Your Ski Vacation Costs

[jacob_dbu]

I used to do dirt cheap ski trips living out of my parents old minivan. Ski pass was $600-700, food of course, and then gas driving from Austin worked out to maybe $800 over 2 weeks. I'd crash with friends for showers in exchange for beer in Utah and Colorado and stay in the occasional Super 8. Those were the good times.

Now I work a 9-5. A trip to Breckenridge for 3 days is going to end up costing about $2.5k with me and my gf with lift passes and everything. I miss the dirtbag trips - although staying slopeside and taking a shuttle to ski greens with lots of the other kinda green should be fun too. Different strokes for different folks and different times.

[Toadman]

Just out of curiosity I jumped on the JHMR website and went through the motions of booking a ski trip with air, 7 nts lodging and lift tix (although I have that awesome Ikon pass that gets me 7 glorious days of access!) For a party of two in mid January it came out to just under $1,800 ex RDM airport here in Central Oregon.

[Buster Highmen]

Just out of curiosity I jumped on the JHMR website and went through the motions of booking a ski trip with air, lodging and lift tix (although I have that awesome Ikon pass that gets me 7 glorious days of access!) For a party of two in mid January it came out to just under $1,800 ex RDM airport here in Central Oregon.

Are you not counting your Ikon/Epic/whatever passes?

If you count those, aren't you up over $3k?

[Ireallyliketoski2]

Generally speaking, with a family of 5, we limit ourselves to the day trip reachable Epic resorts from Denver area, usually do a long weekend, 3 nights, 3 days skiing.

Passes (2500 for the year, seems free because we pay for them in May)
Lodging (300-400 a night, usually house/condo deal 150/night plus 900 cleaning fees)
Food (200 a day, breakfast at the condo, snacks on mountain, dinner out usually)
Beer and Cocktails (150 a day, the wife and I are usually good for a 100 dollar apres ski bar bill plus the parking lot beers)

So that's 150 per day per person for a five person family, and thankfully three of the five don't drink, although I suppose when they can I'll make them pay their own way.

[Toadman]

Does that include lift tickets or are you not counting your Ikon/Epic/whatever passes?

I booked 2 x 2 of 5 day passes, which were about $360 pp IIRC. I would just end up not buying lift passes, and use the family discount on the Ikon for the wife. So that dollar figure would come down quite a bit. They website was offering a $300 pp air credit. So that kind of makes it a no brainer to go through the website just to save on flights.

[Buster Highmen]

I booked 2 x 2 of 5 day passes, which were about $360 pp IIRC. I would just end up not buying lift passes, and use the family discount on the Ikon for the wife. So that dollar figure would come down quite a bit. They website was offering a $300 pp air credit. So that kind of makes it a no brainer to go through the website just to save on flights.

I'm confused.
Are you actually getting 5 days of skiing with flight,6 nights hotel, transfers, food and lift tickets for $900 each?

[Toadman]

I'm confused.
Are you actually getting 5 days of skiing with flight,6 nights hotel, transfers, food and lift tickets for $900 each?

Food would be extra. But, yes the rest comes in at $900 pp

[Buster Highmen]

Food would be extra. But, yes the rest comes in at $900 pp

That's an incredible deal. Do they try to sell you a condo?

[brutah]

Last ski trip I did cost less than $500 rt.
Flew to Seattle from SLC for $200 (but I had miles so "free" flight).
Food and beer $150
Gas $100
Permits $50
Flew to Seattle, buddy picks me up in his van. Drive north, ski Shuksan and baker first two days than go south to Rainier for two days.
Just an estimate on casts but seemed pretty cheap. Got some real awesome skiing in too.
These are most my ski trips. Go in the late spring when conditions are stable, camping is warm enough and big descents are a plenty.
I like skiing in the winter but usually seems better to do that locally. Late spring skiing means stable snow and guaranteed descents.

