Family Skiing on a budget - family of 6

As we all know, skiing can be an expensive holiday, especially when travelling with 4 children. When they are young, you must consider not only the travel, accommodation and lift passes, but their lessons and of course their equipment.

Now Emma is the skier in our family and her parents started taking her and her siblings from a very young age. I on the other hand started about 6 years ago and to be honest found it really difficult and still do. Confidence is my issue and like a lot of sports or activities, so much of it happens in your head.

For the past few years to save money we have driven and taken the Eurotunnel. On average it takes between 7 and 10 hours to get from Calais to the Alps, depending on which resort you travel to. We tend to leave on the Friday night and take turns travelling through the night to arrive for lunchtime.

We have driven to Kaprun in Austria (that's a long way - we stayed overnight in Stuttgart en route), La Tzoumaz in Switzerland (satellite resort of Verbier), Les Arcs in France and then last year we travelled to Mottaret in the Three Vallees (France).

Our accommodation in Mottaret was basic but adequate and we were blessed with ski in/out, which is a godsend when travelling with young children as carrying your own skies is often bad enough.

Emma is a genius when it comes to catering for our rabble and she always packs our trusted slow cooker, along with a variety of spices and ingredients as eating on the mountain daily can cost a lot. We tend to take breakfast in the apartment before hitting the slopes, cheeky pizza and frites on the slopes (we always carry a bag of snacks for the kids) and then either a curry, chilli or pasta for dinner (I bet our neighbours love us).

It's important to invest in lessons from the outset and to encourage the children to attend. With ours now 5 years through, we only have the odd lesson.

If you have any queries or wish to discuss some skiing ideas, please feel free to contact me on 01487 898330