Here's a number most people don't think about when they book a ski holiday: of the roughly 100 hours you'll be awake that week, maybe 30 of them are spent actually skiing. The lifts close at half four. The mountain doesn't care that you flew all this way. ❄️
So what do you do with the other 70?
We've spent a fair few seasons answering that question — and the truth is that the hours off the snow are where a ski trip becomes a proper holiday. The skiing is the headline. The rest is the story you tell afterwards. Here's how we fill it.
The après window: don't let it fizzle out
Après-ski has a rhythm to it. You come off the hill buzzing, boots still on, and there's a golden hour or two before everyone drifts off to shower and the energy leaks away. That window is precious — and easy to waste scrolling on your phone in a corner.
The good stuff is simple. A round of drinks on a sun terrace while your legs stop shaking. A debrief of the day's best and worst runs. And, increasingly for our crew, something to actually do with your hands while you talk — a quick game that keeps the table together instead of letting everyone scatter.
That last point matters more than it sounds. The difference between a great après and a flat one is usually just whether the group stayed in one place long enough for the good conversations to happen.
The whiteout day: when the mountain says no
Every regular skier has been here. You wake up, pull back the curtains, and the visibility is about four metres. The lifts on the top half are shut. The wind's howling. You're not skiing today, and pretending otherwise just means a cold, miserable, pointless morning.
A whiteout day isn't a write-off — it's a permission slip. Sleep in. Find a proper café. Explore the village you've only ever seen at speed on the way to the gondola. And settle in somewhere warm for the kind of long, unhurried afternoon that the skiing days never leave room for.
The resorts that do this well are the ones with a village worth being stuck in. Val Thorens sits at 2,300 metres with enough going on that a bad-weather day still feels like part of the holiday rather than a punishment. 🇫🇷
The long chalet evening
This is the one nobody plans for and everybody remembers. Dinner's done, you're pleasantly wrecked from the day, nobody fancies the walk back out into the cold for a bar — and you've got three or four hours before anyone's tired enough to sleep.
These evenings are the heart of a ski holiday. They're also where group trips quietly succeed or fail. Get them right and you come home as a tighter crew than you left. Get them wrong and everyone's on their phones in separate rooms by nine.
What works: keep it low-effort and social. Nobody wants to learn a 40-page rulebook after a day on the hill. You want something you can teach in two minutes, that pulls 2–6 people in, and that's done in time to start again. This, for what it's worth, is exactly the brief we set ourselves when we built Ready Steady Slope — a fast card game you can play out the whole holiday and never get bored of. 🃏
Get to know the mountain you're standing on
Here's a small thing that makes a holiday better: actually knowing where you are.
Most people ski a resort for a week and never learn its story — which run is the legendary one, why the locals rave about a particular face, what makes this mountain different from the last one. A bit of that knowledge turns a generic week of skiing into this place, this trip.
Take Mayrhofen in Austria. 🇦🇹 Most visitors never go near the Harakiri — a 78% gradient that's the steepest groomed run in the country. But knowing it's there, watching someone actually ski it, understanding why it has the reputation it does? That's the difference between visiting a mountain and meeting one. It's also why Mayrhofen earned its card in our game — but more on that another time.
Plan the next one
A slightly cheeky one to end on: the best thing to do on a ski holiday is start dreaming up the next ski holiday.
There's a particular joy in sitting around on the last night, slightly sad it's ending, and pulling up a map to argue about where you'd all go next. France or Austria. Big linked area or charming small village. Powder mission or party week. It's half the fun, and it's free.
We may be biased — a good chunk of what we love about the mountains is the anticipation — but a trip that ends with everyone already plotting the next one is a trip that worked.
The short version
A ski holiday is the skiing plus the bits around it: the après window, the whiteout days, the long chalet evenings, getting to know your mountain, and scheming the next trip. The skiing you'll book a flight for. The rest is what makes you want to do it all again.
Pack something that brings the table together for those off-mountain hours — and you've sorted 70% of your holiday before you've even clicked into a binding. 🏂🎿🃏
Common questions
What is there to do on a ski holiday besides skiing?
Plenty — après-ski on the terrace, exploring the village, spa and wellness, long chalet evenings, and bad-weather days that are perfect for slowing down. The off-mountain hours are most of your holiday, so they're worth planning for.
What do you do in the evenings on a ski holiday?
Ski-holiday evenings are best kept social and low-effort after a tiring day: a good dinner, a few drinks, and games that get the whole group around one table without anyone needing to learn a complicated rulebook.
What can you do on a ski holiday when it's a whiteout?
When the weather closes the lifts, treat it as a rest day: sleep in, find a great café, explore the resort village, visit the spa, and settle in for a long afternoon indoors. A whiteout day is a permission slip to slow down, not a write-off.
What should I bring to a ski chalet for the evenings?
A fast, social card or board game that's quick to teach and plays for 2–6 people is the single best thing you can pack for chalet evenings — it keeps the group together when nobody fancies heading back out into the cold.
Looking for the perfect thing to bring? See our pick for gifts for skiers, or grab a copy of the game on the shop page.
– RSS 🎿❄️🏂