It's that time of year again where we have spent the dreary month of January in the French Alps, in this blog we thought we would answer the question we get asked alot - How easy was it spending 4 weeks skiing in Les Arcs from a VW campervan?
Full disclosure we did spend a week of the trip in a lovely apartment with our family in Arc 1950 which had the luxury of ski in/ski out and all the cafes and restaurants. So this blog is also a comparison of the 2 experiences.
The Long road to the French Alps
Obviously, with us living in the van for most of the trip - we had no choice but to drive down to the Alps (our family flew into Geneva and got a bus transfer to the resort) It is just over 1000 miles from the Yorkshire Dales to Bourg Saint Maurice where we were based for most of the trip. The journey was not without its few hiccups!
When we left the Dales at the beginning of January, the UK was under a deep cold weather spell and the narrow country lanes were pretty treacherous to drive - one of the trickiest parts of the journey being the 200m on the ungritted lanes from our cottage to the main road.
The journey to Dover is long and torturous - we were diverted at several points and ended up on the A14 at one point heading towards Cambridge, but we made it by 10pm and had a peaceful nights sleep at our favourite carpark in Dover behind the police station!
We had booked onto a ferry at 7am which suits us as we can get in a good days drive on the French roads, we were one of only 5 cars and vans on the ferry, the rest was half empty with just a few HGV's.
Within about 10 miles of Calais we had a minor disaster when a stone flirted up and chipped our front windscreen. What started out as a tiny crack grew to about 20 inches long with in the next 20 miles, that combined with heavy snow fall and lack of somewhere to stop was quite a disconcerting experience. A quick phone call to our insurance company (Just Kampers) put us at ease that the windscreen would not shatter on us as it is laminated and they reassured us that they would arrange for the windscreen to be replaced when we got to our final destination.
It snowed pretty much all day but the French are very good at keeping the roads gritted and ploughed so we had no worries or issues there. We stopped overnight about an hour north of Geneva at the very pretty town of Dole. It was dark when we arrived so we went for a quick walk to find the public toilets which were close by (we have no onboard facilities), had our tea and got our head down for the night. We did go for an explore the next morning to find a patisserie for breakfast.
Getting the bed out was quite a job, as you can see from the picture at the start of the journey we were quite well laden down, complete with skis and boots. Most stuff fits into the front footwells and seats and the skis slid under the bed - it was quite a tight squeeze!
The last part of our journey into Bourg Saint Maurice through the Tarantaise valley was no less eventful as it snowed heavily and the roads had not been ploughed. There were a couple of times when we considered having to put the snow chains on. As luck would have it a snow plough appeared for the last couple of miles in front of us, so we made it to the campsite in one piece.
We had one night at Camping Huttopia in Bourg Saint Maurice before we headed up the mountain to Les Arcs 1950 which is where we had rented an apartment for a week with the family. Before we set off, we did a big supermarket shop as it is much cheaper to stock up in the valley.
The drive up to Arc 1950 had been ploughed and for most parts cleared, but there are many switch backs and there was still a lot of snow on the edges of the road - All in all, this was not one of our most pleasant drives to skiing, but having done it many times over the years, we knew we would get a journey like this at some point.
Click on the link below to see our vlog of the journey down:
Skiing from the apartment in Les Arcs 1950
We had a wonderful week skiing with the children. The apartment had 3 bedrooms, a nice comfortable living space and a kitchen with every thing we needed to self cater.
As a family we enjoy cooking together and eating nice food so we only ate out once in the week - however we did enjoy lots of traditional French mountain meals like tartfilette and a cheese fondue.
The apartments in Les Arcs 1950 are all in the centre of the village and it is really convenient to go for a pint or an Apres Ski cocktail.
The skiing is really easy and convenient. There is a heated boot room on the ground floor and we could be on the slopes skiing within minutes. It was also easy and convenient to return to the apartment for lunch or for a long break.
We enjoyed getting out and exploring the mountains and made it across to the furthest sector of La Plagne to the lovely village of Montalbert one day - it is a hard days skiing with lots of different lifts and cable cars to navigate but we have fond memories of Montalbert from previous ski trips and we had the most delicious meal at the Forperet restaurant before making our way back.
At a cost of £2200 per week for the apartment split between 6 people in low season we thought it was pretty good value. The costs rise quite dramatically by the end of January which would have made it prohibitively expensive, so for myself and Richard who wanted to ski for a few weeks, it was a no brainer to go back down the mountain and stay in the valley skiing from the campsite in Bourg.
Click on the link below for our vlog skiing from Arc 1950 and resort review
Skiing from Camping Huttopia in Bourg Saint Maurice
So for the rest of our extended ski season, we booked into the Huttopia campsite. We booked 23 nights for 2 reasons.
Firstly our travel insurance only covers us for 28 days on the mountain skiing - I am sure we could find a way around that if we wanted to stay longer.
More importantly, the second week in February sees the start of 4 weeks of French regional half term weeks and the English half term thrown in for good measure. This means that the slopes would be rammed with huge queues on all the lifts, there would be lots of children in big ski school groups all over the mountain and the campsite gets very busy.
We have stayed at the campsites a few times now and really enjoy the location and the convenience it offers. The cost also helps at around £26 a night including electricity, lots of hot water, warm showers and a comfortable community room with a wood burning stove for if we wanted to escape from the confines of the van.
There is a big communal ski locker room available, because we prefer to walk we hired a ski locker up in Arc 1600. It cost about £120 for the 3 weeks but made life so much easier for us.
Other facilities include a laundry room, a bread and pastry service and a washing up room which is well used in the evenings and a good way to meet some of the fellow campers.
The wifi from the community room is excellent and very quick, the reception for cell phones on the rest of the campsite is varied and at times non existent when everyone is tucked up their vans at night streaming TV.
