In one week, I will be in picturesque Davos, a ski town nestled in the Swiss Alps, covering the World Economic Forum for Forbes.

FORBES: Countdown to Davos

Last month, friends of two British skiers who went missing in Verbier in the Swiss Alps used Twitter to find their friends' cell phone numbers.

CNN: In an emergency, who do you call?

Once we spent the holidays high up in the Swiss Alps, where my body stiffened at the sight of deep hollow chasms emptied out of the rocky earth.

NEWYORKER: Naima

The Post-Office Girl by Stefan Zweig Christine, a young girl working in a postoffice in post-World War I Austria, has her life transformed when a rich aunt invites her to a resort in the Swiss Alps.

FORBES: Winter Reading

The Swiss justify their new road charges partly by the high cost of maintaining roads in the Alps.

ECONOMIST: Switzerland

For one of the prettiest drives in the region, follow the Maggia River out of Locarno through the idyllic Valle Maggia into the southern slope of the Swiss Alps.

BBC: Two days in the Italian Lakes