Your Ski Vacation Costs

[altasnob]

Given your user name, I'd have thought you'd be advocating for a Motel 6 in Midvale and taking the bus up LCC.

When I lived in SLC I lived a block away from the downtown Motel 6. That is also a great option. Light rail from the airport and bus to the ski areas. No rental car. Walking distance to downtown restaurants.

[whipski]

Have a free place to stay in Morzine. Thinking fly into Geneva and rent a car with a buddy. Local skiing obviously, and Cham is a no brainer. Looking for suggestions as to other ski options. Not afraid to throw down for booking rooms in places with parking options. Always ready to economize, we're dirtbags that have simple needs. Ikon passes, the unknowns are school breaks and timing for weather. Talk amongst your selves.

[Buster Highmen]

We're lucky to ski and we all have larger than average carbon footprints in our first world lack of self perspectives.
It's most amusing to read an assertion of realistic from you.
Skiing is ridiculously expensive, being made worse and more confining by ski conglomerates. Yurp provides an alternative.

[Buster Highmen]

Have a free place to stay in Morzine. Thinking fly into Geneva and rent a car with a buddy. Local skiing obviously, and Cham is a no brainer. Looking for suggestions as to other ski options. Not afraid to throw down for booking rooms in places with parking options. Always ready to economize, we're dirtbags that have simple needs. Ikon passes, the unknowns are school breaks and timing for weather. Talk amongst your selves.

Les Marécottes. It's relatively small, but they get snow. It's on the train from Martigny to Vallorcine/Chamonix. Read up on the hike above the lifts and skiing the "backside".
Verbier is right there too and worthy, but it's expensive and over developed. If that's your jam, go for it. There's a bunch of little areas S. of Martigny too like Champex-Lac and Liddes if you're more into the less expensive backwaters.

In that zone, a car is not necessary. There's more skiing around there than you can do in a month. But if you do rent a car, La Grave is 3+ hours.

[subtle plague]

When I was younger, I would sleep under piles of rocks and snow. Naked. It was less expensive that way. And, man, did it impress the chicks.
In the morning, I'd get up and make up irrelevant factoids which were often wrong, but it didn't matter since I was a digital deity.
Soon, I'd tie my feet to barrel staves and walk up the mountain. Naked. It was better that way. And, man, did it impress the chicks.
I'd swing in small hotel rooms in Berlin, arm wrestle with grizzlies around Nome and fence with antique samurai swords in the dank and hazard ridden alleyways of Aomori City.
If there were a point of view, I'd go against it, I'd make sure that my dot product with whatever vector of gestalt manifest was zero.It was orthogonal that way. And, man, did it impress the chicks.
I'd avoid any self perspective since that just gets in the way of my coruscating arias of arched eyebrows, lethal virility and thudlike insight.
That was my ski vacation pre-kids. And, man, did it impress the chicks.

That seems a tad excessive.

[Buster Highmen]

That seems a tad excessive.

Maybe, but at least I'm not enough of an asshole to dox others.

[Buster Highmen]

thanks mods.

[shera]

That seems a tad excessive.

I found it a tad funny.

[MakersTeleMark]

I was just waiting for the toque origin story, but alas, it will have to wait for another chapter.

[altasnob]

Maybe, but at least I'm not enough of an asshole to dox others.

I apologize. I would have modified/deleted my self but I was away. I appreciate your knowledge and expertise of Europe, and hope to be fortunate to put it to use some day.

[total_immortal]

Y'all are posting amateur numbers....
https://archive.ph/YNYD7

[Duffman]

When I lived in SLC I lived a block away from the downtown Motel 6. That is also a great option. Light rail from the airport and bus to the ski areas. No rental car. Walking distance to downtown restaurants.

Pre family and while basically broke, and pre terrible Red Snake, the Midvale Motel 6 with the approx $30 a day Ski Salt Lake Super Pass and a cheap off airport Advantage SUV rental (before they got bought by a major one) was the ticket to a ton of cheap ass powder days. Spent plenty of time in that place.

[nickwm21]

….Some humorous posts here bragging about how cheap their ski vacations are but failing to mention they spent $60k+ for an outfitted van / truck camper….




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[AdironRider]

And here I was chuckling about dudes bragging about staying in the world shittiest motel 6.

[rod9301]

So a quick comparison

France

Lift tickets 45
Rent a house 150
Restaurant dinner for 4: 120
Lunch at resort 12 per person

Airfare 700

Us, squaw

Lift 200
Rent a house 700+
Restaurant, dinner for 4 220
Lunch, 25 a person

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[altasnob]

People who are dumb enough to take a family vacation to a place like Squaw don't care about money.

[MagnificentUnicorn]

People who are dumb enough to take a family vacation to a place like Squaw don't care about money.

Maybe they’re not dumb? They do it because they don’t care about money, they’re wealthy not dumb. Not my scene but good for them


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[altasnob]

Spend 10k to stand in lift lines, eat shit food, and ski at a place that gets tracked in two seconds? Doesn't sound too smart to me.

If you have the coin for the flight, and don't mind the travel time, ya, Europe and even Japan are incredibly more affordable than large resorts in North America. But if you don't have the coin for the flight, find lesser resorts far from major metro areas.

