Explore 39 ski resorts in Switzerland. Every card links to a full resort page with pictures, terrain and the numbers; the arrow opens the description without leaving this page.
Verbier anchors this area. A wide sunny terrace of chalets, bars and restaurants above the Rhône valley, and one of the great party towns of the Alps, with a crowd that skews young, international and well off. The skiing is serious. Mont Fort sits at the top at 3330 metres, a legendary off piste mountain, and the terrain below it has made Verbier a freeride capital for decades. The Freeride World Tour finals are held on the Bec des Rosses above the village. Take a guide if you plan to leave the piste. Intermediates have plenty of ground, and the four valleys give a genuine sense of travelling somewhere across a day. Chalets and hotels in Verbier cost what the reputation implies. Across the valley, Nendaz, Veysonnaz and Thyon are quieter and much cheaper, with apartments at a fraction of the price. Check the bus timetable before committing to the far side.
Every January a World Cup slalom runs on a slope that finishes in the middle of Adelboden, and the atmosphere that week is worth planning around. The rest of the winter is calmer. Two Bernese Oberland villages linked by lift, both still working farming communities as much as resorts, with sunny varied terrain spread across several sectors and a great deal of easy cruising. Beginner areas are good and the whole place is unhurried. The Engstligenalp is worth a day. It is a high plateau reached by cable car with easy skiing and touring on top of it, and the waterfall below is one of the tallest in Switzerland. Accommodation is chalet style hotels and guesthouses, comfortable and Swiss priced. There are thermal baths at Lenk for the afternoon you decide not to ski.
Riederalp, Bettmeralp and Fiescheralp sit on a sunny shelf high above the Rhône valley. All three are car free. You come up by cable car and move on foot or on skis from there, and most of the hotels and apartments are placed so that you click in at the door. Below you lies the Great Aletsch Glacier, the largest in the Alps and a UNESCO World Heritage site, and it stays in view while you ski. Forty peaks of over four thousand metres stand around it. The resort counts roughly 300 days of sun in a year. Most of the pistes sit above 2000 metres, so the snow holds well from December to Easter. Strong skiers come for the black run off the Eggishorn. The Glacier Panorama tour is the day to keep for good weather. With a day or multi day pass you can already ski from three in the afternoon on the day before it starts. The resort points to January as the quiet week with the best conditions.
A sun terrace high above the Rhône valley in Valais, facing due south. The view is much of the point, because the Bishorn, the Weisshorn, the Dent d'Hérens and Mont Blanc line up in front of you while you ski. Fifty eight kilometres of piste cover every grade, served by twelve lifts, one of which takes foot passengers. There is also a cross country trail of 4.1 kilometres. The Magic Pass is valid here, which makes it one of the more affordable Swiss options if you ski several places over a winter. The village is small with a car free centre and a well regarded spa. A place for sun, long views and quiet rather than a big night out.
Two resorts on opposite sides of a mountain, joined by a cable car across a valley that had kept them apart for a century. Arosa sits at the end of a spectacular railway line and is quiet and self contained. Lenzerheide is more spread out and easier to reach by road. Take the train up to Arosa rather than driving. It is one of the great alpine rail journeys and the road is a long series of hairpins. The skiing is wide, sunny and well groomed with a great deal of ground to cover between the two sides, and there is good beginner terrain at both ends. Experts will find it civilised rather than challenging, which is exactly what many people want. Hotels have spas and there is a strong family holiday tradition here. Half board with a pool is the usual arrangement, and a toboggan run and an ice rink fill the afternoons.
A tiny car free hamlet on a sunny shelf high above the Rhône valley, reached only by cable car from Blatten. There is barely a village, just a handful of hotels and rental chalets, simple and inexpensive by Swiss standards. The Aletsch glacier, the largest in the Alps, fills the view from the top. The skiing is quiet, sunny and mostly intermediate, with a long descent back to the valley station and almost nobody on it. In January the hamlet runs a costumed mass descent it has held for decades. Otherwise a snowshoe walk along the Aletsch is the outing. Not a resort for people who want a lot going on, and that is exactly why the people who come here keep coming back.
