There are lots of options getting to the Alps from London. You can take a bus, train, fly or drive. So if you’re planning a short trip, how do they stack up?
Bus: £100-£200, about 14-20 hours
There are a number of companies offering buses from London to the Alps. Prices are from about £100-£200 per person return. But these are hideously long journeys. Skibusuk, for example quotes leaving London on a Friday at between 3pm and 6pm and arriving at the slopes at abouth lunchtime – up to 20 hours. Most of these companies only offer a Friday out Saturday return service, to it only works if you want to ski for a week. And that does not work with the principle of this site, for minibreaks.
Other companies offering this are snowexpress.co.uk and snowcoach.co.uk.
But our view is that if you are going for a minibreak, a 20-hour bus trip each way is just too much.
Train: £300, and 10 hours
Eurostar offers a ski trin service from St Pancras to Bourg St Maurice on the edge of the ski areas. Eurostar is such a civilised way to travel, wen you are on the train. But you have to change in Paris from Du Nord to Paris Gare De Lyon, and the journey is not fast. If you take th 1.30pm train, you arrive at Bourge at 11.30pm – 10 hours. And its not cheap. Eurotar claims tickets are “from £149 return”. But the cheapest tickets I could find in a recent search were £184 each way, so £368 return. Some excellent details from seat61 and Snowcarbon, which has a useful video. You then need to transfer to your resort. Snowcarbon offers some information to get you to Tignes.
Once again, our view is that if you are only going for a couple of days, this is a very slow way to get there.
Driving: At least 12 hours, maybe not cheaper
From London to the French Alps it’s about 800 miles, and takes about 11-12 hours, not allowing for the Channel crossing. An approximate route once in Calais would be Reims, Dijon, Lyon and Albertville, plus about an hour for the Channel crossing. Most people find that too much for one go, so break the journey, adding the cost of a hotel. But there are also other costs.
Fuel: In factoring the costs, petrol is cheaper in France (£1.27 per litre on average compared with £1.32), according to the latest AA report (theaa.com/motoring-advice/fuel). Diesel, meanwhile, is significantly less (£1.21 a litre, compared with £1.39 in Britain). However, fuel prices on the autoroute are usually higher than average.
Tolls: If you drive the whole way on French toll motorways, the total bill is around £130 return. The only way to avoid the tolls is to plan a much slower, more leisurely itinerary which avoids all, or some of the French motorways, but this can add a further four to six hours to the journey.
Others Check your insurance covers, carry snow chains, obviously.
Overall, though this can possibly save money if you have a car full, we just don't see it as worth it, particularly as you are likely to arrive at the mountain very very tired, and not the best state to start skiing.
Flying and minibus: fast, and cheap
London to Geneva is 1 hour and 40 minutes. you allow half an hour to transit the airport, and be in the queue for the bus, and an hour bus transfer to the slopes. That is around three horus form London to your ski resort. The cost, depending on the airline and bus company, can be anything from £50 up to several hundreds. For us, this is the cheapest, most efficient way to get there for a micro or mini ski break.
Go to Kayak.co.uk to search for a flight. Easyjet are usually the cheapest and direct. But if you have your own skies, both Easyjet nd British airways will charge you to carry the skis. better to fly with Swiss, which descrime themselves as the "Skiers' airline", and justify this by carrying your skis for fee. Oh, and they give you free chocolate, in case you need another reason to book with them.
Bus transfer: there is a huge variety of companies. We have always used Morzexpress, and its sisterm line Chamexpress. You can expect to pay about €20 each way to Morzine or Chamonis.
