A Week of Skiing in Colorado (How to Plan and Afford a Family Ski Trip)
And a bit about Challenging Your Kids
Years ago, before we had kids, Dave and I spent a winter living, working and skiing in Breckenridge, Colorado. We’ve been scheming and planning a way to get out kids back out here to ski and this year we finally made it happen.
We spent a full week staying in a rental house with friends and skiing all day for 6 days. During the week, we visiting 4 mountains: Breckenridge, Keystone, Vail and Beaver Creek. With excellent ski conditions, temperatures that sometimes reached 45 degrees and a huge snow storm with 10-15 inches, we had an incredible week.
How to Afford a Family Ski Trip
So lets talk about money.
Taking your entire family on a ski trip is expensive and is one of the reasons we haven’t done it in the past. This trip was one of the most expensive trips we’ve taken with our kids, so we made every effort to keep the cost down. Below are a few things we did that saved us money:
Book your airplace tickets with miles - we had miles on United left over from the summer but we recommend 10x Travel to learn more about travel hacking.
Stay in a rental house - we rented a house with friends which made the cost/person much more reasonable and allowed us to cook our own meals.
Cook your own meals - We spent 7 night in Colorado and ate out one night and ate breakfast at the house each morning. This cut down on our costs significantly.
Pack Snacks - we loaded our pockets with granola bars and sandwiches each day - then if we needed to stop for food, we could get by with some snacks instead of a whole meal!
Take advantage of ski passes - one of our decision to do this trip meant that we got season passes through EPIC. This was an investment but we commited to skiing and easily made our passes count - especially when you consider that a day of skiing at Vail is about $300!
Bring your own gear - while it can be tempting to rent gear, you will save money by bringing your own gear - we purchase our ski gear and ski swaps to save money. Check with your airline as many airlines let you bring skis for the cost of a regular bag.
Is Skiing Worth it?
So if skiing is so expensive - why do it?
We often ask ourselves this question - but when it comes down to it - we love spending time outside in the mountains in the winter. Challenging our kids to learn new skills and challenge themselves, even when they are unfomfortable, is one of the biggest gifts we can give them.
Of course it doesn’t have to be skiing - but as parents we are fully commited to exposing our kids to new adventures - whether that is an adventure sport like skiing or exposure to a new culture in a new country.
Kids of every age need opportunities to try new things and challenge themselves - it’s how they learn self-care, perseverance, grit, and limits, and this is even more important in the teenage years. It’s also how we build strong relationships and memories.
A Quick Story About Challenging Kids
On our final day at Breckenridge, I followed Freja onto a double black glades trail. She had skied trails like this all week, but decided it was a bit steep. She decided to traverse back towards that trail we started on and I followed right behind, but the trails never connected.
The next thing I know there are no ski tracks and the trail is REALLY steep and full of close trees. I had no idea what was below us since we were a bit off the trail. We ended up taking our skis off and sliding down the trail. It took over an hour to get down with several instances where we sunk into the snow up to our waists.
At no point did Freja panic. Even when she hit her elbow, she put it aside and continued down the trail with a smile and a positive attitude, laughing at the adventure we were on. The only way she could handle this situation was by exposure to other similar situations. She knew she was going to be ok and she was able to keep moving because she’s done it in the past (like when we had to bushwack across an island in Panama, or push through a long hike, or sleep in someone’s empty house on the floor when our airBNB was double booked).
Having worked with thousands of kids in outdoor education, I’ve seen many kids panic over small situations when they haven’t had the opportunity to challenge themselves. Building character is a lifelong pursuit, and getting your kids out of their comfort zone is one way ensure they have the tools to handle difficult situations.
Just like you can’t expect your kids to do long division when they can’t add, you can’t expect them to stay cool under pressure when they’ve never been challenged.
Family adventure travel is something I am passionate about and you can find more about this at some of the links below:
Is Adventure Travel a Secret Strategy When Positive Parenting Teens?
Why Traveling with Teenagers is One of the Best Things You’ll Ever Do
Have fun out there,
Gretchen