Bellwald calls itself a family park and the size is the point. The area is small enough that you find each other again within minutes. One of you can sit in the café while another takes a run and the children are in ski school, and nobody loses sight of anybody. It sits in the Goms valley in Valais on sunny ground between 1621 and 2559 metres, with four lifts and short distances between everything. Right for a quiet week where nobody has to keep up with anyone else's pace.
A small area in the Surselva in Graubünden, above a Romansh speaking village at around 1300 metres, and quiet in a way the big Swiss names are not. The selling point is that you can ski from the hotel door onto the piste without queueing or crowds. It is compact, family oriented and unhurried, and the local ski school is small enough that instructors know the children by name. The terrain climbs to 2400 metres with mostly intermediate runs and good beginner ground lower down. Laax and Disentis are both close if you want a bigger mountain for a day. The Surselva has its own language and its own food, and the mountain restaurants here take both seriously.
The Swiss side of the Portes du Soleil, quieter and less visited by international guests than the French resorts over the ridge, and cheaper to eat and sleep in than most of Switzerland. Champéry is the most attractive of the villages, a single long street of old chalets beneath the Dents du Midi, reached by a cog railway from the valley and by a cable car up to the slopes. Les Crosets and Champoussin sit high on the mountain itself and are almost entirely ski in and ski out. Morgins sits on the French border. The Swiss Wall, the mogul face that drops from Avoriaz towards Champéry, is on this side and remains one of the best known runs in the Alps. The whole twelve resort circuit is on one pass, so the ground available from any of these villages is enormous.
The mountain above Silvaplana and Sils in the Upper Engadine, reached by cable car and rising to nearly 3300 metres, which makes it the highest lift served point in the region. The Hahnensee run down towards St Moritz is one of the longest and best known descents in Switzerland, and the terrain up top is open glacier ground with reliable snow well into spring. Corvatsch runs night skiing on Friday evenings on a long floodlit piste, which is unusual at this altitude and worth planning for. It is on the Engadine pass with several other areas. Silvaplana below is known for windsurfing on the lake in summer.
The mountain above St Moritz, but St Moritz is the reason to come. This is where alpine tourism was invented and the town still trades on it, with grand hotels, designer shops, a frozen lake that hosts horse racing and polo in winter, and a clientele that dresses for dinner. The skiing is sunny, wide and mostly intermediate, with long descents and reliable Engadine sunshine. Corviglia is reached by funicular from the middle of town, and several more areas share the same pass, so a week gives real variety. If St Moritz prices are beyond you, stay in Pontresina or Celerina instead. Same pass, same sun, and a fraction of the cost. And if you want the stories rather than the skiing, the Cresta Run and the Olympic bobsleigh are both here and both take beginners under supervision.
A sunny plateau high above the Rhône valley in Valais, facing due south, with a view across to the Matterhorn and the Weisshorn that few resorts can match. The two villages that give it the name have grown together into something closer to a small town, with shops, restaurants and a golf course that hosts a European Tour event in summer. The skiing is wide, sunny and mostly intermediate, running up to the Plaine Morte glacier at close to 3000 metres, which keeps the top of the area reliable. Long descents come back down towards the villages through larch forest. It is an easy place to reach. A funicular runs up from Sierre in the valley, and the train down there connects to the main Swiss network. Hotels range from simple to very grand and prices are Swiss. The sun and the view are what people come back for.
A mountain in the Surselva in Graubünden above a village built around a Benedictine abbey that has stood since the eighth century and still functions. The skiing runs from the valley up to nearly 2800 metres, which gives a substantial vertical, and the terrain is mostly intermediate with serious off piste higher up that has a strong local following. Disentis sits on the Glacier Express line, so arriving by train is straightforward and scenic, and Andermatt is linked over the Oberalp pass by the same railway. The Surselva is Romansh speaking with its own food and culture, and prices are moderate for Switzerland.
