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Pack your wettie and your skis and take off on a thrill-seeking Californian day trip. Spend your morning surfing the friendly Bolinas break locals have tried so desperately to keep secret (they remove road signs almost as soon as they’re put up), then buckle up for the four-hour drive to Squaw Valley, host of the 1960 Winter Olympics. There’s no need to rush – runs are floodlit by night, giving you plenty of time to ride the legendary slopes.
If you decide to add Cyprus to your next itinerary, put a few days aside for some fun in the snow. That’s right, in the heart of the Troodos Mountains, Mount Olympus has four ski slopes.
It’s a short season, from January to March, and it’s all pretty gentle, but it does have the honour of being one of the few places in the world where you can get your hit of snow-based action for part of the day then sunbake yourself silly at a beach resort just an hour later. Nearby Paphos has 27 beaches ranging from very popular to almost deserted, the perfect way to warm up after your unexpected snow experience.
When you hit slopes around the world you expect vistas daubed in snow, but the pistes of Sierra Nevada boast panoramas far more unusual – the shimmering expanse of the Mediterranean Sea. Andalucían rays beam down on Europe’s southernmost ski slopes most days of the year, making it the ideal place to go if you’re torn between sun and snow.
Morocco tends to conjure thoughts of tagines, deserts and inescapable heat, so you’ll be forgiven for forgetting to pack your skis. Yet only 70 kilometres from Marrakesh, the Atlas Mountains are home to Oukaïmeden, Africa’s highest ski resort.
Oukaïmeden offers a Moroccan take on the classic sport. Clamber onto a donkey instead of a chairlift, haggle for a cheap set of skis and spend a bizarre après-ski in awe of the snake charmers and street performers who roam Jemaa El Fna.
While some wring their hands at the mention of shrinking glaciers, a beautiful side-effect of glacial retreat peppers Alaska’s Prince William Sound. A 16-kilometre trail of ever-changing ice sculptures graces the bay, creating a striking landscape best explored by kayak. It’s a two-hour water taxi trip to the Columbia Glacier, but keep your eyes peeled along the way for seals, sea lions and, if you’re lucky, whales.
The thought of walking into an igloo in a bathing suit is enough to make anyone shiver. But Engelberg Iglu-Dorf has its own in-igloo spa and sauna equipped with a heating system to fend off the cold. The igloo village it resides in is built from scratch every year, and the spa igloo accommodates up to six guests within its icy walls, which are adorned with Inuit art carvings. It’s a constant –5°C inside, but the 38°C jacuzzi will make you forget the chill.
Hunting for lunch on a frozen river sounds like a macho way to fill your belly. Not in Japan, where ice-fishing oozes cuteness and culminates in bowls full of crunchy wakasagi (tempura smelt fish). Colourful tents rise from Sapporo’s solid Barato River, some with portable heaters offering respite from the cold (find one and make friends with the owners).
If you’ve done enough tropical dives to have found Nemo 50 times over, it’s time for a new adventure. Grab the thickest possible drysuit, check the water is clear from floating chunks of ice and roll into Greenland’s Disko Bay.
The thick-skinned take off from Ilulissat, where 20 million tonnes of ice fall per day, for a hit of iceberg diving. The ocean temperature hovers around freezing point, but exploring the shifting and sighing underwater world of icebergs is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
With events including coffin racing, a hearse parade and frozen turkey bowling, Frozen Dead Guy Days seem more like a scene in a Tim Burton film than an annual festival in the quiet mountain community of Nederland, Colorado.
Skim the clouds in a chopper then swoop into some of the most remote landscapes on earth in the north of Ethiopia. Each day you’ll witness panoramic views from the cabin of your private helicopter as it takes you to places only a handful of people have ever stood. Touch down in the Simien Mountains as first light illuminates its pinnacles and plateaus. Here, bearded vultures plunge from cliffs, scavenging for carcasses in the deep valleys below. Bleeding-heart baboons, found only in Ethiopia, journey in harems of 800, and rare Ethiopian wolves and walia ibex roam the World Heritage-listed national park.
This is a land steeped in history, with all the traditions you’d expect from one of the world’s oldest Christian nations. You’ll visit churches hidden in caves and hewn from rock almost 1,000 years ago.
And if hell were a tangible place it would take the form of the otherworldly Danakil Depression, where temperatures throttle the thermometer, making it the hottest place on the planet. Magma from the Erta Ale volcano spits and hisses from the ground and acid lakes sit in lurid ponds.
In the afternoon, you’ll soak out the heat in freshwater pools and return at night to lodges that nod to the traditions of the region, with the addition of modern amenities and luxurious trimmings. It’s an experience unlike any other – after all, more people have visited the moon than set foot in some of the locations you’ll explore.
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