Austrian Ski Resorts – Introduction

Popular ski destination with many advantages over the competition, but also some flaws, depending on your priorities and the season of the year.

Speaking of skiing in general, it is an ungrateful task to pick out a country as a whole since each has a zillion of regions, which can differ in great detail, such as the way of life, or culture. However, to cut the story short, in this text Austria will be treated as a whole, with some mutual characteristics for all ski resorts. If you are a world traveler visiting many European ski resorts, you will be able to evaluate objectivity of these data.

The thing that a skier can expect of Austrians is definitely good organization. If you have booked your lodging via the Internet, you can rely on the deal with your host regardless of the fact that it was done months earlier.

The roads are neat, as well as road entrances, except in very bad weather conditions or at higher altitudes that are constantly exposed to snow falling. In general, Austrian ski resorts are not as big as, let's say, French ones; but there are some regions in which they merge, creating thus enviable trails length. Mostly, the length of ski trails per resort is about 50-75 km.

Lodgings in Austria are very good and comfortable; what is considered to be an exclusive condo in France, is an average one in Austria, in not under averaged. But this is also the reason of relatively high full-price offer, starting with ski pass price, which is from € 28 for smaller ski resorts to € 35 for bigger and renowned ones.

Tolls are rather high. You will also need a vignette. Organized transport is a rarity, even if you booked your travel arrangement via agency. The snow is sure in January and February. If you prefer sun and longer days, you will have to be extra cautious while booking your arrangement in March since if the year is warmer, there will scarcely be any snow on lower trails of ski resorts at altitudes of 2000 or 2200 m.

Cableways are mostly rather good and you will rarely come across the relicts such as the wooden cableways at Krvavec ski resort or the ones at the famous Cortina d'Ampezzo.

Glaciers are many; you can consider skiing at late spring, or even in the middle of the summer. The quality of ski resorts varies from bad to extremely good, as it is the case with all ski countries, but here we are speaking of a large choice; in the radius of 300 – 400 kilometers around Zagreb you my choose between more than a hundred ski resorts.

But before you definitely decide on your destination, editor's office advice is that you carefully consider our opinion on respective destinations.

Enjoy your snow moments!

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