Sent from my Pixel 4a using Tapatalk

[satori]

When I lived in Kansai and drove to Hakuba, Nagano or took the Shink/express it would be something like 200-300 for transportation RT. Lodging at my mates place was I think 35/night X two weeks. Bought a season pass which was 350. Food can be really cheap if you cook so maybe 20-30/day when staying in. Don’t eat at restaurants on the mountain too bloody expensive. I’d usually take 2K for two weeks and have money left over but the season pass was paid for in advance.

Living in Sapporo now it’s just a 45 min to 2hr drive depending on what I’m hitting. It took me a long time to get here, but moved here and made lots of sacrifices so I don’t have to go on vacation. My backyard is my vacation.

When I did take a family of four it was easily over 5K.


Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

[Skrilla Gorilla]

Just wondering what people spend on their ski vacations for a week?
$400 rt airfare?
$500 car rental?
$500 lodging (kind of low end, but maybe it's part of a family deal)?
$500 food?
+ lift tickets (assuming lots of people just use thie Ikon/Epic) ?

So is $2k a reasonable average cost?

$100 rt BWI to Denver on Southwest. Both in 2020 and 2021. Cheaper than the hotel and car rental but not by much. But I only ski one day.

Sent from my moto g stylus (2021) using Tapatalk

[dgilligan02]

Me and some other flat-lander buddies have had an annual trip for some years running. They fly outta MSP, I’m out of ORD. We ski 3 days, travel day either side. 4 people seems good for splitting lodging and transport. We’ve hit a range of places from $$$ (Park City/Whistler) to $ (Red Mountain/Tamarack)…I’d say it’s usually $1200-1500 a head.

[jacob_dbu]

Me and some other flat-lander buddies have had an annual trip for some years running. They fly outta MSP, I’m out of ORD. We ski 3 days, travel day either side. 4 people seems good for splitting lodging and transport. We’ve hit a range of places from $$$ (Park City/Whistler) to $ (Red Mountain/Tamarack)…I’d say it’s usually $1200-1500 a head.

Does that include lift tickets?

[dgilligan02]

Does that include lift tickets?

Sure. Current Jan @ Whistler, not that I’m going to BC this year (which sucks).

$400 air
$150 car
$275 epic 3-day
$350 max village VRBO or the like (cheaper options)

That’s your major pieces @ $1175. We usually buy food and booze @ grocery.

[Buster Highmen]

But that's still only a little over par for a $2k 7 skiday with air.

[NWFlow]

I've taken one ski vacation in my life which was Japan for 10 days in 2019. Airfare from Oslo, all hotels, food, a rental car, and a couple tickets (mostly touring) came to about 2500. But we were splitting hotels three ways and plane tickets were cheap...

[TAFKALVS]

One of my favorite concepts / ideals I've learned from maggots is from TAFKALS and his wife: "extreme leisure" . In short, do cool, extreme things. But treat your self. That is -- plan a trip that includes skiing 5000' couloirs AND drinking nice apres cocktails before a great dinner.

I've tried to embrace it better despite my tendency and celebration of dirtbaggery ways. Last week I spent the race weekend sleeping in the minivan before and after a trail race, but dinner afterwards was having fresh shaved truffles over boxed mac n' cheese and drinking Westvleteren 12 to celebrate.

Whatever you do, do it to the fullest. And if that means sitting in a hammock and reading a book, don't fomo yourself into doing something else.

[::: :::]

Just seeing the JHMR tix pricing during tQ&tD
5day is $775 [my local entire season is cheaper]
ikon is $1200 w/ jhmr bump
Yeah…no. This isn’t a game I can play.

[liv2ski]

Somewhere in between as little as possible, and whatever it takes.

