Over the past century, winter sports areas have been created on all seven continents. There are regular snow resorts in about 80 countries plus indoor snow or artificial “dry” ski slopes in a few dozen more. Some of these are in countries you might not expect, and we’re launching a new feature this season looking at more unusual ski destinations for the adventurous!
Lesotho, Africa
Africa is the only continent with ski lifts located on each side of the equator so you can ski in the north of Africa in the northern hemisphere’s winter and the south in the southern hemisphere’s winter – almost year-round.
In fact, you will be able to ski in Africa year-round soon, as Egypt will soon open Ski Egypt in Cairo, the second indoor snow centre from the company behind Ski Dubai. What would the pharaohs have made of that?
In southern Africa there are two small ski areas, and they’ve both just finished their 2016 ski seasons, a snowy one for both. They’re Tiffindell in South Africa and Afriski in land-locked Lesotho.
Both have about a kilometre of snow slopes (on a good day) served by a couple of drag lifts, and while they can get big natural snowfalls, sometimes causing access problems, more often they survive on snowmaking. But who cares? You’re skiing in southern Africa in our summertime!
