7 Reasons Why You Should Ski in Austria

I've skied in Le Trois Vallees in France and Zermatt of Switzerland. As wonderful those places were, skiing can be pricey and crowded. 

For value for money and ease of skiing, my favourite places are in Austria. I've been to Ischgl, St Anton, and Bad Gastein. Grant has also been to Soll, Mayrhofen, and Zell am See. Our pick of all European ski fields is Bad Gastein, where we recently went skiing.

 

We booked a package with Crystal Ski for GBP 519 per person. That's seven nights half board accommodation, transfers and flights. All we had to add was drinks at the hotel, lunches, ski hire and lift passes.

So next time you book a ski trip, consider Austria. Here are seven reasons why.

1) Variety of Ski Resorts
The Ski Amade region, where we skied in Bad Gastein, is made up of 25 ski resorts. It's called Amade, because it's named after Mozart who was born in Salzburg. There are 270 lifts and 760 kms of pistes. Resorts are linked by either lifts or buses and it's all covered under the one lift pass. From Bad Gastein you can ski to Angertal and Bad Hofgastein. There are free shuttle buses to Dorf Gastein, Bad Hof Gastein and Sportgastein. 

2) Wide Open Pistes 

With more locals than tourists. Bad Gastein gets crowded on the later days of the week but if you go to the right ski fields, there are no crowds. My favourite area is Grossartal as pictured below. The resort is accessible via lifts from Dorf Gastein. It's the resort to go when it's snowing because there's lots of tree lined pistes for visibility. As I discovered, Grossartal is winter wonderland because the runs are so wide, it's almost impossible to go off piste! 

3) Low or No Lift Queues

I once queued for 20 minutes to get onto a lift in Les Trois Vallees. The wait, the ski shuffling and people crammed together is frustrating. But not in Austria. There's more skiing and low/no queuing. Chair lifts are fast and well maintained. Popular runs are serviced by six seated bubble lifts with protection from wind and snow. Sometimes they even have heated seats. We often got our own "private" gondolas and chair lifts.

4) Value for Money Food 

Forget paying EUR 16 for a crepe suzette in Courcheval. In Austria you can lunch heartily for under EUR 10. The best stomach filler is Tiroler Gröstl, which is a saucy potato hash with sausages/bacon and a fried egg on top. In Angertal, it was EUR 8 and that's all you can fill on your plate. Fancier meals like schitnzel and chips is EUR12-14. The quality of the food is excellent. My cheapest lunch was wurst with bread for EUR 3.80. At Grossarler Panoramastub'n, we had hearty goulash soup with wurst and leberknoedel soup with drinks for under EUR 20. That's far better value than a large goulash soup in Zermatt for CHF 20! 

And the kind bartender gave us free shots of schapps. Bless him!

5) Proximity to Salzburg
Transfer time from the airport to Bad Gastein is under 2 hours. Not bad considering it took us 4 hours to get from Lyon to Le Tania. Bad Gastein has a regular train service from Salzburg. It's only an hour and a half away. You can day trip to Salzburg if you wanted to a break from skiing.

6) Free Wifi on the Slopes 
There are 400 wifi hot spots around lift stations and huts. While it's slow around lunchtime (we did'nt use it any other time), free internet is a luxury if you're trying to stay in touch with people without international roaming.

7) The Town of Bad Gastein 
It's peaceful with a magnificent waterfall. We could hear it from our hotel room. There's a thermal spa ("bad"=bath) in the center of town to relax after skiing. They have an outdoor hot pool which you swim from the inside. When it's snowing, its added "bliss" because you can roll in it directly from hot pool or sauna!