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European skiing
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December 13, 2001: 12:40 p.m. ET
The cheapest ski trips won’t cost you a single U.S. dollar.
By Sarah Max
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NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Americans have long favored Canadian resorts for their tremendous skiing and the automatic 30 percent discounts for exchanging U.S. dollars for Canadian Loonies. But most Americans still write off European slopes as too expensive, too far away and too difficult. On most of these points, they're wrong.
First of all, staying and skiing in Europe is quite a bit cheaper than it is at most U.S. resorts. Not only does the dollar go further than the Euro, but lift tickets are roughly half as much as they are here -- that's before you factor in the currency discount.
Many of the same rules for planning a domestic ski vacation apply to those overseas. As with U.S. resorts, prices vary depending on where and when you go. Austria and Italy tend to be slightly cheaper than Switzerland and France, while big name resorts are more expensive than the lesser-known ski villages. Christmas and February are high season and typically more expensive across the board.
The best European deals also come in packages, which typically include air, transfers from the resort, hotel and breakfast. Lift tickets are not included in most European packages because the resorts offer several kinds of tickets, often based on the kind of terrain you want to ski. Recently, Ski Europe was offering $599 week-long packages at Innsbruck, Austria and $769 packages in Chamonix, France.
Although much of European skiing is done above the tree line rather than on well-defined trails, the slopes are not necessarily more difficult than they are here. "At some resorts like Zermont and Verbier there is not a lot of beginner or intermediate skiing, but most resorts have plenty of easier runs," said Richard Davidson, president of Ski Europe.
If distance is what's keeping out of the Alps, consider this: If you live on the East Coast, you can fly to Geneva, Zurich or Venice and be in the mountains in just a few more hours than it would take you to get to some of the more out-of-the way spots in the American West. 
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