Skiing for Expats in Switzerland - Snow Q's
Dave and Jim had a great chat about skiing in the local area for those people who live in our region. It is incredibly easy to access skiing from the riviera and popular expat towns like Montreux, Blonay, Vevey, Lausanne, Morges and Geneva. Access is super easy to get up to the mountains and often you can come up, ski in the morning and be back in time for lunch.During our conversaion we came up with some great advice which will be especially helpful for those who are new to Switzerland and want to get ready for the ski season this autumn.Watch the full chat here.
We tend to ski with our clients in snow sure resorts such as Villars, Champery, Les Crosets, Morgins and La Dole.
In our experience the expats that come to live in Switzerland tend to take the opportunity to get their kids skiing really well during their time here. Often they get in touch with us during the autumn with a view to getting their kids skiing before their INternational School’s skiing program starts in early January. We also ski a lot with expats kids on the weekend with lessons that are often complementary to their school’s skiing program.
For the parents, we often have sessions whilst their kids are skiing or the other popular options are skiing lessons as a family (but watch out, the kids ALWAYS progress faster than the adults!) or midweek early season lessons where we give you some stuff to go away with and work on to make your experience of skiing better and help you to maximise your enjoyment on the mountain.
In terms of equipment that you need for the season, many expats rent their equipment for the whole ski season if they think that they will be skiing a lot of weekends. You should definitely hire and not buy if you aren't exactly sure what you are looking for in skis or boots.
If you're not yet sure if skiing is for you then rent day by day, it’s more economical that way. If you’re an experienced skier, you might want to consider buying your own skis and boots. We have places that we can recommend that do great deals for a season rental and for buying/renting/testing equipment. Get in early on season rental, September or October to get the best gear from hire shops.
Most expats travel up to weekend skiing by car and there is usually free parking and easy access to the skiing at most of the resorts that we operate in. Check out our website for more information on these locations. The travel time to the resorts we ski in is usually around 40 minutes from Montreux or 55 minutes from Lausanne.
As expat areas in Switzerland go, say compared to Basel or Zurich, the riviera has the closest and easiest access to skiing of all. It’s never been as easy to access and learn to ski as evidenced by the sheer number of people who head to the mountains every weekend.