To the sun, or to the snow: you don't always have to choose between two!
Most people debate how they are going to spend their vacations, the decision between a ski trip and a vacation to someplace warm can a tough one. However it is not always necessary to make the decision. There are destinations and certain times of the year when you get both snow on a vacation and sun. Not surprisingly these are fairly popular trips which have both advantages and disadvantages.
Depending on where you plan to take your vacation and at what time of year you may be able to spend one day lying on the beach and the next skiing. In fact there are a lot of locations that offer combined ski and golf vacations because they have the ideal weather for both. In most cases this is in areas that have fairly mild winters and the best time to go is usually in the spring, although even here there are exceptions.
The reason that you can take a vacation that allows you both sun and snow is that the temperature gets lower as you go up. The result is that the mountains may very well still have ample snow on them for skiing while at lower levels the weather is quite nice and sun is shining. This is especially true in the spring since it takes a long time for the snow on the mountains to melt. As a result most of the areas that offer these kinds of vacations are along the edges of the mountains or in valleys so that you can get a large elevation difference within a fairly small area.
There are obvious advantages to taking a vacation that allows you to take advantage of both sun and snow. The biggest is that you will have a much wider range of activities available. A ski vacation can be all kinds of fun but most people don't want to spend the whole trip with nothing to do but ski. The better weather also tends to make the skiing more enjoyable since it will be warmer and more pleasant on the mountain as well as at lower elevations.
There are a few things that you have to keep in mind if you are going to take a snow and sun vacation. The first is that this is usually the busiest time of the year for the ski hills. Everybody wants to take advantage of the good weather and get some skiing in before they close for the season. The result is that the lines can be fairly long at the lifts. The other thing to keep in mind is that it may be hard to find accommodation and it may be fairly expansive. There will be a lot of other tourists there at the same time as you.
