I know there are a few ski/boarding threads already but I didn’t want to hijack them. I am looking for some advice on Austrian resorts for myself and my wife.

We have already been to Zell am See, which we loved, but would now like to try somewhere different. We are both intermediate boarders with our own gear and are mainly looking for good pistes with maybe a bit off easy off-piste thrown in for good measure.

Any resort recommendations would be good. We are looking to get half board in a 3/4 star hotel without spending ridiculous amounts – so this may rule out the most expensive resorts. Any advice welcome.

Best week of skiing I ever had outside Argentiere was St Anton. Superb skiing and some challenging pistes. We were a large batchelor party staying at the Sporthotel and in one week we drank our way through £1300 worth of their wine. Ahem.

The Hoff. Especially if you like a bit of après. Always a good laugh.

Throw in a couple of day trips to the Hintertux Glacier as well for some variety.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/snowandski/austria/mayrhofen/

Not been my self but my mate raves on about St Anton. Said both the pistes and the apres was really good fun.

Skier here rather than boarder.
My first recommendations for Austrian resorts would be Ischgl and St Anton.
Depends when you’re going though, as there are loads more good resorts that are maybe a bit low for early/late season.

Done Soll with the Mrs, She enjoyed it being beginner/Intermediate, nightlife was ok not like some of the mad french resorts but not quiet either.

Spent a week in St Anton and really enjoyed it. Plenty of off piste stuff

OP, its definitely not a sidetrack to post in the ski thread. St Anton is one of my top 5 resorts worldwide, there is something for everyone on piste, off piste and after skiing. You can get some good half board hotels quite reasonably priced too depending on when you are going, do have a check as to where they are located though as some are piste side and others can be quite far. It might be argued you don’t need such an extensive resort given your level but its a good choice for pretty much everyone including beginners (assuming you want great instruction and the snow is good). There plenty of other very nice resorts which are smaller and more charming and might suit you well too. I’ve had good holidays in St Johann-im-Tyrol and also in Obergurgal too. It’s had to make recommendations and there is a lot of choice and a lot of it is very good.

Planning to go towards the end of Feb. Have just had a look at St. Anton and it seems really pricey for hotels. We are not that bothered about apres-ski….we have done all that in our yoof. As long as there is somewhere nice to sit and have a few drinks after we have knackered ourselves on the mountain then we are happy enough. Cheers for suggestions so far.

That widens the scope massively.
Sankt Johann (Tyrol)
Sankt Johann (Pongau)
Kirchberg
Lech
Zurs
Flachau
Zell am Ziller

Not Mayrhofen unless you like to be with lots of rowdy Brits on tour.

It might be argued you don’t need such an extensive resort given your level

A large ski area would be good – we have done Portes du Soleil a few times and found that having a large space to explore is really good fun.

Oddly I can find some reasonably priced Chalets in St.Anton but no hotels.

St Anton is steep and unforgiving, they also don’t do a lot of piste grooming, so if you like an early start to hoon down the groomed stuff, you won’t get it there.

It is however great skiing. If you can stretch to it go here: The food is wonderful, you will want for nothing all wine and beer included, ski in ski out etc etc. Duff Ski

Isto, we have done a few budget Lads trips to the Ski Welt area.

http://www.skiwelt.at/en/

We fly to Munich, pick up a car and drive 1.5hrs to stay in any one of the hotels in the area. Having the car means you can drive to any of the resorts in the area which are all a few mins away with carparks next to the lift. Neiderau, Affach, Alpbach, Soll are all included on the pass and its good value to eat and drink. If you get there early you can get on the slopes by lunchtime and stay until mid afternoon for an evening flight home.

Saint Johann in Tyrol is excellent for intermediate boarders. Also a 20min free bus to Waidring aka Steinplatte is good too. If it drops there is lots of easy off piste (just off the side of the piste) to be had. Easy to spot from the chair.

A few little ski areas around there by free ski bus too. I spent a day at Kichdorf (one chair, one tbar) and it was so much fun boarding through the forest singletrack and riding the untouched pow that beginners fear to tread.

We did some hills from the Hochgurgl area a few years ago it seemed to be on its way up

Neiderau

Went here, wouldn’t rush back. It’s low (800m resort height) and not at all snowsure.

It’s quiet enough and cheap enough but overall if you’ve been to PdS you might not find it overly impressive.

Also, there is no such thing as a highjack of the Ski and Snowboard thread, it’s made for this kind of question.

We have been to Bad Gastein a few times. The town itself has seen better days but still fun to be had if you look for it. The boarding is really pretty good. Not a favourite with the Brits so it always seems to come in pretty reasonable. Worth a look.

Stubai glacier – guaranteed snow.
Stay in Innsbruck – guaranteed to find decent hotels and food/drink

Going back for second winter in a row. Can’t wait 🙂

Fiss
Ischgl
Kitzbuhl
Kaprun , but thats tiny really
ST Anton with the new links really is good and theere is a ( sometimes full ) bus to Sonnenkopf or up to Lech/Zurs as its abit of a schlep on a board

Planning to go towards the end of Feb

OP, are you sure that’s not school holidays 😯 ? First week of March is usually a winner, decent snow and a good chance of some sunshine. Fairly cheap too.

I’ve said it before but my favourite resort in Austria is Servaus- Fiss- Ladis. It is a massive ski area and as the villages are so high up you are almost guaranteed snow to right to the car parks. Good apres ski scene too if you are into that sort of thing.

Austria doens’t tend to have as massive ski areas as a lot of the French resorts but you could look at something like the Ski Welt. As above I really liked St Johann in Tyrol – it’s small but charming and feels like a ‘real’ village. Very cheap and decent food/drink too, not far from a few other reasonable small resorts on the same pass. Quite near Kitzbuhel too.

