Driving to the Alps to ski

The case for driving is the boot and the maths. A family carries skis, boots, helmets, a week's clothes and a child seat without paying an airline for any of it; it sets its own hours, stops where it likes, and has a car in resort for the supermarket and a day out. The case against is a long day, two if you are sensible, and a winter mountain road at the end of it. The table below is the finder's estimate for a family of three in mid-March, driving against flying from Gatwick, with the hours from Calais from the operators' and resorts' own figures.

How the finder costs a drive

The driving price is the accommodation-only share of the package (the finder uses 60% of the flight-inclusive band) plus £450 for the car, split between everyone in it: roughly £150 to £250 for a Channel crossing, £150 of fuel each way at motorway speeds, and £100 of French or Swiss motorway tolls and vignettes. Door to door is the hours from Calais plus three for the drive to the port and the crossing itself. Beyond nine hours from Calais the finder suggests an overnight stop, which adds a night's hotel the table doesn't include.

32 resorts, driven and flown

Two adults and a 12-year-old, week of 13 March, accommodation with lift passes and hire. Driving costs the accommodation-only share of the package plus £450 for the car (fuel, tolls and the crossing), split three ways; door to door adds three hours to the Calais figure for the drive to the port and the crossing. Flying is the full package from Gatwick. Bansko is left out: nobody drives there.

What the table says

• The saving is £110 to £370 a head for three people, and it grows with every extra passenger, because the £450 car cost is shared and the flights are not. For five in a car it is usually £200 or more a head, before counting ski carriage and airport parking that flyers pay on top.
• The saving is biggest in the dear resorts (Zermatt, Val d'Isère, Méribel), where the flight-inclusive package carries the most air cost, and smallest in the cheap Italian ones, where flights are a small part of a small price.
• Flaine, Morzine, Les Gets and Chamonix are the natural drives: 8.5 hours from Calais, no overnight needed, and an early ferry gets you there for dinner; Avoriaz is half an hour more. The Portes du Soleil, the Grand Massif and the Chamonix valley are also the easiest mountain roads on the list.
• The Tarentaise (Méribel, Val Thorens, La Plagne, Les Arcs, Tignes, Val d'Isère) is 10 to 11 hours, which most families split with a night near Reims, Dijon or Chambéry. The last hour is a mountain road, and the Saturday changeover traffic on it is famous.
• Austria and Italy are 11 to 12.5 hours via Germany or the Mont Blanc or Fréjus tunnels, plus the tunnel toll. Zermatt is car-free: you park in Täsch and take the shuttle train.
• Soldeu at 14 hours is a two-day drive, and Bansko is not a drive at all.

The winter rules on the way

• France: under the mountain law, from 1 November to 31 March vehicles in listed mountain areas (which includes the roads to every French resort here) must have winter tyres, all-season tyres with the 3PMSF mark, or chains or socks in the car. Snow socks are accepted where marked. A UK sticker on the car, headlamp beam deflectors, and a Crit'Air sticker if you pass through a low-emission zone such as Lyon or Grenoble.
• Switzerland: a motorway vignette (bought online or at the border) for the autoroutes; winter tyres are not compulsory but you are liable in an accident without them, and chains are required where signed. Zermatt's road ends at Täsch.
• Austria: winter tyres (or chains on the driven wheels) are compulsory in winter conditions from 1 November to 15 April. A digital vignette for the motorways, and separate tolls for some tunnels and passes.
• Italy: winter tyres or chains on board are required on most Alpine roads from 15 November to 15 April, by regional order; the resorts here are all covered. Motorway tolls by distance.
• The car: winter tyres fitted in the UK before you go are the single best investment; chains that you have practised fitting on the drive at home, not at midnight in a lay-by; screenwash rated to −20 °C; a scraper, a shovel, a blanket and a torch. Check your breakdown cover includes Europe and recovery home.
• Parking in resort: free at some apartments, £60 to £150 a week in the big French resorts' covered car parks. Ask when you book.

Making the day work

1. Leave early for the first crossing and drive the French motorways in daylight; the mountain road is the part to arrive at fresh. An overnight at nine to ten hours in is not weakness.
2. Avoid the Saturday peak on the Tarentaise road by travelling Friday to Friday if the accommodation allows, or by being on the road before seven.
3. Fuel in France is cheaper at supermarkets off the motorway; Swiss and Austrian fuel is dearer again.
4. Book the crossing and the overnight when you book the accommodation. Ferry and Eurotunnel prices for the February Saturdays double in the same way package prices do.
5. Insure the drive: winter sports cover for the skiing and European breakdown cover for the car are two different policies.

Common questions