Travel Channel

You are planning to make your next skiing trip to Europe. Why you should prefer to come to Autria and not to France and Switzerland.

First I want to point out the pro's and the contras about skiing in France, Switzerland and Austria.

FRANCE:
+ World best slopes and runs
- Most of the skiing resorts are artificial, not nice looking towns with big concrete "hotel-castles".
SWITZERLAND:

+ Nice runs, nice villages, most famous skiing in Europe
- Not affordable ... Switzerland is the most expensive country in the world

AUSTRIA:

- Not such nice runs like in France and Switzerland (except Lech am Arlberg)
+ Quiet cheap, nice towns and villages

Skiing in Austria is not very expensive. You will not find the world best runs and slopes but you will find real Central European life style. There are many wooden huts at the slope, where you can get warm meals and drinks (mostly a lot of beer and "Schnaps") and after a long skiing day, you can walk trough the old towns and villages at your skiing resort. The towns are full of life after sun set and everyone is enjoying the nightlife in these "skiing-towns". You will find skiing, nature, culture and nightlife in one place ... this is European style skiing.

For Americans: Austrian Airlines (http://www.austrianair.com/) offers often cheap flights to the skiing resorts in Austria (including flight, hotel for one week and transfer to the skiing resort between $650 and $900).

At the end I want to give you a list of the most known skiing resorts in Austria:

- Arlberg (St. Anton, Lech,...) ... Best skiing in Austria (nearly like Switzerland), quiet expensive, Skiing resort of Princess Diana and the Royal Family

- Ischgl (Tyrol) ... Nightlife, more for young people, snowboarding, many events and concerts of rock stars, quiet expensive

- Kitzbuehel (Tyrol) ... one of the nicest towns in Austria, skiing resort of the Austrian high society, not too expensive

- Kitzsteinhorn, Zell am See (Salzburg) ... high skiing resort with good runs

- Sportwelt Amade (Salzburg, Styria) ... includes many skiing resorts in Salzburg and Styria. This is a quiet cheap resort, with cheap accomodations, nice reataurant-huts at the slopes.

All in all you can say, in West Austria you have better slopes, but everything is more expensive. As more as you get into the East of Austria, you will find cheap skiing resorts, where all Austrians prefer to go skiing. My favourite skiing resort is Schladming - Planai in Styria.

I hope I helped you a little bit
and hopefully I see you in Austria

Stefan
Eisenbach

PS: If you have any question about skiing in Austria, feel free to contact me.