I’ve skied every continent and over 50 ski resorts – here are my favourite places to head downhill
Extraordinaire Gives Ski Tips Journalist Byrnes: Flip Us Her
"Well. That became interesting quickly.”
My kite-ski teammate Harry yelled this understatement of the century across the tent, as seams threatened to fray beneath the tortured screams and furious fists of a kabatic Arctic storm.
The ‘interesting’ element was location, somewhere mid Greenland icecap, mid blizzard and scrambling to construct an ice block protective wall I asked myself (not the for the first time) “How did I get here?”
In this instance I was a blow in (literally) on a kite-skiing The North Face expedition hauling a pulk 450 miles across Greenland.
But snow love started as a milder affair, on skis at two years of age, segueing to working for Colorado’s Aspen in Communications, flirting with snowboard instructing before becoming a ski journalist and author chasing endless winters, unique stories and addicted to the remotest white lines.
Things snowballed, becoming the first Australian to snowboard descend Europe’s highest mountain, Russia’s Mt Elbrus (simply as it was faster than climbing down) and following my great-grandfather’s footsteps (Frank Hurley, Ernest Shackleton’s photographer on the Endurance) to Antarctica, attaining full obsessed, snow stalker status.
But there’s no need to be extreme, adventure is anything you haven’t tried before – a new run, a new town, a new bar - and fun is a mere pole poke away.
Think log fires and Bombardini (Italy's answer to egg nog, sign me up), perfectly groomed slopes in the USA, quirky Canadian resorts on the Powder Highway and the simple, sweet sensation of falling flakes, anywhere.
Whether a first timer or old hand, expert skier or après skier, there’s a ski area howling to bring out your inner powder hound. Here are some of my favourites.
Brandish your beginner status like the access-all-areas rock star card it is. Ski resorts love beginners, who spend on rental equipment, lessons and multiple hot chocolate breaks.
Thus, beginner packages abound, snow plough into the open arms of France’s ski-in ski out spectacular (where a beginner six half-day group lessons with instruction, lift passes and rentals costs €398 / £331 pp with ESF), Switzerland’s cute-as-a-button or in the , one of Aspen Snowmass’s four mountains, is almost entirely for beginners.
For low-cost commitment, budget friendly (or Bankso for a cosmopolitan nudge) in Bulgaria is a bulls eye.
An easy hour access from Sofia airport, it has all the trimmings of ski school, rentals, plus eating out nightly costs half the price of a catered chalet in France.
The con? You’re not actually in a catered chalet in Bulgaria. But you’re also not paying for expansive infrastructure and huge terrain that frankly, you’ll never use.
Let’s be clear, a ski holiday with small children is a military operation involving naps, lost gloves and short attention spans.
So when sighting a slide descending to a playroom next to the reception check-in desk of at Bavaria’s , it was clear a Parent Genius was involved.
Allgäuer Berghof, is one of the curated Familotels specialising in small children holidays. Widely unknown by Anglo Saxons, Familotels are found in the German speaking world (Switzerland, Germany and Austria, but now you know).
The slide was just the first taste of child utopia, extending to a basement water world with six waterslides (only topped by an excellent mud room at South Tyrol’s ) and a carpeted and warm ski locker for small tot play while getting ski-ready (it’s the small things).
And then there’s . Be still my beating heart.
They’ve applied their all-inclusive (luxe) family winning sun formula to the Alps and never looked back.
At Club Med La Rosière my professional mountaineer husband proclaimed he was wasn’t “an all inclusive kind of guy” until he met the Savoyarde cheese buffet with piping hot raclette and tartiflette.
My kids made an instant kid gang and my mothering heart soared to see them begin their own snow journeys. Core memories made.
Alternatively – save the big bucks, find any area with snow and make a snowman. I promise, kids will love it (almost) just as much.
Everyone knows USA’s and Canada’s , France’s and .
Then there’s . Back up, where? Until a few years ago, Engelberg in Switzerland’s Uri Alps was a well-kept secret. However the recent influx of Instagramming pro skiers and filmmakers capturing its mountains have seen it rise in gain a cult-like status.
There’s an absence of glitz on the cobblestone streets thanks to the absence of A-list celebrities, though the equivalent of ski royalty is here for the challenging terrain and legendary six metres of annual snow.
Plus, there are the 2000m descents from 3292m Titlis (reached by a revolving cable car, the Titlis Rotair) where you’ll find both riders toting ice axes and sight seers from India and Asia having a first snow experience at this Bollywood film location.
Their level of joy is exponential and contagious, sure to melt even the most snow-hardened heart.