A small Glarus village at the head of a dead end valley, joined by lift to Flumserberg over the ridge to form the Sportbahnen Elm area. It is quiet, traditional, and very Swiss in a way that has nothing to do with tourism. The mountain is best known for the Martinsloch, a natural hole in the rock face above the village through which the sun shines directly onto the church tower twice a year, in March and September. People gather to watch it. The skiing is straightforward and sunny with a good beginner area and enough red terrain for a few days. There is also a well regarded ski touring scene in the surrounding peaks. Zurich is around ninety minutes away.
A sunny terrace above the Walensee, an hour from Zurich, which makes it one of the busiest weekend mountains in Switzerland and one of the quietest midweek. Come midweek if you possibly can. The villages are small and scattered across the shelf rather than gathered into one centre, with hotels, apartments and mountain guesthouses, and easy day access by train and cable car from the valley. The skiing is wide and cheerful and mostly intermediate, with a big vertical drop down towards the lake and good family facilities. The views along the water are the main reason people photograph the place, and the cable car up from Unterterzen gives you the best of them before you have even clipped in.
The most theatrical setting in the Alps. The Eiger north face stands directly above the pistes and hotel balconies point straight at it, so ask for a room and a table that face the right way. Grindelwald is a working village with mountain railways running through it. Wengen and Mürren across the valley are car free and reached only by train. Getting around involves trains and cable cars rather than one continuous lift network, which costs time every day and is worth knowing before you book. The skiing is scenic, rolling and mostly intermediate. The runs down from Kleine Scheidegg are long and beautiful, and the Lauberhorn race course runs through them. Grindelwald First on the other side of the valley is the freestyle and snowboard side, and it doubles as an adventure area with a cliff walk and a zip line. Two things beyond the skiing are worth planning for. The train up to the Jungfraujoch, which is the highest railway station in Europe, and the toboggan run down from Faulhorn, which is one of the longest in the world.
The sunny side of the Grindelwald valley, reached by gondola from the village, facing the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau across the valley. The skiing is open and mostly intermediate with long descents back towards the village, and this side has traditionally been the freestyle and snowboard end of the Grindelwald area. First is as much a year round attraction as a ski area. The Cliff Walk, a walkway pinned to the rock face at the top station, the First Flieger zip line and the mountain cart runs all operate alongside the skiing. The Jungfrau region pass covers Wengen and Mürren as well, and the railway network makes getting around straightforward.
The mountain that Davos gave to the snowboarders. When the sport was banned almost everywhere else in the early years, Jakobshorn welcomed it, and it has kept a younger and more relaxed feel than the other Davos mountains ever since. It is reached by cable car from the middle of town and rises to 2590 metres, with sunny open terrain up high, good freeride ground and two mountain bars that are institutions in their own right. The Davos Klosters pass covers six separate areas, so this is one option among several rather than a week on its own. Davos is a large working town rather than a pretty village, but the railway connections are excellent and the skiing across the whole pass is among the best in Graubünden.
A sunny terrace high above Lake Lucerne in central Switzerland, reached by cable car from Beckenried on the shore, with the lake spread out below the runs. The terrain is mostly intermediate with a decent vertical down towards the water and a long toboggan run, and the area is quiet compared with the bigger central Swiss resorts. Coming up by boat across the lake and then by cable car is the way to arrive, and it makes the journey part of the day. Lucerne is around forty minutes away, which puts the whole area within easy reach for a day trip.
