Europe Skiing Cheap

A few options. Keep in mind that asking for good snow in December means you have to go high up, normally to the bigger resorts, which may mean things are a bit more expensive. Booking early (like now) will help to save up to 50% on accommodations. Try Airbnb for accomodations

- Switzerland is usually a no go bc everything is expensive, but st moritz/ engadin usually has a deal where your life pass is 35chf if you stay multiple nights anywhere in town, including the youth hostel which is apparently quite nice. Buy dinners at the grocery store as well and this can be affordable.
- Val thorens/ trois vallees - high up and has a good mix of blue/green runs. I found it reasonably priced, and it's well known for nightlife
- Austria, stay in Innsbruck rent a car and ski stubai and other resorts around. Most of the Austrian glacier resorts don't have much at the bottom, but if you stay in Innsbruck and rent a car you can explore many resorts. Staying in Innsbruck will likely be cheaper than a resort town, and skiing in Austria is usually significantly cheaper than switz or France, which will help to cover the rental car cost.

Hope that helps!

Austria and Italy offer the best value for your money in the alps. I would not even concider switzerland if you're traveling on a budget.

December is quite a risky time snow wise. Last christmas there was almost no natural snow anywhere in the alps whereas 2 years ago I was skiing waist deep powder in lech. In the early season the snow levels vary alot in different areas of the alps depending on where the first big storms head to.

The most snow sure resorts are located in the main alpine ridge. Id keep an eye on resorts like sölden, obergurgl, pitztal and st. Anton. In the early season i would avoid the smaller mountains around eastern and southern Alps.
Also the big french resorts could be an option but I highly recommend going to austria. You have top class skiing, great roads and trains, food and beer with half the price of switzerland.

If freeriding and powder interests you, go to st. Anton. It's a massive resort with decent nightlife and fairly cheap accomodation if you know where to stay. I go there every winter so I can give you more info about the resort if you want to.

FrankerZAustria and Italy offer the best value for your money in the alps. I would not even concider switzerland if you're traveling on a budget.

December is quite a risky time snow wise. Last christmas there was almost no natural snow anywhere in the alps whereas 2 years ago I was skiing waist deep powder in lech. In the early season the snow levels vary alot in different areas of the alps depending on where the first big storms head to.

The most snow sure resorts are located in the main alpine ridge. Id keep an eye on resorts like sölden, obergurgl, pitztal and st. Anton. In the early season i would avoid the smaller mountains around eastern and southern Alps.
Also the big french resorts could be an option but I highly recommend going to austria. You have top class skiing, great roads and trains, food and beer with half the price of switzerland.

If freeriding and powder interests you, go to st. Anton. It's a massive resort with decent nightlife and fairly cheap accomodation if you know where to stay. I go there every winter so I can give you more info about the resort if you want to.

i agree on everything except keep in mind that most of the glacier based austrian resorts don't have much if anything at the bottom, definitely not the nightlife he was asking for. St Anton i usually found to be too low down to be worth a visit early in the season, and also keep in mind he said beginner/intermediate runs not freeride

that being said i LOVE skiing austria, it by far has the best early season skiing, but the nightlife at the base of the resorts is usually lackluster, which is why i recommended staying in innsbruck

dbchilii agree on everything except keep in mind that most of the glacier based austrian resorts don't have much if anything at the bottom, definitely not the nightlife he was asking for. St Anton i usually found to be too low down to be worth a visit early in the season, and also keep in mind he said beginner/intermediate runs not freeride

that being said i LOVE skiing austria, it by far has the best early season skiing, but the nightlife at the base of the resorts is usually lackluster, which is why i recommended staying in innsbruck

Yeah.. it depends on what you're looking for on your trip. I personally prefer staying in a "real" ski town rather than an actual city (Innsbruck) but I get your point. Innsbruck has way more comprehensive nightlife and more affordable services.
The resorts close to Innsbruck are quite small and recieve noticably less snow than the major resorts in Tirol so a car is a must if you want to visit the larger resorts. Anyways, most of them are within an hour drive if the weather allows.

They way things are going, having snow in late December is not guaranteed. In my experience things don't really pick up snow-wise until mid-January.

Innsbruck is a good base, it's a real city with all the amenities and plenty of non-ski related stuff, museums, historic center, etc.

St. Anton is the biggie in western Austria, there's reasonably priced accommodation in some of the nearby villages. Lech and Zuers is more expensive and a bit harder to get to, especially if you're arriving by train and need to haul your gear on the Postbus.

I also really enjoyed Zermatt, yeah everybody's seen the view, but it's really amazing to see in person. It's more expensive to get to, and pretty isolated, but I had a fantastic stay there, and came back to hike some more in the summer.

More off track? Andorra is pretty popular with people from the UK, but pretty hard to get to- a long-ish bus ride from Barcelona Airport.

I also went snowboarding in Bosnia about 10 years ago, which is a fascinating, and sometimes unsettling experience given the civil war back in the 1990s and the still-hard feelings. I based myself in central Sarajevo and rode buses to the two major resorts, Jahorina in the RS, and Bjelasnica in the Federation. Yeah, ethnically divided.

Well, that's a start. Check the resort websites for accommodation info, etc.

As already mentioned, late December could be tricky for snow. At late December last year, Italy and eastern Austria had basically no snow at all. Looking any farther east than that (Eastern Europe) is even trickier.

Your best bet is to pick something higher Alpine in the central or Western Alps. Anywhere around the Mont Blanc Massif is pretty snow secure (Chamonix, Tignes, Val D'Isere). Les Arcs is definitely a killer spot with a lot of what you're looking for. You could also scope out Courmayeur on the Italian side of Mont Blanc. The basic problem I'm seeing here is that I can't think of any Western/Central, high-Alpine ski resorts that weigh in positively on the cheapness scale.

Shot in the dark: Andorra is a popular destination for UK tourists. Not as snow secure as the central Alps, but the main resort Grandvalira has extensive snowmaking coverage and if they've got natural snow too, it's pretty righteous. Ranking pretty high up there in affordability too. And you get to go to Barcelona.

Livigno Mottolino in Italy is crazy cheap for what you get. I live in Massachusetts, USA and had a trip planned to mammoth, CA, but when they had a shitty season, I had to go elsewhere, and it turned out that the Euro trip was cheaper. My hotel room was right in the valley and had TONS of skiing. The room was around 80 Euro's a night.

Switzerland is great but expensive as fuck.

dbchilii agree on everything except keep in mind that most of the glacier based austrian resorts don't have much if anything at the bottom, definitely not the nightlife he was asking for. St Anton i usually found to be too low down to be worth a visit early in the season, and also keep in mind he said beginner/intermediate runs not freeride

that being said i LOVE skiing austria, it by far has the best early season skiing, but the nightlife at the base of the resorts is usually lackluster, which is why i recommended staying in innsbruck

Have you even BEEN to the EU?

FKS_HEEL_PIECELivigno Mottolino in Italy is crazy cheap for what you get. I live in Massachusetts, USA and had a trip planned to mammoth, CA, but when they had a shitty season, I had to go elsewhere, and it turned out that the Euro trip was cheaper. My hotel room was right in the valley and had TONS of skiing. The room was around 80 Euro's a night.

Switzerland is great but expensive as fuck.

I have actually been to Livigno before (maybe 3 years ago?) around Christmas time and it was amazing. Think we lucked out on snow and weather, but this was the type of place I was looking for this time but somewhere different.

Thanks everyone for the comments, Austria and Andorra sound promising...!!!

Try NUCO travel (http://www.nucotravel.com), they have a deal of the week and its normally cheap as balls.