Europe winter help?

[brannen]

me and 2 roomies want to do the european ski thing this winter. i have no idea how to research housing, working with no visa, having some sort of income, and so on. any places to totally avoid? some places easier to get by then others? hostels? most of the mags i have are kinda useless. considering i havent skied europe yet, and none of us are good planners, i figured id ask some advice
if you got anything for me, thanks
in the meantime, st marys it is.....

[Ripzalot]

here you go...

http://www.natives.co.uk/

[Meathelmet]

Try this first : Europe.


There is a ton of info of other people planning trips,doing them and then posting good TRs of them.Practically all those issues are covered.
But in short

Housing : Interhome or some other ren-a-house, or contact the resort-of-your-choices tourist office and ask them. In advance. The best apartments start to vanish in august.Leave the reservation to november, and you might score a 200gallon drum full of feces and lice. If you are lucky. Well, at least in the more popular places. And you´ll have to pay way more for it.

Working : As said allways. Work home, ski abroad. Seriously. The jobs are scarce,shitty,underpaid and they wear you out making skiing harder.Imagine being a bouncer at the nightclub,being paid a 6€/hour,being headbutted in the face and sleeping 3 hours before a powderday paging Sufferfest... ?

Do all the work before the trip so you can really get loaded with cash,because living there will burn money. Even if you promise that you wont hit the apres-ski,you wont eat in the restaurants,you dont need any new gear or your daily ounce of coke, you will still do them to an certain extent.

Resorts : Well,that´s the tuff part. There are big and small. Good and bad. Etc and Etc.
If you are spending a season in a place, you´ll need a relative snow secure (usually in the central/east alps with high top lifts) place that is large enough to dissapate the crowds (other bums) and possibly have good hikes in nearby.
Or. On the other hand, going to a small,secret cosy village ,with very little of other skiers around to steal the pow might be the thing. But being trapped in a place with 1 bar,sheep and nothing to do might take a toll on your sanity. In The Shining kind of way...

i have no idea how to research housing, working with no visa, having some sort of income, and so on.none of us are good planners.

Well, in that case you dont get to europe.



Or stop whining,take the thumb out of your arse and start to be a good planner.
Sitting and waiting to get spoonfed aint getting you to europe skiing. You are going to get shafted in every single occasion unless you start to sack it up.This is the continent of bureaucracy, two timing,peddling and taking a piss on dumb people.

Or was it the continent of raunchy sex,tartifilette and big lines?
Can´t remember...

[Mulletizer]

IMO Working in the Alps is seriously over-rated. That said, jobs can provide accommodation, lift pass, insurance and (pitiful) pay. The downside is that any job (even a night job) will seriously eat into your ski time. I've done it, I most likely won't do it again.

The 100% dirtbag route isn't that hard: rent apartment, fill it with as many people as possible, buy pass, ski your ass off, party. I spent my last winter in La Grave for about $5000, including super nice apartement, two passes, all food, all beer, all petrol, insurance, travel there and home and some medical expenses. I think that if you really dirtbag you can survive on half that easily - just drink supermarket unbranded beer not bar beer, eat lots of pasta, sacrifice having a nice place and only get one pass.

There are plenty of people on the board who've done this all over the Alps. Post a few places you're interested in and we can give more info.

[Arno]

what he said
in my year as a ski bum, i rented a place for EUR300 per month. it was a 25 square metre appartment with just me in it. you could have got at least a couple more in there if you were going the dirt bag route.
however, this was in a very quiet village (Allemont) rather than a main resort so I had to drive to the lifts everyday (usually Alpe d'Huez but Les Deux Alpes and La Grave were withing 40 minutes drive) and nightlife was pretty non-existent. i didn't particularly care about that - i'm from London - there are plenty of bars here so i can do without them when i am skiing
the other thing is that living expenses in the valley are much cheaper than in resort. i spent a week in val d'isere at the end of the season and couldn't believe how much more expensive the supermarkets were

[brannen]

sweet help so far. im not saying planning is non-existent, this was gonna be my first step. checking out airfares and shit like that right now too. my roomate has family in switzerland somewhere, so we were thinking zermatt as a possibility. he has skied there and around there before. that said, im guessing switz might be more expensive? my broke ass has been paying off debt lately and paychecks have been non-existent, anyone hiring construction help for a few months?
oh yeah, one of our other roomates moved back to denmark, any skiing there?

[hemas]

sweet help so far. im not saying planning is non-existent, this was gonna be my first step. checking out airfares and shit like that right now too. my roomate has family in switzerland somewhere, so we were thinking zermatt as a possibility. he has skied there and around there before. that said, im guessing switz might be more expensive? my broke ass has been paying off debt lately and paychecks have been non-existent, anyone hiring construction help for a few months?
oh yeah, one of our other roomates moved back to denmark, any skiing there?

Contrary to common misbelief, Swiss ain't that much more expensive than France or Austria. Infact some Swiss places will be cheaper than bigger French resorts.

As for skiing in Denmark, well it's non existant... Only country flatter in Yurp is Netherlands, but atleast we got a few indoorskiing hills

[Arno]

Accommodation in Zermatt is notoriously hard to find. I think a lot of people end up in Brig (?), just down the valley. Would be a great place for the Euro experience though - big mountains, glaciers, history etc etc

My impression is that working illegally will be harder in Switzerland than in France but may be wrong there

[bad_roo]

I think Denmark could be the next undiscovered thing. It's the country that spawned Telepath, one of the most awesomest skiers evah, so it can't be all bad.

[cj001f]

Or stop whining,take the thumb out of your arse and start to be a good planner. Sitting and waiting to get spoonfed aint getting you to europe skiing.

