It’s been a while since we got back from our latest European trip. So much so that we’re busy planning our next trip and had completely forgotten to post our costs and summary information.
New Van Time
We picked up our new van on 10th January and had a quick shake down weekend in Cardiff before heading off on our ski trip. The van did really well and although we were sad to say goodbye to Bertie we’re happy that we made the right decision to move to a more modern model.
Our new van in winter
Our trip summary
Back on 5th February we left for our winter trip. We had the luxury of a Le Shuttle booking due to a good wedge of Tesco Clubcard vouchers saved up over the year. Getting the tunnel is definitely a time saver, such a shame it’s so much more expensive than the ferry now. We got to our first ski resort in record time. The new van helped too, it’s a lot faster and we can both drive it so we can cram in more hours on the road.
We only had one overnight stop just before we got to the alps. We ascended the Col de Lauteret and descended to the Serre Chevalier ski resort on Day 2. The sun was shining but there was plenty of snow and the weather was the right type of cold, about -7°C overnight to keep the snow in good condition but not so cold that it really tested us. We got straight into skiing in this new location and enjoyed a few days skiing and hiking.
After Serre Chevalier we headed to Montgènevre with a brief stop in Briançon where we had our first of many encounters with a Vauban fort on this trip. Montgènevre was great for a few days but the weather got steadily warmer and the snow slushy and thin. Our original plan had been to head over the border and stay in the Italian Milky Way resorts, but reports from other skiers put us off and we decided to head back the way we had come to the higher resorts of Les Deux Alpes and Alpe d’Huez.
Then we pushed north to Les Saisies where we had a few days in one of our favourite resorts. Sadly the weather was still pretty mild but we did have a welcome top up of snow.
The Aosta Valley was our final destination, somehow we always end up here on a skiing trip. We used the Mont Blanc tunnel to travel through the mountains and visited the resort of La Thuile before heading to a new ski destination for us – Torgnon – a teeny tiny resort that was great fun for a weekend. We had a couple of days in Cervinia/Valtournenche before finally heading to the Monte Rosa ski area. Our final ski day was 7th April.
On the way back we considered spending a few extra days in Cervinia or Pila, but a serious snow storm was due. Our decision to head back through the Mont Blanc tunnel was probably the right one. The snow storm was highly disruptive with a couple of meters falling in the space of a day and many resorts taking several days to reopen.
We plotted a route back to the UK through France, Luxembourg and Belgium, visiting a few cities and tourist attractions along the route.
We returned on the Ferry on 28th April using our Camping and Caravanning Club discount and P&O ferries.
All this time I was also working two days a week which kept our finances in good shape but reduced our time doing other stuff.
You can look back at our blog posts for the trip by going to our Blog Archive
How Many Days?
- 83 Schengen Days in Europe (including our entry and exit days)
- 23 Working “Digital Nomad” Days
- 23 Skiing Days
- 16 Hiking Days
- 19 Other days, travelling, sightseeing or just chilling
Where did we stay
- We visited 9 Ski resorts, 3 of which were new to us
- Serre Chevalier new,
- Montgènevre,
- Les Deux Alpes new,
- Alpe d’Huez (including Vaujany),
- Les Saisies,
- La Thuile,
- Torgnon new,
- Champoluc,
- Cervinia (including Valtornenche)
- 28 Overnight Locations
How Much Did we Spend?
And finally the big question – how much did we spend?
Over the 83 days we spent a total of £6514.76
This works out at approx. £78.50 per day. Skiing isn’t cheap but we usually save money by taking lunches and flasks of drinks with us. The mostly sunny weather meant we could make good use of resort picnic benches.
Our overnight locations cost a total of £901.70, approx. £11 a night. Again we are pretty comfortable with this. Our most expensive location was our night at Black Horse Farm in the UK before we left. £29.90 for one quick overnight stop reminded us why we usually prefer to stay at the Canterbury Park and Ride.
Bruges aire was the most expensive location once we had crossed the channel at £25.70 per night. We stayed in a few free places but we tend to choose our overnight location based on activities we want to do rather than cost so we weren’t seeking them out.
Twenty days of skiing (plus one ski service) cost us £2241.27 in total. As usual we didn’t use a season pass but did save where possible by using special offers and discounts, plus half day or 4 hour passes where we knew that the snow would turn slushy in the afternoon.
