horses for courses - Switzerland and parts of Austria have some nice looking resorts, St Moritz, Zermatt, Obergurgl - but Europe is also the home of the "garage in the sky" resorts like arcs, or la plagne. so not sure we have a complete right to feel superior. nowhere in the US is more than 200 years old, but they all have their own features - Breckenridge is authentic wild west, and the back bowls at vail are truly awesome. the feature of a lot of US resorts is the altitude of the resort base, which means you get drunk very quickly. personally I prefer Canada to the US; although the resorts are smaller, they're closer together so it's easier to visit a succession of them in one trip. all across the rockies are a selection of micro-breweries so a ski trip can also be a beer voyage of discovery; my favorite has to be "tree", brewed at Nelson in the kootenays. much nicer than fizzy eurobrew.