Opening the door to is to unleash a joyful mass of half-dressed humanity.
At one of the wildest après outposts in the world, the crowd is going crazy and there you have Austria in a nutshell. Or a beer glass.
A fun fest of people living their best lives, dancing like it’s 1999 to a playlist that often is 1999 with an oompah beat thrown in.
Après isn’t limited to this small niche of Austria. It’s everywhere and there’s only one thing as hectic as Austria’s afternoon shenanigans: the skiing and boarding. This is one holiday you might return from needing an actual holiday.
While nowhere else offers guaranteed hangovers countrywide, there are isolated outposts delivering supernova après.
The Swedish colonised Ski Lodge in Switzerland’s is where you’ll hear ‘let’s get the party staaaaarted’ regularly, but oddly one of the most epic après is to be found in Australia’s tiny .
The tinderbox of ingredients includes a snowbound cluster of club lodges accessed only by oversnow cat, only one pub, a valley of staff experiencing cabin fever and alcohol. The best après ski week of my life.
Hola ! Imagine a cruise ship marooned on the heart of the Andes and there you have the sole big, yellow hotel of Portillo with slope side pool, four meals a day (including high tea), and numbers capped at 450 meaning you’ll be saying cómo estás to everyone by weeks’ end.
A week here is a run sheet of late morning starts, long lunches at Tio Bobs, early hot tub sessions, a siesta, dinners starting at 9pm and like-minded skiers. (World Cup ski racing teams from the USA, Canada, Austria, Norway and others train here during their Summer season).
The bonus is a Santiago stop over, a surprise chiaroscuro package of cool European class and hot Latin blood.
The other must-ski life destination are the (beeline for Alta Badia and Val Gardena) for All The Things - impressive value, incredible scenery, effusive hospitality and meals to remember.
Hello, , you little Canadian gem.
New kid on the block ‘Revy’, as it’s known, is the ultimate ski resort disruptor. Not the aim when bursting on the scene in 2006, but certainly a consequence of creating the biggest North American lifted vertical of 1,713 metres.
Now this former railway town draws adventurers and powder pilgrims from around the world, boasts microbreweries instead of backroom brawls and an exploding local produce and arts scene (there’s even an on-slope gallery).
Goldilocks would approve of Revelstoke, not too gentrified, but with organic porridge that’s just right.
The USA’s is also the hot word on the cool slopes, having completing a huge 10 year Master Plan but France’s is my dark horse winner by a ski tip.
Wedged between the bright lights of Chamonix and the chi-chi fur coats of ritzy Megeve, this turn-of-the-century spa town is the French real-deal.
It’s a snow globe of a village with baroque churches where the riding is far from shabby. Accessing the Evasion Mont Blanc, the third largest in France with a whopping 445km of terrain and 107 lifts, it’s possible to ski for an entire week and never ski the same run twice.
Venturing beyond ski areas by ski touring or split boarding (using special skis allowing walking uphill) makes the world your oyster.
Favourite experiences involve multi day trips with mountain guides, staying in basic mountain huts in the Alps like the precariously perched Margherita hut at 4554 metres overlooking Italy.
Then dream big and creatively – , or sailing and skiing in (or even quieter Lyngen Alps) dropping spectacularly to the ocean and in an ideal world, a waiting salmon-stocked sailboat.
And let’s not forget heli skiing lodges in Canada, s CAN$10 Kat skiing or New Zealand’s club lodges with minimal infrastructure and big personality.
The final step? Polar travel.
This includes touring near Antarctica (my current dream). But don’t get me wrong, a plate of sage and butter ravioli with a glass of Rhône red before an electro beat afternoon at Val D’Isere’s Folie Douce, or standing sideline at my kids ski races and I’m there!
In the white world, every experience has value and is unique as a snowflake — choose one style of play or even better, embrace them all to create your own, personal, mountain of fun.
Flip Byrnes is a multi-award-winning journalist who’s slid on every continent writing from Courchevel to Kashmir, Russia to Romania, Quebec to Queenstown.
A lifelong snow industry career has seen her working as an instructor, ski journalist, in ski area marketing departments and as an expeditioner who has lived in the French Alps, Colorado in the US and Australia's Snowy Mountains.
She’s equally happy snowboarding, skiing or split-boarding, but has a special thing for polar places, cemented when kite-skiing halfway across Greenland.
Flip divides her time between Europe and Australia with her UIAGM mountain guide husband and two mini mountain mad girls, and would do almost anything for raclette.
Flip's latest book, Ultimate Skiing & Snowboarding, was just awarded Australian Society of Travel Writers Book of the Year 2024.