Where to go in January, when the Christmas lights come down

There is a particular kind of British January: the decorations back in the loft, the days lengthening by a minute or two that nobody can detect, and the rain arriving sideways. It is the month when the travel brochures land on the doormat, which is no coincidence. It is also, for anyone with the time to go, one of the better months to travel, because the choice divides very neatly into three. You can follow the sun south, you can go and meet the winter properly where it does winter well, or you can cross the equator and have a second summer.

South, by sea, to the Atlantic islands

The Canary Islands and Madeira have been the British answer to January for well over a century. Victorian invalids were sent to Madeira for the air, and the islands have kept a mild, even climate ever since: days in the low twenties, cooler evenings, and sea that is bracing rather than warm. It is spring weather rather than summer weather, which suits walking, gardens and long lunches better than lying on a beach.

What makes this corner of the Atlantic especially appealing in January is that you can reach it without flying. A ship leaving the Thames spends its first days crossing the Bay of Biscay, which in winter can be lively, and then the air softens noticeably with every day south. Ambassador's long winter sailing does precisely this, and takes its time about it: twenty-three nights from Tilbury, calling at Porto and Lisbon on the way down, then Funchal, La Palma, Tenerife, Gran Canaria, Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, before turning for home by way of Casablanca, Tangier, Málaga, Cádiz and Gibraltar.

The islands are not all alike. La Palma is steep, green and volcanic, and noticeably quieter than its neighbours; Lanzarote is black lava and white houses, much of it shaped by eruptions in the eighteenth century and by the artist César Manrique in the twentieth; Gran Canaria has a proper city in Las Palmas, with an old quarter where Columbus is said to have stopped on his way west. Funchal, on Madeira, has flower markets, steep streets and a harbour that looks south towards nothing at all.

Into the snow, by train

The other January is the one that embraces the cold. Switzerland in winter is not merely a ski resort; it is one of the best-organised railway countries on earth, and its mountain lines run through the snow with a punctuality that seems almost smug. The great scenic trains are glass-roofed for a reason, and in January, with the valleys white and the sky often a hard, clear blue above the cloud, the reason is obvious.

Just You's winter railway tour, for people travelling on their own, is based around Interlaken and uses the lines the Swiss are proudest of: the Golden Pass route through Zweisimmen, the connection to Lucerne, and a day on the Glacier Express between Brig and Chur. The places listed also include Vitznau and Rigi Kulm, the summit reached by Europe's first mountain rack railway, opened in 1871. It departs between January and March, which is exactly when you want to be looking at the Alps from a warm carriage.

Or skip the winter altogether

The third answer is the boldest. January is high summer in New Zealand, with long days, warm weather in the north and the southern lakes at their bluest. It is a very long flight, the better part of a day in the air each way, and anyone who tells you the jet lag is manageable in a day or two is being generous. But if you are going to make the journey, this is the season to make it in.

Just You's seventeen-night tour covers both islands: Auckland, Rotorua and its geothermal country, Napier (rebuilt in Art Deco style after the 1931 earthquake), Wellington, and then the TranzAlpine train from Christchurch over Arthur's Pass to the West Coast. After that come Franz Josef Glacier, Queenstown, Milford Sound and the lakes of the Mackenzie Country. It is a lot of country for the time, and it is honest to say that some days involve a good deal of coach.

Closer to home, and yet still a very long way off, the Caribbean is in its dry season from roughly December to April, after the hurricane months and before the heat builds. Ambassador's long Caribbean sailing leaves Tilbury in January and spends forty-two nights on the round trip, crossing the Atlantic by way of the Azores and working through Barbados, Grenada, St Vincent, St Lucia, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica and the Virgin Islands before coming home. It is less a holiday than a winter spent somewhere else, which is the most complete answer to January there is.

Choosing between them

If you want warmth without an airport, take the ship south: the Canaries and Madeira in January are mild rather than hot, and the voyage is half the pleasure. If you would rather see winter looking its best, go to the Alps by train. If you have the time, the budget and the constitution for a long flight, go to New Zealand and come back with a tan in February, which will annoy everyone at work in a way that is entirely worth it.