This...if I drive to mammoth and stay at the quanza hut I can ski a week for about $700, but if I am flying in to SLC and renting a car & lodging, it is at least $1,500-$2k

[Pinned]

Last year I traveled a lot to ski, but all roadtrips, and almost all on a pass. Most of the trips were short, 2-3 nights. Did do one longer trip that was about 10 nights. Split costs on most of the trips with a friend. Not being able to split lodging costs with a bigger group definitely made things more expensive - hotels / motels added up quick.

The shorter trips were actually much more expensive, I have a pretty long drive to go skiing so the gas costs for something like a solo 2 night trip are a big factor.

Including the cost of the pass broken down over the number of days skied it looks like I was around $150/day all in (gas, food, lodging, pass cost, etc). I hope that'll be a good bit lower this season.

[The AD]

This...if I drive to mammoth and stay at the quanza hut

Do you mean quonset hut?

[schindlerpiste]

I usually don’t go on skiing vacations. It’s tough to become dissatisfied with Wasatch. However, from Utah European ski vacation on the cheap side would be $250 a day/person ($100 longing, $75 food,lift tix, beer), comfortable would be around $375/person/day. This year, I will ski three days in Aspen in January and four days in Montana in March. I am paying about $350/day for a room in Basalt. I have IKON, And I am sure that we will spend $150day per person for food. I think that Big Sky and Bozeman will cost about the same

[ZomblibulaX]

I miss being "college-aged" (not that I went to college) and working for the resort. We ski basically all of CO for free, check the weather and crash in the back of a Subaru in the parking lot of wherever it was snowing, with whoever in the shop had a couple days off. Oatmeal on the camp stove, pockets full of junk food to get you through the day, dinner wherever it's cheap. 30 rack of CL Smooth and that's a ski trip.

If we did go to UT or some such, it was always crash in the car or hit up El Ocho Supré. Out of state resort employee pass got me free tix at Alta and Brighton for years; not the Bird though. Those days are gone.

My brother and I are planning a trip to JH for February '23, saving up now so we don't have to dirtbag it. Still hoping I can use his mid-life crisis to justify it to my wife.

[m8f625]

[paulster2626]

41, 2 kids, married. Still try to take 3 trips a year. 2 minimum. CAD$

Trip 1a is east coast. Sometimes alone, sometimes with friends, sometimes with my dad. Usually VT, gotta get that sweet sweet IPA and see Al Quittner every now and then near Waitsfield. This is a car trip so just gas and cost isn't too bad. Usually a mag can hook up a discounted ticket at the bush, and MRG is never too much $$. Use an epic edge card day @ stowe too. All in all this probably costs $600-1000 CAD depending how how much we decide to "treat yo' self." US exchange is a bitch, but worth it to go somewhere that French is not spoken.

Trip 1b is BC: KH and Revy. Try to stay in cheap accoms, Best Western in Golden is good quality and good value in February. Requires flight to calgary ($400) and car rental ($400) and some fuel. Go with a friend or again my dad. Can't do this one alone I'm too cheap to spend all that without someone to split it.

Trip 1c is Aspen: stay at Mountain Chalet which is unfortunately being sold after this season so I think this trip is dead. Can't afford to stay anywhere else really, maybe the Gantt but we'll see. I make my parents pay for this still because I am an only child and shameless.

Trip 2 is Whistler. We have family out in North Van, and their friends have a sweet hookup for a house just north of the main village. Edge cards for lift tickets, flights are $500-700 p/p. I go with the wife and a couple friends. Add in the family and it's 6 people together for 5 days of silliness. We make meals in the house but still get out for some as well. PB&J for lunch because fuck Vail. Beers at excalibur mid after skiing, again because fuck Vail.

So every year I guess I spend about $5k on ski trips. Whatever, I can't ever stop because then it won't be the norm anymore. I'll quit when all the snow turns to rain. Living where I live has its benefits but none of them involve skiing.

I never take my kids on these trips. These are for me (and whistler for the wife) only. I'll take the kids away for a weekend somehwere nearby as they are still virgins to actual mountains and thus easily impressed.