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It’s Cheaper to Ski in Europe Than in the USA (2025 Prices)

I first published this story on how it’s much cheaper to ski in Europe than the USA back in 2018 and as I’m updating it for the 2025 season, the gap has gotten even wider. Head east, way east, for a better deal on the slopes for skiers and snowboarders.

cheaper to ski in Europe

In case you haven’t noticed, it’s getting really expensive to ski in the USA. There are still bargain regional mountains out there like many I have skied in Idaho, and we’ll get to those later, but if you’re planning a big skiing vacation this season you may want to consider a longer flight. It’s cheaper to ski in Europe for a week than it is to do so in America or Canada—even counting the flight price difference.

Why are lift tickets for skiers and snowboarders so expensive in the USA? Why does it cost you the equivalent of a car payment to go skiing for a weekend in Rockies or Northeast, not even counting lodging and lunches?

Well, you can blame a lot of things: company consolidation, labor costs, a lack of housing for workers, water shortages (for snowmaking), and corporate greed, for a start. But the bottom line is that in most of North America now, skiing has become a lot like golf: a sport for the rich. This wasn’t always the case and it’s still not the case in most of Europe. 

skiing in Europe is cheaper, even in Switzerland

When I went skiing a lot in Vermont in the early 90s while working in New York City, I met a lot of visitors from the UK and Ireland who were on vacation in the USA. Back then it was cheaper for them to fly to the USA for a week of fun at Killington or Sugarbush than it was for them to do the same trip in the Alps.

Now the situation is reversed. It’s cheaper for us to go the other direction—and eat better food—than it is for us to fly to Colorado or Utah for a ski trip. That’s because lift ticket prices in the states have gone through the roof.

It’s hard to compare apples to apples just by ski lift tickets since there are a lot of variables even in that price. There’s the weekday price vs. the weekend price, the discount for multiple days, and the package deals. Then it can get complicated fast when you start comparing rentals, lodging, food, and airfare. So for the moment, let’s just look at weekend one-day lift ticket prices since that’s public information easily available online.

The Most Expensive Ski Resorts in the USA

Starting at the top, your eyes might bug out when you see the single day lift ticket prices in America this year. A few resorts passed the $300 mark in the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day at the end of 2024.

On top of that, most people end up being on the slopes during a weekend, when you also deal with longer lift lines, so the price per run can get ridiculous. Granted these are some of the biggest resorts in North America, but here is a sampling from the large ski mountains in the east and west. These are 2024 weekend ticket window prices in February, non-holiday:

Alta UT – $199
Aspen / Snowmass CO – $244-264
Beaver Creek CO – $285
Big Sky – $228
Breckenridge CO – $284
Copper Mountain CO – $254-264
Deer Valley UT – $$279-329
Killington, VT – $161-191
Mammoth Mountain CA – $209-249
Mt. Rose – Ski Tahoe CA – $169
Mt. Snow VT – $145-176
Palisades Tahoe – $246-289
Park City UT – $259-312
Snowbasin UT – $219
Steamboat Springs CO – $256-299
Stowe VT – $215-229
Sugarbush VT – $195
Sugar Bowl CA – $162-232
Sun Valley ID – $242
Telluride CO – $245-260
Vail CO – $273-319
Winter Park CO – $228-267
Whistler – $296

Why do some of these have a range? Blame it on the corporate bean counters’ favorite trend: “dynamic pricing.” When demand is high they gouge you even more. 

Most of these prices are 20% to 50% higher than they were in 2020. With some of the Rocky Mountains resorts, the difference between winter 2024 and winter 2025 is $60 or $70. In other words, just the amount of the increase at the large USA ski resorts is more than a day of skiing in Europe! 

If you take the top-1o ski resorts by size in North America and average out their weekend rates, they are costing an average of $255 per day.

To put that in perspective, a day at Disney World will cost an adult $139 to $199 depending on the day and month. Keep that $255 lift pass average number in mind when we look at the largest in Europe further down in this article. 

