For winter sports fans, attending the Winter Olympics is a dream. But getting to this year’s Games, which are split between Milan and Cortina, Italy, and begin Feb. 6, is a pricey proposition, with sky-high hotel rates and limited availability. More than one million tickets have been sold to events that include Alpine and Nordic skiing, as well as snowboarding, figure skating, hockey, bobsled, curling and more.
If you’re not going to make it to Europe, you can have an Olympic experience closer to home, watching high-level competitions (some serving as warm-ups for the Olympic events) and even taking part in sports like ski jumping and skeleton at sites across North America (some of the venues have hosted previous Games or will host them in the future).