Cheap Places to Go Snowboarding: 19 Budget Ski Areas in Europe and Beyond

Snowboarding does not have to mean the priciest names in the Alps. This list of 19 budget-friendly places to ride, first drawn up in 2013 from a World Snowboard Guide ranking, mixes small village ski areas, city hills and big linked domains from France, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Slovenia, Italy, Greece, Canada and the USA. Here is what each one offers.

France: villages with big-area access

1. Saint-Jean-d’Aulps

This Haute-Savoie village in the Haut-Chablais grew up around the Cistercian Abbey of Aulps, founded at the end of the 11th century and now a ruin. Its own ski area, Espace Roc d’Enfer (also called La Grande Terche), has 20 pistes and about 40 km of runs between roughly 900 and 1,800 m, much of it with snowmaking. The Portes du Soleil pass covers it, and winter shuttles run to Morzine, Les Gets and Avoriaz.

2. Combloux

Known as “la perle du Mont-Blanc” because Mont Blanc is almost always in view, Combloux sits at about 960 m in Haute-Savoie. It shares the Evasion Mont-Blanc area with Megève, Saint-Gervais, Les Contamines and La Giettaz, a total of around 445 km of pistes.

3. Le Grand-Bornand

On the western slope of the Aravis range in Haute-Savoie, Le Grand-Bornand is one of the birthplaces of reblochon cheese. It is a regular Tour de France stage town and is set to host biathlon at the 2030 Winter Olympics.

4. Les Orres

In the Hautes-Alpes of southern France, Les Orres has 38 runs adding up to about 100 km, in a commune that rises from 1,198 m to 2,914 m.

5. La Toussuire

Part of the Les Sybelles ski area in Savoie, La Toussuire skis from 1,680 m up to 2,431 m. Cycling fans know it as a Tour de France summit finish in 2006, 2012 and 2015.

6. Sainte-Foy-Tarentaise

On the road between Bourg-Saint-Maurice and Val-d’Isère, Sainte-Foy is a young resort: its first three chairlifts opened in winter 1990/91. It climbs from 1,550 m to the Col de l’Aiguille at about 2,620 m, a vertical of just over 1,000 m, with marked off-piste runs that suit snowboarders.

Switzerland: small hills and famous valleys

7. Grüsch-Danusa

Grüsch is a village of the Prättigau valley in Graubünden, at about 629 m, with the Grüsch-Danusa ski area on the mountain above it.

8. Adelboden

Adelboden, in the Bernese Highlands, sits at about 1,350 m and hosts the men’s World Cup giant slalom on the Chuenisbärgli, one of the toughest courses on the circuit. Access is by post bus from Frutigen on the Lötschberg line, and the Engstligen Falls drop about 375 m nearby.

9. Morgins

A village of Troistorrents in Valais at 1,333 m, Morgins lies just below the Pas de Morgins on the French border and belongs to the vast Portes du Soleil ski area.

10. Chur–Brambrüesch

Chur, the capital of Graubünden and reputedly Switzerland’s oldest town, has its own local mountain: Brambrüesch, at 2,174 m, reached from the Old Town. Few places let you ride in the morning and be back in a historic town centre for lunch.

Austria and Germany: city riding and big peaks

11. Schwaz–Pill

The Schwaz–Pill area in Tyrol gives snowboarders a small, local alternative to the large Tyrolean resorts.

12. Innsbruck

The capital of Tyrol sits at 574 m on the River Inn and hosted the Winter Olympics in 1964 and 1976. The Nordkette range rises straight above the city, served by the Hungerburg funicular and cable cars, and the Bergisel jump hosts the Four Hills Tournament. Most other ski areas need a bus or car ride from town.

13. Alpspitzbahn, Garmisch-Partenkirchen

The pyramid of the Alpspitze (2,628 m) is the symbol of Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Bavaria. The Alpspitze cable car climbs to Osterfelderkopf at 2,033 m, where the AlpspiX platform pushes two crossed steel walkways 13 m out over the cliff.

Greece, Slovenia and Italy

14. Kalavryta, Greece

Kalavryta, at 764 m in the mountains of Achaea in the Peloponnese, is one of the most meaningful places in Hellas to ride. The ski centre lies east of the town on the slopes of Mount Chelmos, about 40 km from Patras. The town is also the end of the Diakopto–Kalavryta rack railway, built by Italian engineers between 1885 and 1895.

History is everywhere. At the nearby monastery of Agia Lavra, Bishop Germanos III of Old Patras raised the flag of the Greek Revolution on 21 March 1821. On 13 December 1943 German occupation troops massacred 696 men and boys of Kalavryta and burned the town and, the next day, the monastery of Agia Lavra. A day on Chelmos is best paired with time to remember that history.

15. Bovec–Kanin, Slovenia

Bovec sits in the upper Soča valley below Mount Kanin in the Julian Alps, close to the Italian border. The Kanin ski area links across the border to Sella Nevea in Italy; in summer the same town is a centre for rafting and kayaking.

16. Vogel, Slovenia

Vogel (1,922 m) rises above Lake Bohinj inside Triglav National Park, and its ski resort is one of the biggest in Slovenia. A cable car climbs from the lake to about 1,537 m, with views across to Triglav, the country’s highest peak.

17. Piani di Bobbio–Valtorta, Italy

This linked area in Lombardy joins Piani di Bobbio, reached by cable car from Barzio in the Valsassina, with Valtorta in the province of Bergamo. It has about 35 km of pistes on 20 runs served by 8 lifts, and lies only about 65 km from Milan.

North America

18. Camp Fortune, Canada

Camp Fortune is in Chelsea, Quebec, in the Gatineau Hills, about fifteen minutes from downtown Ottawa. Its three faces, Skyline, Valley and Meech, give a vertical of up to 180 m over roughly 20–25 trails, an easy half-day from the capital.

19. Black Mountain, USA

The US pick on the 2013 list was Black Mountain, a small, traditional ski hill.

How to keep a snowboard trip cheap

• Compare the whole trip: flights or fuel, transfers, nights, pass, board rental and lessons together.
• Stay in the valley: villages like Combloux or Saint-Jean-d’Aulps cost less than high-altitude bases but still connect to large areas.
• Use regional passes: the Portes du Soleil and Evasion Mont-Blanc passes turn small villages into gateways to hundreds of kilometres of runs.
• Travel outside school holidays: peak holiday weeks bring the highest prices and the busiest lifts.

Explore more: Swiss destinations to research; a Canadian list with clearer measurement distinctions.

Related reading

• 15 Swiss Ski Resorts: Compare the Villages, Terrain and Connected Areas
• Twenty-Five Ski Towns and Mountain Destinations Around the World
• Magic Flashlights: Knife Show’s Mount Hood Snowboard Film
• A Lake Louise Snowboard Lap with Blayne Campbell
• Niseko Snowboarding: A Thirteen-Day GoPro Diary

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