 130 miles.

There are six different accesses, following the course of the Valira de Oriente river: Pas de la Casa, Grau Roig, El Peretol, Soldeu, El Tarter, Canillo, and Encamp. In addition to skiing, Grandvalira is great for snowmobiling, snowshoeing, snowboarding, mushing, and night skiing.

2. Winter sports destinations: Patinoire de Liége (Belgium)

Would you like to go ice skating? If so, you can’t miss stopping in this Belgian city. In this country, winter is very cold, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun. The lakes freeze, and everyone laces up their skates.

Also, even in Liege, you can enjoy a Christmas market with artificial ice rinks. Of course, another option is to visit the second-largest rink in the country. It was founded in 2012, it’s almost 6,000 square feet and bleachers to watch ice hockey games.

3. Spitsbergen (Norway)

Do you want to travel to Norway in the middle of January? Here, you can enjoy one of the most characteristic winter sports: dog sledding races.

If you want to go slower, you can! In fact, there are family tours among the birch forests of the Altadalen valley. The dogs that pull the sled are Alaskan Huskies. In general, they’re more robust than Siberian Huskies.

Spitsbergen is an island in the Arctic Circle. Therefore, in June, the sun shines 24 hours a day. Its name means “steep peaks” and was discovered in 1596.

4. Winter sports destinations: Pradaschier (Switzerland)

Tobogganing is another popular winter sport. Not only is it fun for kids, but it’s even an Olympic sport. In the Winter Olympics, you can watch bobsled, skeleton, and luge.

Although you might think otherwise, it’s not an expensive sport. All you have to do is rent the equipment and the sled, in addition to going to a track, such as Pradaschier. In fact, it’s the longest toboggan run in Europe. Its descent is seven minutes long at 1.8 miles and has 31 curves.

5. Yosemite National Park (United States)

Winter sports aren’t just for the ski slopes. There are others that you can do any time of year, but they’re a little more special in the colder months.

This is the case of the paths in Yosemite National Park in California, which draws the attention of hundreds of athletes. While there, you can see deep valleys, waterfalls, meadows, and giant trees. Therefore, it’s one of the best winter sports destinations.

6. Zermatt (Switzerland)

Another Swiss winter sports destination is Zermatt, more precisely the Matterhorn station. Here, among other things, you can do curling, a precision team sport. Each one has four participants who throw 40-pound granite stones on a track. Then, with a brush, they move them.

In addition, curling is a sport for all ages, and it’s lots of fun for kids on vacation. In Zermatt, there are 16 tracks to practice it, and there are rental equipment and materials.

Finally, other winter sports destinations are Aspen (United States), Chamonix (France), the Alps (France), Boqueria Beret (Spain), Niseko (Japan), Portillo (Chile), Wanaka (New Zealand), Mont Tremblant (Canada), Wilder Kaiser (Austria) and Holzhau (Germany). Choose your favorite for the next trip!