Ski resorts, yachts or villas in nature reserves: Where billionaires spend their holidays

Many people spend the holiday season at home with friends or family. Meanwhile, the world's richest people head to ski resorts, country houses, and luxury resorts.

Here are some of the most popular vacation destinations for the ultra-wealthy during the holiday season. It is often a luxurious chalet in Gstaad, a yacht near St. Barts, or a hotel in the Caribbean for $3,000 per night," Business Insider writes.

Houses in ski resorts worth $30 million

Some of the world's richest people choose to spend Christmas Day itself at home, several wealth experts told Business Insider. However, often not in their main residences but in the homes where they spend their vacations.

"A lot of people build big houses in Aspen for this very reason: so the whole family can go and spend this time together," Nicole Pollard Bayme, founder of LALALUXE, a luxury home furnishings company specializing in luxury style, told BI.

According to Wealth-X, the Colorado ski resort has the highest density of property owners worth $30 million or more in the U.S. - one for every 67 residents - and billionaires such as Jeff Bezos and Michael Dell have been spotted there.

According to Winston Chesterfield, founder of Barton, a consulting company specializing in luxury and the wealthy, other popular US ski resorts include Lake Tahoe in California and Nevada, as well as Vail, Colorado.

In Europe, the most famous resorts are Gstaad and Verbier in Switzerland, Kitzbühel in Austria, known for its annual ski races, and Courchevel 1850 in the French Alps. The latter is known for hosting VIPs such as David and Victoria Beckham, Elton John, Prince William and Kate Middleton.

$40,000 per night in a villa in a nature reserve

For those who prefer the warmth - or want to spend a week on the beach to thaw out after skiing - the Caribbean remains a popular destination, both on land and at sea.

St. Barts, a particularly popular destination for New Year's Eve, welcomed Bezos and his fiancée Lauren Sanchez, and the yachts of billionaires David Geffen, Sergey Brin, Bernard Arnault, Barry Diller and his wife Diane von Furstenberg have been spotted off its shores.

Others choose a particular resort and come there year after year. "They want to do nothing," Chesterfield says. "They want to be waited on, to be looked after."

Another popular destination is Jumby Bay, a resort in Antigua where Oprah Winfrey and Richard Branson are rumored to have homes. Room rates there start at $2,700 per night, although billionaires are likely to splurge on a villa for $13,300 per night. Another popular option is Aman in the Dominican Republic, where rooms cost from $2,900 to $4,200 per night.

On the other side of the warm-weather equation is Africa, a popular destination for both couples and families, Elizabeth Brown, account manager at Knightsbridge Circle, a New York-based travel and lifestyle consulting firm, told BI.

Wealthy people are renting private villas in conservation areas such as Ol Jogi in Kenya and Saanen Island National Park in Tanzania, which can cost up to $40,000 a night.