Three villages in Graubünden sharing a broad sunny mountain that has been at the centre of European snowboarding for decades. The base at Laax is quarried stone and modern design with a young crowd, closer to a city hotel than an alpine village, and deliberately so. Five snowparks and the largest halfpipe in the world are the headline, and there is an indoor freestyle academy for days when the weather closes in. But the mountain beyond the parks is better than its reputation suggests. There is a wide open bowl up high, a small glacier at the top at 2976 metres, and long tree runs that stay skiable in flat light. Design hotels, hostel style rooms and apartments all sit within walking distance of the lift, and everything from the lift pass to dinner can be arranged in one place. Zurich is around ninety minutes away, so weekends fill up and midweek is calmer.
A sunny terrace above the Haslital in the Bernese Oberland, with the villages of Hasliberg spread along it and Meiringen in the valley below connected by cable car. The skiing is wide and sunny and mostly intermediate, with a good vertical down to the valley floor and views across to the Wetterhorn and the surrounding peaks. It suits families and improvers well and stays quieter than Grindelwald over the hill. Meiringen is where the meringue is said to have been invented and where Conan Doyle sent Sherlock Holmes over the Reichenbach Falls, which the town has made a good deal of. Interlaken is around half an hour away and the Aare gorge nearby is worth an afternoon.
A car free high plateau in central Switzerland at around 1900 metres, reached by cable car from Stöckalp, with three mountain lakes and a small cluster of hotels on the shore. There is no road up, which is the whole character of the place. The skiing is sunny and mostly intermediate, high enough for a good snow record, and quiet compared with anywhere in the Bernese Oberland an hour away. Beginner terrain is good and the plateau is easy to move around on. Ice fishing on the frozen lakes in winter is unusual enough to be worth arranging, and there are winter walking trails across the plateau. Lucerne is an hour or so away, so day traffic fills the weekends and midweek stays calm.
A car free village on a shelf above the Lauterbrunnen valley, reached only by cable car or train, facing the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau across the gorge. The Schilthorn above it has a revolving restaurant at 2970 metres that appeared in a James Bond film, and the descent from the top is long and serious. The pisted terrain lower down is mostly intermediate. Mürren hosts the Inferno, the largest amateur downhill race in the world, every January, which runs from the Schilthorn all the way to Lauterbrunnen. The village is tiny and traditional with no cars ever having reached it. Interlaken is roughly an hour away by train and cable car.
Davos and Klosters share this area and they could hardly be more different. Davos is a large working town with clinics, congresses, a hospital and ordinary shops that happens to sit at 1560 metres. Klosters is a small discreet village with a long standing royal following. Long sweeping descents run for kilometres down to villages in the valley, with a mountain railway to carry you back up. Confident intermediates get the most from it. Six separate areas share one pass, so decide which one you want each day rather than drifting between them. Accommodation runs from simple guesthouses to grand hotels. The descent to Küblis followed by the train back is the outing to plan for, dinner in Klosters is where the atmosphere is, and the spas are in Davos. Not a pretty village, but few places ski this well.
A sunny mountain above the Rhine valley in eastern Switzerland, reached by cable car from Wangs or Bad Ragaz, and best known for the five lakes walk that crosses it in summer. The skiing runs from close to 2200 metres down a long vertical drop of over 1700 metres to the valley floor, which is a substantial descent for an area of this size. The terrain is mostly intermediate with wide well groomed runs and views out over the valley the whole way down. Bad Ragaz at the foot is a thermal spa town of some standing, with water that has drawn visitors since the middle ages, and that combination of a full day on the mountain and an evening in the baths is the reason many people come. Zurich is around an hour away, so weekends fill and midweek stays calm.
A car free village ringed by thirteen four thousand metre peaks, with the Fee glacier hanging directly above the rooftops. It is one of the most dramatic settings in the Alps and quite different in character from Zermatt over the ridge. The skiing is high, with the top station at over 3500 metres reached by an underground funicular that runs inside the mountain. That altitude means near certain snow and a season that runs well into spring, and summer race training happens on the glacier. The village is traditional, built in dark timber, and electric vehicles handle what little transport is needed. The Allalin revolving restaurant at 3500 metres is the highest of its kind in the world. It is expensive as Switzerland is, though noticeably less so than Zermatt, and it suits intermediates and families better than it suits people chasing steeps.
