Across the Alps and beyond, the mountain resorts that set the standard, from the grand hotels of St. Moritz and the discretion of Gstaad to the powder of Niseko.
The slopes above the altiport in Courchevel
The Alps are home to some of the grandest hotels in the world, and the reason is largely historical. Winter tourism began here, with a wager made over a St. Moritz dinner table in 1864, and the century that followed built palaces for the travelers it drew. What remains is a run of mountain resorts as celebrated for their hotels as for their skiing.
The choice of resort decides the character of the trip. These are the ten to know.
St. Moritz, Switzerland
Where the idea started, and where alpine winter tourism was born. At 1,856 meters in the Engadin, above a lake that freezes enough most winters for horse racing and cricket on the ice, St. Moritz remains the grandest and most social of the alpine resorts, with hotels that have hosted the same families for generations. Badrutt’s Palace has been the landmark since 1896, its tower rising over the lake. The Kulm, founded in 1856 by the Badrutt who made the winter wager, is the historian’s choice, and Suvretta House sits apart on its own estate, with a private lift into the Corviglia ski area. Explore more of St. Moritz.
Inside Suvretta House, St. Moritz. Photo: Suvretta House
Courchevel, France
The most rarefied address in the French Alps, and the gateway to Les 3 Vallées, the largest linked ski area in the world. Courchevel 1850 keeps a particular polish, with ski valets and a Michelin density out of proportion to its size, and the hotels match it. Aman Le Mélézin sits directly on the Bellecôte piste with 28 rooms and a hushed spa across two floors, and Rosewood opened its first hotel in the French Alps in December 2025, in the Jardin Alpin, the wooded enclave at the top of the resort. Après-ski means champagne on the terraces of Le Chalet de Pierres, on the Verdons piste, and Le Cap Horn, beside the altiport where the private jets land. Later, Les Caves, one of the most famous nightclubs in the Alps, stays open until dawn. Explore more of Courchevel.
Chalets under fresh snow in Courchevel Moriond. Photo: Courchevel Tourisme
Gstaad, Switzerland
A village that has made discretion its motto. The center is a traffic-free promenade of chalets, the wealth is generations deep, and the pleasures run to long lunches and slow afternoons as much as to the slopes. The Alpina Gstaad, home to Switzerland’s first Six Senses Spa, is the modern benchmark, and the Gstaad Palace has kept the classic silhouette on the hill since 1913. The Park Gstaad is set to reopen under Four Seasons in the summer of 2027, after a renovation by Joseph Dirand.
The Alpina Gstaad. Photo: The Alpina Gstaad
Andermatt, Switzerland
The quiet transformation story of the Alps. The Rhine, the Rhône, and two other rivers begin in the mountains around Andermatt, which is why the region is known as the heart of the Alps. A garrison town turned serious destination, it pairs some of Switzerland’s most reliable snow with The Chedi, whose alpine-Asian interiors and glass-roofed 35-meter pool changed what a Swiss mountain hotel could look like. A new village has grown up around the hotel, with a concert hall and an 18-hole golf course. The skiing links with the next valleys for 180 kilometers of slopes, from gentle, open runs to some of the steepest off-piste in Switzerland, and above the village The Japanese at Gütsch serves Michelin-starred sushi at 2,300 meters, reached by gondola. Zurich is about 80 minutes away by car, and the Glacier Express, the scenic train between Zermatt and St. Moritz, also stops in town.
Winter light in Andermatt
Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy
The Queen of the Dolomites, ringed by the pale towers that make these the most beautiful mountains in the Alps and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. At sunset the rock turns pink, a glow the locals call enrosadira. Cortina is thoroughly Italian: the skiing stops for long lunches at the mountain huts, the evening passeggiata along the pedestrian Corso Italia matters as much as the slopes, and a single lift pass opens more than 1,200 kilometers of runs across the Dolomites. In 2026 the town co-hosted the Winter Olympics, seventy years after its own Games in 1956.
Snow-covered huts in the Dolomites. Photo: IDM Südtirol
Zermatt, Switzerland
Car-free, surrounded by glaciers, and arranged entirely around the most recognizable mountain in the Alps. Zermatt moves by electric taxi and the rail line up from Täsch, and every terrace in town turns toward the Matterhorn. The skiing is some of the best in the Alps, with one of the longest runs in the world: a single 22-kilometer descent from the glacier at 3,883 meters down to Valtournenche in Italy. The slopes cross the border, so lunch can be in Italy and the afternoon back in Switzerland.
Riffelalp, on the ridge above Zermatt. Photo: Riffelalp Resort
Megève, France
Transformed into a ski resort in the 1920s, when Baroness Noémie de Rothschild set out to create a French answer to St. Moritz, and still the most elegant village in the French Alps. Its old lanes wind around a medieval church square, horse-drawn sleighs pass through the center, and the hotels are built in the farmhouse style rather than in glass and steel. The skiing is gentle, and the village is half the pleasure.
The pool at Lodge Park, Megève. Photo: Maisons & Hôtels Sibuet
Kitzbühel, Austria
The most storied race town in the Alps, home of the Hahnenkamm and the Streif, the most feared descent in skiing. Around the spectacle sits a medieval old town painted in pastels, parts of its wall and the Jochberg Gate still standing, with a casino, serious restaurants, and an Austrian warmth the glossier resorts cannot fake.
A hut above Kitzbühel in winter
Verbier, Switzerland
The freeride capital. Verbier’s terrain, the routes off Mont Fort and the 4 Vallées beyond, draws the strongest skiers in Europe, and the Bec des Rosses hosts the final of the Freeride World Tour each spring. Of the grand resorts, it is the one that still feels like a sport first.
A chalet in Verbier. Photo: Le Collectionist
Niseko, Japan
The outlier on the list and the reason many skiers cross the world. Niseko’s powder, ten to fifteen meters of dry snow on the mountain in a season, has no equivalent in Europe, and the onsen culture that follows the last lift makes the recovery as memorable as the run. The Alps invented the ski resort, but nowhere in them is the snow like this.
The spa tea room at Aman Niseko. Photo: Aman
Each of these resorts offers a different kind of trip, from the spectacle of St. Moritz to the silence of the Dolomites and the powder of Niseko. The Alps have been perfecting winter for more than a century.