Ski prices in the USA

Use this as a guideline but note that it’s hard to predict what you’ll pay when you walk up to the ticket window because of that dynamic pricing mentioned earlier. Skiing at your favorite mountain may cost you $95 on a weekday one week or it may cost you $187 a week later on a peak Saturday. Pull up the resort site to check if they’re doing this and reserve in advance if your plans are secure. (Get travel insurance!)

OnTheSnow has a lot of information, but it gets out of date fast and they often only show the weekday lift ticket rate if they show a rate at all.

You’ll have to go to the official websites to check for your planned dates. Some will give you a discount if you buy the tickets online at least a week in advance. Some will charge you a big premium if it’s a holiday weekend: a few big resorts are well past the $300 mark for President’s Day Weekend, for instance. 

Naturally if you’re flying somewhere on vacation you’re going to hit the slopes for more than one day, so see what kinds of deals are out there on multi-day lift tickets, deals bundles with airfare, or deals bundled with lodging, lessons, or equipment. Using those single day prices as a starting point though, it’s clear that you’re going to have to lay out a lot of cash at any of these big elite resorts.

Ski in Europe for Less, Even at the Most Expensive Resorts

Now before we move on to where the bargains are—and they exist on both continents—let’s compare how pricey the high-end places to go skiing are in Europe. Since Europeans get (and gladly take) much longer vacations, travelers there tend to stay somewhere for a week or more. As a result there are clear delineations in who the different operations serve.

Some ski towns are for families, some for partying crowds, some for wealthy upper-crust types who don’t want to mix with the riff-raff. (Just look at the Davos gathering each year.) Even the high-end places are a bargain though compared to the U.S./Canadian equivalents of Vail, Beaver Creek, and Whistler/Blackcomb.

Austria’s largest connected ski area is a fraction of the cost of the ones in Colorado or Utah. So are the largest ski areas in the world in France and Switzerland, with interconnected mountains.

Prices have been converted to dollars from euros or Swiss Francs at the official rate, which is only about 3% different as I write this, so it’ll go up a tad if exchange rates change. These prices were updated in January, 2025. 

Alpe d’Huez, France – $66

Bad Gastein various, Austria – $79
Chamonix Mont-Blanc, France – $93
Courchevel, France – $75
Davos Klosters – $93
Engelberg, Switzerland – $65
Gstaad, Switzerland – $71
Kitzbuhel, Austria – $79
Les 3 Valles, France – $82
Livigno, Italy – $69
Saas Fee, Switzerland – $90
Silvretta Montafon, Austria – $81
St. Anton am Arlberg, Austria – $81
St. Moritz, Switzerland – $84
Tignes, France – $73
Val d’Isère, France – $73
Verbier, Switzerland – $98
Zermatt, Switzerland – $98

It’s really staggering, isn’t it? Did you expect that skiing in the Alps of Europe, at the places with the best facilities, would cost half or less what it does in the USA? And it can be lower still. Often if you stay at one of the participating hotels or you get some kind of ski/meals/lodging package, the lift ticket price portion goes down quite a bit.

Chew on this for a minute: 

The most expensive place to ski in Europe is cheaper than the lowest-priced major ski resort in the USA!

Ski Switzerland less money than Vail

While some of these European ski areas have gone up since my last update, the increases have been much more modest than on the other side of the Atlantic and and others have actually gone down because of exchange rate changes.

I could not find one single resort this year that charges more than the equivalent of $100 for a weekend lift ticket for this upcoming season. A few in Switzerland are getting close because the Swiss franc is stronger than the euro right now, but not quite. And that’s for Verbier plus affiliated mountains connected to it. 

These days, weekend lift tickets priced at less than $100 are considered an extreme bargain in the USA. In other words, the biggest and best ski resorts in Europe cost less than a small regional ski resort in America. 

skiing in Switzerland for less

Ski a whole season here (in Switzerland) for less than one Saturday at Beaver Creek, CO

The prices listed above are for some of the biggest resorts, keep in mind, not the ones that locals go to. I went to a couple of the latter in 2023 in Switzerland and a whole season pass that covers this place and one other around Liddes (pictured above) costs 130 euros, or half that if you stay at the Swiss ski hostel where I was bunking down.

