If you’re still thinking in terms of Canada holiday skiing then you’re probably not feeling the financial pinch as much as the rest of us. Put simply, skiing North America is not the European snow lover’s answer this coming winter.
If you still want a snow fix when your credit is crunching… you’ve got to think European ski holidays.
Sure, we all like to travel, but I think we forget just how much of Europe we have never visited, let alone actually skied in. I was talking to an American skier on Flickr yesterday who explained that, while he loves the powder as much as anyone, he doesn’t visit the classic US big powder ski resorts anymore because they’re tracked out within the first hour of fresh snowfall… and the unexpected bonus he gets from going for fresh tracks in the smaller resorts is that he is discovering some beautiful little chocolate box ski resorts where the staff and locals are not too busy or jaded to speak… but actually love giving you advice on where to ski or snowboard… trails and bowls which, in the larger resorts, are refered to as “secret spots” are shared with relish on the smaller mountains.
Its’ much the same in for us in Europe and this winter is the perfect year for us all to discover what that old American ski dog was describing to me – it’s often your own undiscovered back yard where we’ll find the genuinely stunning places for a ski holiday – this is the year to do it because we are more skint or at least more careful than we’ve been in a decade… and a flight across the Atlantic is simply not necessary when we can fly 90 minutes to Geneva and a cheap ski holiday that’s half the price of Canada or US ski holidays.
My friends recently manage to snowboard saint martin belleville and then later take a further les arcs ski weekend including all flights and airport transfers for less than the price of just one Canada holiday skiing or boarding – that’s why this is most definitely the year for european ski holidays.