Two villages on the sunny side of the Val d'Anniviers in Valais, joined into one area, high above the Rhône valley and facing a wall of four thousand metre peaks. The skiing is sunny and chiefly intermediate with a good vertical and terrain up to nearly 3000 metres, and there is genuine off piste for people who know where to look. It stays quiet compared with the big Valais names. There is a planetary path along the mountainside, a scale model of the solar system laid out over several kilometres, and an observatory at the top, which is unusual and popular with children. The valley is a dead end, which keeps the traffic down. Sierre below connects to the main railway.
A quiet Graubünden village in the Val Surses, on the road to the Julier pass, with a sunny south facing mountain above it and the largest nature park in Switzerland all around. It has almost no international profile and a strong Swiss family following, which tells you most of what you need to know. The skiing is wide and well groomed and mostly intermediate, with a big vertical drop, good beginner terrain, reliable snowmaking and empty pistes compared with the Engadine over the pass. Savognin lights a long run for night skiing twice a week, which is unusual in Switzerland. Hotels and apartments are moderate for the country, half board is usual, evenings are quiet, and St Moritz is forty minutes away if you want a day of it.
Part of the large Gstaad ski region in the Bernese Oberland, covering the sunny slopes above Schönried and Saanenmöser and running down towards Zweisimmen and St Stephan. The skiing is gentle, sunny and unhurried, spread across a wide area of rolling terrain that suits families and improvers particularly well. The Rellerli and Horneggli sectors are the ones most people use, and the whole area is on the Gstaad pass with several other mountains. Gstaad itself is one of the most exclusive addresses in the Alps, though the outlying villages are far more affordable and just as well placed for the lifts. The MOB railway runs through the valley, which makes getting around simple without a car and gives one of the more scenic rail journeys in Switzerland.
A Lower Engadine village of thick walled houses with painted facades, at the foot of a sunny mountain and on top of the largest mineral spring complex in Switzerland. The bath is at least half the reason people come, and late afternoon is the time for it. The skiing is wide, quiet and well groomed with excellent sunshine, long descents and almost no queues. Beginner terrain is good and the area suits improvers particularly well. The pass also covers Ischgl over the border, which gives a big day out when you want one. Hotels and apartments are moderate for Switzerland. Come by rail if you can, because the journey up the Engadine on the Rhaetian Railway is part of the holiday rather than the cost of it.
A small Swiss village at the crossroads of the alpine passes, once a garrison town and until recently half forgotten, now rebuilt around a new resort development. The old street is still there and the contrast with the new buildings is stark. The Gemsstock is the draw for strong skiers. It is steep, north facing and a serious freeride mountain with a long standing reputation, and a guide is the right way to use it. The linked Sedrun and Disentis sectors are gentler and sunnier, and skiing the length of the valley to Disentis and taking the train back is the day everyone remembers. Accommodation ranges from old guesthouses to a large new luxury development, plus apartments. Andermatt sits on the Glacier Express line, so arriving by train is both straightforward and beautiful.
Engelberg in central Switzerland, with the Titlis glacier above it reaching over 3000 metres and a rotating cable car that turns through a full circle on the way up. The skiing is high and snow sure, and the Laub run off the Steinberg is one of the most famous off piste descents in Switzerland, a long open face that experienced skiers plan trips around. The pisted terrain is mostly intermediate. Engelberg itself is a working village built around a Benedictine monastery that still functions, with a cheese dairy open to visitors. Lucerne is around forty minutes away by train, which makes this one of the easiest Swiss areas to reach without a car.
A small area in Graubünden at the foot of the Splügen pass, where winter is still winter, as the resort puts it, meaning natural snow and no crowds. The terrain runs from the village up to over 2200 metres with a good vertical and mostly intermediate skiing, and the mountain has a following among people who prefer quiet to variety. Splügen village is a protected settlement of old Walser houses and is among the more attractive in the canton. The season runs from mid December to Easter with some early weekends if conditions allow. Chur is around forty five minutes away.
