The grand tour

"Look around you! Have you ever seen something like this? Just  LOOK! "  ~ Michele Barbiero, a mountain guide for adventure tour operator Dolomite Mountains

Bulky bags, unwieldly equipment — you know the drill. The last thing you want to be doing is lugging it all to new lodgings every night.

But on a Dolomite Mountains ski safari, the only thing to do is yourself. Your luggage? It's waiting when you arrive at the next hotel. And forget about plotting a route because your guide leads the way. The most mentally taxing thing you'll be asked to do is choose a wine.

Tours are bespoke and span the full spectrum of sleeping arrangements, so there's flexibility with the budget. Choose to stay in traditional “rifugios” (family-operated mountain huts), or indulge in some hushed luxury at somewhere like Aman Rosa Alpina — the first Aman property in the Italian Alps, which opened in the village of San Cassiano (part of the Alta Badia ski resort) in July last year. Starting in Alta Badia makes a lot of sense. Its wide, benign groomers help ease you into the week, and the valleys are sprinkled with gorgeous villages. Ski infrastructure is exemplary across the Dolomites. A shiny new gondola whisks us up the base of Sas dla Crusc, a hulking limestone massif that rears above the village of Badia. It's worth popping your head into the La Crusc church, a tiny white chapel pinned improbably to the mountain's flank. For centuries it's been a Ladin pilgrimage site, and it's such a nice spot that even Jesus spends his summers here — the townsfolk below lugging a statue of him up each spring, and back down again in autumn.

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