With 30 years of experience organising luxury chalet holidays in Verbier, we would like to share with you why we believe it is the World’s greatest ski resort.
Verbier vs Val d’Isere
When it comes to picking your ski holiday destination, there are many boxes to tick to ensure you choose the one that works best for you. The terrain needs to suit your skiing ability, the facilities on offer must match your requirements and above all, it has to be a nice place to spend your time (and money!). The first question is which country do you go to: Switzerland, France, Austria, Italy, USA, Canada, the list goes on and on… The top 2 ski destinations must be France and Switzerland, so we wanted to compare Verbier to one of the most sought-after French resorts – Val d’Isere.
As one of the best-known ski resorts in the world, Val d’Isere is a hard resort to come up against, but as ever, we are confident that Verbier stands up to the test. Let’s start at the beginning – you’ve packed your bags, navigated the airport, endured the flight, and made it to Geneva airport. Now what? Do you really want to sit in a taxi for a further 3-3.5 hours to Val d’Isere, winding up a long mountain road only to have travel sickness and an already tired and grumpy family? Or does a simple transfer to Verbier in under 2hrs sound more appealing? We think so. Another great thing about Verbier is you have travel options – you could take a much more cost-effective and greener route by using the train. And being Swiss, they are always on time! The train station is literally in the airport, and after just 1 simple change, you can be in Verbier in under 2.5 hours, sanity and bank balance intact. To get to Val d’Isere, you give up a day's worth of serious travel before even arriving, which rules it out for short breaks. It’s not worth the schlep – as soon as you get there, it’s time to come home!
Now, let’s look at the ski area. Val d’Isere shares its ski domain with (the aesthetically challenged) Tignes, who is called the Espace Killy. Whilst there is no denying it’s a fantastic area to ski with plenty of variation, you cannot argue with the numbers. The Espace Killy offers 300km of piste compared with the 4 Valley’s 410km. In the interests of balance, we will concede that elevation-wise, Val d’Isere is higher – the highest point is at the 3,456m compared with Verbier’s 3,330m.