St Anton is superb but a lot of it is steep and it’s a fair bit pricier than most other places. I wasn’t a massive fan of Mayrhofen TBH – much preferred Zell am Ziller down the road. That has some really fun, relatively safe accessible off-piste.

Never had a bad time skiing in Austria though – I love it (biased maybe as I spent a year there as a small child).

Austria is brilliant, its like going back to the early 1990s. Mayrhoffen (spelling sorry) had a hectic gondola but was a great place, and there were some good resorts near there on the same lift pass, easy train to them. St Anton is poundingly good but a bit up its own arse 🙂 Zell is cool, kaprun had a couple of great parks and the glacier- in a nutshell i love Austria.

I’ll always recommend Maria Alm / Hochkoenig, don’t need to use any drag lifts and no flat bits.
Empty lift queues and pistes, decent off piste.
€3.80 a pint in most bars.

St Anton was OK but I preferred Lech. Found it relatively steep, busy and full of what would have once been referred to as yuppies 🙂 Lech, despite probably being more upmarket, was a nicer place to ski. However, probably more expensive to stay as we had a B&B in St Anton. Also did a week out of an appartment in Kappl in the same valley as Ishgl and got to ski all the resorts there. More than enough to keep anyone happy I would say. Secret, I guess is having your own transport so you are not tied to one area if it proves to be a bit naff. Chances of that these days, to be fair, are pretty slim unless snow conditions are poor.

Saalbach. It is a bit lively, but you can pick and choose where you go. Big area, some nice long runs (I find in comparison to Skiwelt). Also new link to Fieberbrun opens up this season which extends the area.

Love Ski Amade area (huge area, but not all linked). We’ve stayed in Wagrain and Radstadt, but if you want direct access without a car Flachau is probably a good shout. Flachau links to Wagrain/Alpendorf and a very short bus ride to Flachauwinkl means that you can get over to Kleinarl and Zauchensee.

Schladming is also a really good area.

To be honest, you can’t go far wrong with anywhere in Austria. We love the place!

Saalbach is truly fab.

Schladming is also a really good area.

Yep, nice modern lifts and facilities too (thanks to being a Ski World Cup venue).

Not only do they have lockers for your gear at the bottom of lifts, they also have a huge heated changing area.

Never had a bad time skiing in Austria though

Agreed. Been all over it and it is always good.
(Proposed to my wife on the Hintertux Glacier 🙂 )

Some of the French resorts have more spectacular scenery and/or bigger ski areas but the overall experience in Austria is generally brilliant IMO.

Beautiful charming proper towns/villages, with generally a great sense of hospitality (lots of the hotels/huts are family-owned/run), it’s inexpensive, stodgy but quality food, it’s efficient, people are super-friendly, great for kids, really traditional in a way that (mostly) doesn’t feel like a theme park. I love it. I even like the terrible oompah music with added pounding dance beats – I reckon if you can put aside any pretence of being cool and get massively drunk this looks like great fun:

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5qA11Ayb_Y[/video]

I suspect most Austrians of being massive racists but you can’t have everything. 🙂

Saalbach and Schladming both look good and there is some reasonable deals for hotels. @jambalaya the week before is the half term break….with the crazy prices. Thanks all for the info, i will use the megathread the next time

I reckon Obergurgl. Take your imagination and indulge in the new sport of “photo-bombing” the snow cam 🙂

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYuZnr6lKAc[/video]

always had a soft spot for Saint Johann im Pongau.

Somewhere up in the hills out of town there used to be the most amazing steak house. They cooked steaks on an open wood fire, cooked to perfection, not a place for vedgetarians though.

& linked with Flachau & Wagrain made for a large ski area.

& then there are GernKnodels – but they are probably everywhere in Austria.

I found with Saalbach that even though the pistes were really good and extensive the people on them were exceptionally snooty and little things like having to pay extra for parking where most resorts in Austria you don’t as the lift passes are expensive enough and the on piste lodges were really overpriced for what you got (and I’m comparing Austrian prices). The fact that you can link up with Leogang is a bonus though.

I stayed in Seefeld near Innsbruck on the way through Austria on the motorbike this Summer. I booked a night earlier that day online and didn’t really take much notice of the description – the “Alpenhotel … Fall In Love”

It was full of German / Austrian couples all swooning over each other whilst I tramped through reception in my motorbike gear.

Was a bit taken aback by the things in the room.

Probably don’t go there…

Rachel

Apparently the locals say…
You take your wife to Lech
You take your mistress to Zurs
and you take your skis to St Anton

I’m a bit worried about the recycling policy in that hotel Rachel

😯

Lech, despite probably being more upmarket, was a nicer place to ski.

I seem to remember Lech being nice for cruising around on very gentle easy pistes, but a bit dull – and definitely more upmarket than St Anton (which is already one of the poshest resorts in Austria).

Roster Stern – I can’t say I noticed much/any difference between prices in Saalbach with anywhere else we’ve been (same goes for the clientele).

Saalbach get my vote. Been there many times and always love it. Bit of a party town, but it’s happy and friendly, not rowdy. Austrians know how to have a good time.

Hinterglemm is linked and more of a family friendly place to stay if you want quieter.

Also linked to Leogang and due to be linked up to Fieberbrunn, and then expanding further they’re going to link Zel am See / Kaprun, making for a big ski area.

Thumbs up for St Anton.

Only place I’ve been to in Austria, but I’ve been to France, Switzerland, Italy, etc, and it compares very well.

Krazy Kangaruh for apres ski. Bring lots of cash!