That'd take the coreness right out of it dude.

[Meathelmet]

oh yeah, one of our other roomates moved back to denmark, any skiing there?

Yeah, plenty of hucking there.This is from the mountaneous region of denmark.






As Hemas said, swizerland isnt that much more expensive than say, italy or france. The thing is to stay away from the well known expensive resorts,say, St.Moriz,Saas Fee,Davos or Zermat.
There are good places in swiz, andermatt and engelberg for example, but duo to their situation(mountain villages), there isnt that much cheap accomodation aviable.It would help if there is a small town nearby the resort. Everything (lodgin,gas,food) is cheaper there.
One good example is Briancon (Fra). You have 4-5 world class resorts there within 1 hour drive. The nearest serre chevalier is righ up from the town.

But, checkin out a place with some activites beside skiing might be recommended too.You dont get cabinfever that fast if you happen to have a lot of down days due to weather or crap snow..


But few places to consider :

Italy:

-Courmayer (poshis,expensevish,lot of other resorts around)
-Alagna (cosy village,italy,good playground if snow)


France:

-Briancon (serre,montgenevre,la grave,les deux,alpes huez around..)
-Chamonix (bums,prylbögar and rippers)
-Isere
-Avoriaz/Morcine

Swiz :

- Andermat
- Engelberg (niiice riding,funktional village,good connections)


Austria :

Lot of snowsecure places,but not that much of HC skiing in resorts.
Expensiver.


Etc..

[Tippster]

Prylbögar?

[p.blz]

If you're out of work and paying off debt right now, then maybe you should consider waiting another year before your trip. It would really suck to find yourself in the land of big mountains on a powder day with too little money to ski.

As others have said, you really don't want to be working while you are there...save up some money before you go, make sure you have enough for a skipass, accom, and food/beer. 6 years ago I spent ~7000CAD for 3 months of dirtbagging in Cham (4 guys in a studio appt, very little eating out or buying drinks in the bar, no vehicle, minor equipment purchases, etc). Not cheap but worth it.

If you want to go light on the planning, go somewhere high in April when things are quiet...accomodation gets cheaper and easier to arrange and the slopes are less crowded too.

Zermatt is definately one of the more expensive places in Switz...we found Engelberg much cheaper.

[brannen]

nice
what are we talking for passes here? are they insanely expensive? just started looking at websites, not as easy to navigate as id hoped. i backpacked for 3 mo's awhile back and lived pretty fuckin cheap. dirtbagging will be no prob, just want to be somewhere where it is easy to get around, there is somewhat of a nightlife, and no gigantor crowds. will look into engleberg, andermatt, chamonix, and val d'isere.

[Arno]

not sure how representative this is but my season pass for Alpe d'Huez was EUR450ish. That was with a discount for buying early (ie early in December). Buying after that it would cost EUR600ish.

That covered Alpe d'Huez and Les Deux Alpes (each has 200km+ of marked runs and huge off-piste) plus vouchers for days at a few other places.

And yes, most Euro resort websites suck

[brannen]

any chamonix bums here?

[horizon]

try PMing Idris and bbirtle for Chamonix stuff

[brannen]

will do. i dont know lloyd, the french are assholes. andermatt sounds fucking sweet, anyone been there?

[Archie]

oh yeah, one of our other roomates moved back to denmark, any skiing there?

Why are all the smart ones from Colorado?
Crue Troll?

[brannen]

why are all the assholes named archie? sorry my geography knowledge is not all-knowing, dickbag
anyways, just trying to plan a trip man, lay off

[kailas]

just go over there and stop asking stupid questions! That's half the
fun, going and learning on your own. What's with all the Beta requests?
Bring over a wad of $$$ and when it's gone go back where you came
from, it's that difficult! .

[bbirtle]

...
oh yeah, one of our other roomates moved back to denmark, any skiing there?

That just made me chuckle.

Honestly a lot of this stuff you find out with a quick google or glance at a map.

Yes, working in Switzerland as a non-EU citizen is quite tougher (or at least it was in Zermatt), but I knew a very few that managed it. Anyway there's no construction happening in the winter.

Yearly apartment rentals go for 450-600 CHF/month if you can find them (it took me three weeks of serious work to get mine) but winter season accommodation is a completely different and more expensive ballgame.

Accommodation is generally VERY tough in Zermatt you need to start looking NOW. And for a job too - they'll all be gone by December 1st very latest.

Let me know how that Dannish skiing goes. I heard there's some rad rails in Copenhagen.

[bbirtle]

Accommodation in Zermatt is notoriously hard to find. I think a lot of people end up in Brig (?), just down the valley...

Naah but in Tasch or Randa maybe. Not so bad if you're not into the nightlife, and FAR easier and cheaper. But nothing's happening down the valley at all and you miss out on the ski bum party experience.

[Franz Klammer]

Plenty of seasonal workers in St. Anton and Sölden. Definitely worth checking out. For the former send powslut a PM, he spent 2 seasons there.

[Sufferfest]

[QUOTE=Meathelmet]Try this first : Europe.

Imagine being a bouncer at the nightclub,being paid a 6€/hour,being headbutted in the face and sleeping 3 hours before a powderday paging Sufferfest... ?

I don't know what you're talking about, young man. It's great fun being head-butted on New Year's Eve. I go out of my way to get in the way!!!

Definitely don't work. It really is not worth it. The only real upside to working is if you go to a resort on your own. The best way to meet people and get into a crowd. Not always a good crowd though but better than staring at the walls and patting yourself on the back after that big cliff drop......Oh and someone to get help if you break a leg in the process!