Dogs are allowed on the campsite if kept on a lead.
There are a couple of options to get to the ski slopes. A bus service that goes from outside the campsite entrance every 20 minutes to the funicular or a 15 minutes walk through the forest which is our preferred option. The funicular goes up to Arc 1600 every 20 minutes where you can dive straight onto a chairlift. If you time it well you can be on the mountain from the campervan with in 25-30 minutes. We thought we would find this process a real hassle after being spoilt with ski in ski out for a week, but we actually quite enjoy the walk, it warms us up ready for skiing and helps with my daily footsteps challenge. It is also a really pretty walk.
We had a fantastic first week based at the campsite - the weather was excellent with blue sky days, the slopes were quiet with no queues for the lifts. We got across to La Plagne a couple of times on the Vanoise Express cable car which is included in our ski season pass and we had the most incredible day on the Glacier.
We have been really lucky that we had no extremes of weather this year. Most night the temperature was around -2 to 2 degrees so we were never really cold. Last year we did have a couple of nights at -18 degrees which was a little testing on our little VW!
Les Arcs is an excellent base for skiing with a wide variety of slopes from long wide cruisy blues to steep, narrow mogulled blacks and every thing in between. We have our favourite runs for different weather conditions, skiing the forest runs around Vallandry when visibility is low and the wide open bowl of Arc 2000 when it is hot and sunny. A particular favourite of ours is the Grand Col which has just a black and a red run off it but the views from the top are awesome.
We have found ways to keep our extended skiing trips on a budget. We have learnt where all the best picnic spots are depending on the weather and we know where to get the cheapest coffees and beers!
With our essential ski pass we had a fabulous roast ham meal at the Folie Douce for only €17 which included a large glass of wine and we discovered la Boulle cafe where you could get a pizza and a carafe of wine between us for about €24. There are lots of places to treat yourself on the mountain even if you are on a tighter budget.
When things go wrong!
Unfortunately, after a fab week of skiing from the valley - I picked up a chest infection which meant I did not ski for 12 days. For a couple of days I thought I had a flu type bug and rested up. I thought I was better after 4 days and tried a day on the mountain but it did not end well! I struggled coughing and breathing so took myself off to the hospital in Bourg Saint Maurice on the advice of some of the more seasoned campers.
The experience was really positive and the staff so friendly. I was asked for my GHIC card which I always ski with and a copy of my passport (they accepted an email of a photo of it) and that was all the admin done. I did have to pay a fee of €19 which apparently the French have to do as well.
I was only there for 3 hours and in that time I had been triaged by a nurse, had a chest X-ray and ECG, been put on a fluids drip, had several blood test, been assessed by a doctor twice , put on an antibiotic drip and discharged home with a prescription for antibiotics. I did not need my insurance details at all which really surprised me!
Sadly, part of the prescription literally stated no sporting activities and no altitude for 8 days. So I had another week grounded in the valley. Richard managed to go out skiing most days either on his own or with friends from the campsite - he had a great time!
Social aspects of van-life skiing
Something both of us enjoy about skiing from the campervan is how much more sociable it is than skiing from an apartment. This is our third year at the same campsite and there are several fellow travellers that we have met up with and would now consider good friends. As I mentioned earlier, washing up is a great way of meeting the other campers, as is having a beer in the community room and catching the bus to the funicular.
We also had a couple of lovely days skiing with people that recognised us from our YouTube channel and some of our good friends from home also made an impromptu decision to come skiing in their van - all in all, we were never lonely. We had a really nice meal out with lots of the other campers at a local Chinese buffet.
A mini break to Annecy
Once I was feeling a little better and getting a little stir crazy in the van, we decided to have a mini break away in Annecy which is about an hour and half drive from Bourg. I found a cute little apartment on bookin.com that was only £57 for the night and a change of scenery was definitely needed. It was so lovely, Annecy is a huge tourist town and every other time we have visited it has been packed with visitors. On a Wednesday in February we found it strangely quiet which meant we could actually explore the town, lake and the architecture at our leisure.
We also tied the trip out to Annecy with an appointment the insurance company had made in Aime to have the windscreen replaced on the van. We called in on the way back to the campsite and all worked out well, the van was ready for the long drive home.
With only a couple of days left once we got back from our mini break - I managed to get back on the mountains and enjoyed being able to ski again. We made the most of the good weather and skied until sunset.
We were expecting our last ski day to be extremely busy as it was the first weekend of the French school holidays but we found it surprisingly quiet!
It was sad packing up the van for the final time ready for the long drive home. We would truly have been happy to stay for another few weeks skiing from the van and are already planning what we might do next winter.
Link to vlog on lake Annecy below:
What are the costs of skiing from the van?
We have released a final vlog of our ski trip outlining all the costs involved - we were away for 5 weeks in total which includes the travel days and skied for a total of 4 weeks. I will put a link below this section.
Ferry - £ 236
Petrol - £383
Tolls - £165
Campsite fees for 23 nights - £589
Arc 1950 Accommodation - £750
Ski lift pass - a season pass was best value for long term skiing - £1379
Food/drink/general living expenses - £1120
Hospital visit - £16.46
Annecy accomaccommodationmodation - £57
La Folie Douce meal and pizza and Rose paid on card - £44.14
Total costs - £4739.60
If we had stayed at the campsite for the week not at Arc 1950 with the family the 5 week ski trip would have cost us £4169 or £2084.80 each which if you have ever been skiing is extremely good value as this includes all spending money and lift passes.
Hopefully we have inspired some of you to make the most of your vans and plan your own winter adventures. We are firm believers that vans are really expensive items to sit on a driveway or in a lock up for the winter and we get out and use our van as much as we can.
Have a great week,
Jackie and Richard
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