Winter holiday planning tends to split people into two camps, and Condé Nast Traveler's December 2026 issue leans happily into both. On one side: the pull of snow, firelight and mountain towns transformed overnight. On the other: the equally tempting case for booking a January flight somewhere warm, precisely when the Christmas lights come down and everything back home turns grey.
The snow camp gets its flagship in Banff, which the issue frames as winter at its most cinematic — adventure, exhilaration and romance rolled into one Canadian package. The magazine's editor traces her own love of cold-weather travel back to a first real blizzard during her freshman year in Pennsylvania, where a roommate hauled her out of bed to make snow angels at midnight. Two lessons followed: she turned out to be a hopeless skier, and a devoted convert to après-ski — hot chocolate, crackling fireplaces and blankets being the real point of the whole exercise.
Then there's winter sun, and the editor has a clear itinerary in mind for January: Tenerife in Spain's Canary Islands, Boracay in the Philippines, or Brisbane in Australia. The logic is simple — by the time the festive season wraps up, a dose of vitamin D stops being a luxury and starts feeling essential. She recalls past end-of-year escapes to the Maldives, Indonesia and Mexico in similarly fond terms: sunrises over water, palm trees, fresh coconut water and spicy local food.
The appeal for travellers is the timing itself. November and December reward those who lean into the cold — city Christmas lights in London and New York, street-corner chestnuts, alpine towns at their most atmospheric. January, by contrast, is the month that tests everyone's resolve, which is exactly why it's prime season for long-haul beach trips. Fares to the tropics often dip after the New Year rush, and destinations like the Maldives, Southeast Asia and Mexico sit comfortably inside their dry seasons then.
Practically, the piece is a nudge to book both kinds of trip: one winter escape that embraces the season, and one that flees it. Skiers and non-skiers alike can take heart from the editor's admission that the fireside half of a ski holiday can justify the flight on its own. And beach-bound travellers don't need much persuading — just somewhere colourful and sparkly to wear on the sand.
Who is this for? Anyone still dithering over the winter calendar. If you haven't locked in plans yet, the message from the issue is simple: there are good reasons to feel excited about the months ahead, whether that means boots in the Canadian Rockies or sandals on a Philippine island. Full credit to the original feature in the December 2026 issue of Condé Nast Traveler.