Small but very good. Tschiertschen sits in the Schanfigg valley in Graubünden with four lifts serving 32 kilometres of terrain, and because the whole area faces north it is usually reliable for snow without needing much help. The pistes are natural snow rather than machine made, which is increasingly rare and gives a different feel underfoot. Confident skiers rate the off piste here highly and it stays untracked far longer than at the bigger resorts nearby. There is a children's lift and a carpet for beginners and a well regarded local ski school. The village is tiny and traditional and there is very little going on in the evening. Chur is twenty minutes away and Arosa is up the same valley.
Two small villages on the sunny south facing shelf above the Rhône valley in Valais, with lifts climbing towards the Ginals and terrain up to nearly 2400 metres. The area is quiet and traditional and almost unknown outside the canton, which is much of its appeal. The skiing is mostly intermediate with a decent vertical and long views across to the Bernese Alps. Both villages are reached by cable car from the valley floor, and both have kept an ordinary Valaisan life. Prices are well below the famous Valais names. Visp and Brig in the valley are on the main railway.
A sunny balcony above the Rhône valley, an hour from Geneva, with a mountain railway running up to the village and views across to Mont Blanc. Villars is a proper village with schools, shops and a year round population, and Les Diablerets sits below a glacier that keeps the top of the area reliable. The skiing is gentle and sunny and well suited to families and improvers, with trees lower down and the glacier for height. It is a good choice for a first family week in Switzerland. Take the cog railway up from Bex for the arrival alone. Glacier 3000 has a suspension bridge slung between two peaks and an alpine coaster for the afternoon off, and there are hotels, chalets and apartments that are comfortable rather than showy.
A resort in the Toggenburg in eastern Switzerland, set between the Churfirsten ridge and the Säntis massif, and one of the easiest mountains in the country to reach from Zurich. The area was rebuilt around a modern six seat chairlift from Oberdorf up to the Freienalp, and the pistes are well groomed and suited to families, beginners and intermediates alike. The Toggenburg is quieter and less expensive than the Graubünden resorts, and the landscape here is limestone rather than granite, which gives it a quite different look. The sound trail along the Klangweg on the neighbouring mountain is a well known summer walk, and the whole valley has a settled Swiss rural life going on around the tourism.
A car free village at the end of a Swiss valley with the Matterhorn standing over it, and lifts climbing to the highest ski station in Europe at close to 3900 metres. It is one of the most attractive resort villages in the Alps and expensive in a way that surprises even people who expect Switzerland to be expensive. The skiing is long rather than steep. Descents of two thousand vertical metres are routine here, and the crossing to Cervinia in Italy and back is a full day out that most competent intermediates can manage. Cervinia on the Italian side costs a great deal less for the same lift pass, which is worth knowing if the Swiss prices are beyond you. The glacier means skiing all year, and summer race training happens up there while the village below is in shorts. Everything from mountain huts to grand hotels, reached by train from Täsch because cars stop there. The mountain restaurants are among the best in the Alps and deserve a reservation. Save the Klein Matterhorn summit trip for a clear day.
Two villages in the Val d'Anniviers in Valais, joined by cable car, in one of the quieter corners of Switzerland. Grimentz is a preserved village of dark timber buildings with geraniums in summer and deep snow in winter, and it is among the more photogenic places in the Alps. The skiing is north facing and holds cold snow well, with a strong local reputation for off piste and a lift system that reaches close to 2900 metres. Confident skiers get the most from it. The valley is a dead end, which keeps the traffic down and the atmosphere intact. There are no big hotels, mostly chalets and small family run places, and the prices are moderate by Swiss standards. Sierre in the valley below connects to the main railway.
Norbert Aepli, Switzerland (User:Noebu) / CC BY 2.5