So you could ski there for two weeks like I did or the entire season for less than it costs for one day in the Rocky Mountains!

Back to that average price I was talking about, which was $255 for one day at the 10 largest North American ski resorts. At the 10 largest European ski resorts, the average lift ticket price on a weekend is $81.

Not a typo: $81 for a one-day weekend lift ticket. Naturally it goes down if you purchase 3, 5, or 7 days, so 3 days on the slopes in Switzerland or France could easily cost you less than a single day in Colorado, with change left over for a (more reasonably priced) glass of wine or some fondue for lunch. You know the food is going to be better!

A Quick Ski Towns Lodging Comparison

Ski passes alone are only one slice of the vacation expense pie of course. I just focused on those since the differences are so dramatic. The next assumption is going to be that lodging is more expensive in Europe. It turns out that’s wrong too.

Again we’re dealing with a lot of variables here: condos, chalets, house shares, and hostel dorms to name a few options. I’m going to compare hotels though since they’re more standardized in what they offer. So here are a few comparisons for February high season from Trivago to give a general idea.

5-star hotel in Vail: $749 – $1,629
5-star hotel in St. Moritz: $630 – $1,850

4-star hotel in Telluride: $488 – $832
4-star hotel in Zermatt: $230 – $932

3-star hotel in Park City: $263 – $512
3-star hotel in Arabba Marmolada: $158 – $369

Bed and breakfast in Killington: $120 – $399
Bed and breakfast in Courchevel: $84 – $194

So not as dramatic, but still an edge to the Europeans. The difference is clearer for Airbnb prices: it was actually cheaper in Europe in all Airbnb comparisons I did for towns with similar-sized ski hills. Housing stock is at a premium in U.S. ski towns and some have passed laws restricting short-term rentals as a result. Try Vrbo too if you’re looking to rent from an owner, but there’s usually a major supply and demand problem in the states.

Park City Washington School House hotel

Your $1,200 a night lodging in Park City, Utah

There are also more hostels and chalets with bunk beds in Europe, so it’s easier to go as a group or even as a solo traveler. I stayed at a ski hostel in Switzerland where they sell a whole week’s package for a shade more than €1,000, with ski passes, transfers, and half board included. 

In practice, most vacationers are going to get some kind of package deal and this is especially true in Europe. It’s not that hard to find a deal with a week of skiing, rentals, lodging, and breakfast for under $1,000 per person double. For a few hundred more you can get full board. That’s getting increasingly tough to find in the USA.

Go to the cheapest places to ski in Europe and the rates are something even a working-class stiff can afford. For the Bulgarian resort of Bansko, a Post Office report from the UK estimated that a week’s ski pass, equipment rental, lessons and lunch would cost about £450 per person—around $550.

When I organized a ski tour in Bulgaria, we rented an entire ski chalet for my group that slept 19 of us and it was around $500 per night for four nights before meals, so under $2,000 for four nights, including rides to and from the lifts and a pickup at the bus station in Bansko.

You can spend that for a routine hotel room in some pricey U.S. ski towns, one that fits two people. When we got hotel rooms in Borovets, it was even less per night for all of us added together, including breakfast and dinner. 

Winter flight prices to Europe are usually dramatically lower than summer. Check them at Skyscanner.

Cheap Ski Resort Comparisons USA and Europe

where to ski for cheap

Me on the slopes in Idaho

There are plenty of places to ski in the United States that won’t require a home equity loan to pay for it. I learned at a small place in Virginia called Massanutten, one we commonly called “Massanuthin’.” When we could spend a little more we would go to Wintergreen (now $119 weekends), but when we really wanted to step up we drove to Snowshoe or Canaan Valley in West Virginia.

One-day lift tickets at Snowshoe are $92-$149 now. Ouch. I could ski in the Alps for less. 

I’m leaving out the little hills where you take a rope tow to the top, but here are some more down-to-Earth one-day ticket prices for the less sprawling options in America, weekend rates.

