Walking in a winter wonderland – Telegraph

Cross-country skiing is not for the faint of heart – there’s no other workout quite like it, as you push and glide (and huff and puff) across kilometres of flat tracks in the fresh winter air. One of the best places to put your body to the test is Oberammergau’s Ammer Valley, in the foothills of the Bavarian Alps, where there are 100km of cross-country skiing trails. The King Ludwig Run, from Oberammergau to Linderhof, is a healthy 26km round trip, while the circular Ettaler Runde is a mere 4km, so you’ll be back in time to have the sauna all to yourself. The most convenient place to stay near the ski area is the Oberammergau Youth Hostel, which has a mix of dormitories and family rooms, serves packed lunches (on request) and hires out sledges, snowshoes and cross-country skiing equipment.

• Oberammergau Youth Hostel (0049 882 291 2740; www.oberammergau.jugendherberge.de); £16 per person for b b, £20 half board and £23 full board. Further information on the Oberammergau ski area at www.oberammergau.de (German only).

Join the Sami reindeer migration in Norway

Travel like the Sami – with the Sami. Norwegian tour operator Turgleder offers a unique opportunity to join Scandinavia’s indigenous people as they follow the annual migration of reindeer from their inland winter habitat in the far north of Norway to their coastal grazing land. This is emphatically not a made-for-tourism experience: the Sami use one or two snowmobiles to carry their equipment

Article source: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/snowandski/6726221/Walking-in-a-winter-wonderland.html