[XXX-er]

my money guy made the argument for the heli skiing by rich amelicans

they could spend BIG money to take the fam to aspen or something

car rental/ house rental/ skis rental/ restaurants/ shopping/ plane tickets/ ski instructor and its not even fun

or book a week of heli skiing

[lowsparkco]

It’s been awhile since I’ve been to Verbier, but over-developed wouldn’t be my description. Really can’t think of any where in Switzerland that I would describe as over-developed. The terrain was well worth any hassle from weaving through the uber riche on the sidewalks.

Is the bunker at the bottom of town still a hostel? I stayed there 20 years ago. Fuck it got cold at night. Great option for a cheap place to sleep, but bring a decent sleeping bag.

[Dromond]

So a quick comparison

France

Lift tickets 45
Rent a house 150
Restaurant dinner for 4: 120
Lunch at resort 12 per person

Airfare 700

Us, squaw

Lift 200
Rent a house 700+
Restaurant, dinner for 4 220
Lunch, 25 a person

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I appreciate the stats.


Airfare can be such a big, flat cost with generally inflexible timing that to me, big trips only start to pencil out if I can stay for two plus weeks. I just checked what it might cost if I wanted to jet set to Europe a few weeks from now and my jaw dropped, so last minute travel is perhaps not a great option.

For europhiles, do you wait until snow is on the ground to book tickets? It seems like dry seasons in the alps can mean very, very low amounts of snow - although perhaps just not booking lodging at your final destination allows enough flexibility to go to where has snow.

I did recently book a trip with flexible/cancel-able flights, lodging and rental car. 5 days out from the trip the forecast looked really terrible and we rescheduled for a month later, rolling the dice again. It felt great to not be totally locked into a trip that we weren’t going to be happy with. The forecast turned out to be true! Flexible lodging can be hard to find in a major resort area during peak season - they will keep your money weather you show up or not - so that makes an argument for out of the way destinations.

Flexible travel plans is a huge benefit to the drive-to ski trip IME. Being able to head home early if someone gets sick, hurt, or the weather turns bad is a major plus - not to mention the economies of scale once you pack a few people in the car that you already own. In that way I do count myself lucky to live south of B.C.

[Bobcat Sig]

Interesting banter here.

I love the idea of Yurp. But money aside, it’s a time and a timing thing. As mentioned, it takes time to get there. At least a day of travel there and another back. Or you throw in a red-eye if you hate yourself. For some, that’s an additional two days of time that can’t be spend skiing or two days of spent paid time off.

The other, as mentioned; is timing. In order to afford it, Yurp airfare must be booked well in advanced, sometimes before the snow flies. That’s a big gamble.

So while places like Tahoe are expensive and offer a comparatively lower experience, they are much closer and usually don’t require a long flight. That allows most families to load up the family truckster and get there relatively easily. I think the mega ski crops know this and don’t need to worry (that much) about the skier experience.

[Buster Highmen]

Money aside?
I don't know what else to say: Yurp is cheaper in general when one considers it's only about $2-300 more for a flight from most places when lift tickets are less than $80/day and even single rooms are around $100 within walking or short train from the lifts. Room rates like that don't exist in North America. If one is careful and reigns in the alcohol, it's possible to do it on $200 a day. I got a single room in St. Moritz less than a kilometer from one of the main trams for $110/night and lift tickets are about $50/day for 4 enormous areas. It's much less $ in Rueras for almost as much terrain.

Timing?

It takes a day, just like any other destination. Yeah, it's 5 to 9 hour flight rather than 2 to 6, but it's the same time away from skiing. For me at least. it's not 2 additional days. The time change doesn't get me, I'm so pumped to ski.

I generally do plan in advance, but again, that's destination independent. When I had a 3 week slot to bomb around the Rockies last year 2022, the snow sucked. I do know people that call audibles on Yurp, but I don't think their airfare costs that much more. It's always hit or miss. This year, I did drop a few extra $ to make the flight cancellable due to knee problems. But they seem to be fine and all the hotels I booked are cancellable up to 10 days in advance.

So yeah. one can slice this up a lot of different ways, there's the super cheap dirtbag in car or even a $100 motel or finding some AirBnB to share and leveraging the corporation ski passes can save serious $. I still think those are exceptions to the costs most people bear to go on a ski vacation.

The idea is not only addressing the relatively at most similar costs, but also the adventure, the idea of going somewhere new, where there's no boundaries, no patrol hassling you about "closed" areas. Touring to family owned huts, people who sell local cheeses, wine, schnaps and dried meats when it hasn't snowed much, skiing corn or doing some big descents are great and memorable experiences. And pow days like you've never had skiing 5000+ vertical feet of the stuff.

Americans don't travel abroad much and we should, not only for the culture/food/wine/history but for the Swiss/Austrian trains and most of all for the mindblowing terrain. And if you do get a storm cycle, it's really, really fantastic.

Just be sure to go once. Go to Briancon/Serre Chevalier/La Grave/Milky Way for a week. Or Andermatt/Disentis SkiArena, Or Chamonix or Verbier or Kitzbuhel or St. Anton/Zurs/Lech Arlberg. Ot Val d'Isere/Tignes or Trois Vallees. Just give it a shot.

[byates1]

^ I gotta get my ass over there. The goal for me is an entire season. Fly/buy build van/ ski all winter/ sell van/ fly back. Same w SA, NZ, Japan.

Dare to dream. Ski the world 🌎

[Buster Highmen]

^ I gotta get my ass over there. The goal for me is an entire season. Fly/buy build van/ ski all winter/ sell van/ fly back. Same w SA, NZ, Japan.

Dare to dream. Ski the world ��

YEAH! Do it.