Bear Creek PA – $59
Bogus Basin ID – $89
Brian Head, UT – $100
Bridger Bowl MT – $97
Brundage Mountain, ID – $115
Camden Snow Bowl, ME – $52
Camp Fortune, ONT – $59
Donner Ski Ranch, CA – $109
Echo Mountain, CO – $83
Howelsen Hill Ski Area, CO – $49
Lookout Pass, ID – $69
Maverick Mountain, MT – $49
Pomerelle, ID – $68
Shawnee Mountain, PA – $85
Smuggler’s Notch, VT – $119
Saskadena Six VT – $99

All these prices have gone up since the last update, but not nearly as much as at the big destination resorts. These ski hills that appeal to regional skiers more than those who come for a vacation tend to be more hesitant to raise rates 20% in one year like Vail Resorts and other big corporate ones might do. 

When you average out the rates at these small and mid-tier ski mountains, you’ll see it’s still more than the very best ski mountains in the Alps of Europe. You can go almost anywhere in Europe and pay far less for mountains with a similar number of lifts and trails. The higher the number of trails, the bigger the price difference becomes. 

Jasna ski resort in Slovakia

So what does it cost at the cheaper ski resorts of Europe, the ones located in Slovenia, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, and the Czech Republic? Much, much less, plus you can be sure your lodging will be cheaper too.

These are not tiny hills with three runs though, as you can see from that Jasna trail map above. If you just look at stats for lifts, terrain, pistes or trails, these have some of the cheapest lift tickets in the world.

I took a whole group to ski Bulgaria last year and even the hardcore skiers in our group were having a blast in Bansko and Borovets. We were paying €15 per day to rent premium skis in Borovets and considering we were paying €40 or less for lift passes, the skiing was downright amazing, with views like these: 

Skiing in Europe at Bansko Bulgaria

I already did a detailed post on where you can ski in Europe for a fraction of what it costs in the USA at a comparable sized resort. The short answer is it will cost you less than 20 bucks in Hungary or the closest ski area to Istanbul, up to $72 at the biggest resort in Slovakia.

See the details here: 

The Cheapest Ski Resorts in Europe

Note that you can also find smaller resorts though in Germany, France, and Italy that are under $50 per day too. Here’s the trail map for Tarvisio in Italy, which is around $46 currently.

ski in Europe for less in Italy

No matter how you look at it, a ski holiday trip or snowboarding vacation in Europe is going to cost you a lot less on the ground than it will in the USA. Plus you can eat French food in France, Italian food in Italy, or drink Czech beer for cheap in the Czech Republic or by larger resorts in Slovakia. Wouldn’t it be a lot more interesting on your vacation if you could ski in Europe instead?

This post was updated in January of 2025.

Want to join me on a future bargain ski trip in Europe? Get on the notification list here

skiier

Tuesday 11th of February 2025

Hard to take this article seriously when it doesn't mention epic, ikon or mountain collective passes.

No one doing more than a day or two of skiing is paying ticket window prices and if you ski more than a few days a season it's worth it to get a pass.

It is cheaper to ski in europe right now (for east coast at least) but that has more to do with exchange rates right now.

Drew

Saturday 25th of January 2025

I just made reservations to go to Yuzawa Ski resort in Japan for next month. Lift tickets are about $40 US and even ski rentals are about the same. I decided to splurge a bit on the accommodations: $330 for the three of us.

Best thing: the hotel has its own onsen.

Tim Leffel

Saturday 25th of January 2025

Drew, that sounds awesome and great deal on the lift tickets! Enjoy.

Jon

Thursday 28th of March 2024

Great article! Very thorough. Thanks for the great information!

FLR

Monday 11th of March 2024

Check out Japan too. I used to ski at Happo One, which had the Olympic downhill in 1998. JPY 7200 peak price 2023-24, which is less than USD 50. 12 years ago I remember paying JPY 5000, but the JPY was much stronger back then, so the price was slightly higher in USD terms in 2012, for example.

Tim Leffel

Monday 11th of March 2024

Thanks, that is indeed a good deal, thanks to the yen dropping to 150 to the dollar. This is a good time to experience Japan!

James T

Thursday 7th of December 2023

What an eye-opening study. I can only imagine how much better the lodge food is in Italy or France too. At most US ski hills the meals are way overpriced and disappointing to eat. They are just expensive fuel.