The 5 best ski resorts for beginners in Austria
In Austria, a total of around 450 ski resorts can be found. In order to find a beginner-friendly resort, factors like the slopes’ level of difficulty, the ski lesson offers, the availability of practice areas and the ski schools’ childcare facilities should be considered.
St Anton
Centrally located in the Austrian Alps, St Anton am Arlberg is the biggest ski resort in Austria and one of the 10 biggest worldwide. It can be reached in under 1.5h from Innsbruck and in around 3h from Munich and Salzburg. The ski resort, which includes more than 300km of slopes, has been known long before the Alpine Ski World Championship was held here in 2001.
Local ski schools offer group lessons for adults and children from the age of 5, covering all difficulty levels. In addition to group lessons, there are a lot of options for private lessons in the area in and around St Anton.
Zell am See
One can reach the centrally located ski resort in Zell am See within 1h from Salzburg and 2h from Munich and Innsbruck. The slopes there are perfectly suitable for families with children who would like to learn to ski in Austria as they literally start in the city. This way, families do not have to walk or drive a long way to get to the ski lifts.
Ski schools in Zell am See offer ski lessons for children from the age of 3. A fun and exciting training area full of colourful figures, a magic carpet and Schmidolin the Dragon mascot await the little skiers. A ski programme called Power Teens is tailored to fulfil the needs of teenagers. The programme involves cool downhill runs, casual jumps and rails.
Mayrhofen
Mayrhofen, only 1h away from Innsbruck and 2h from Munich and Salzburg, welcomes all young and grown-up ski enthusiasts. The local Ahorn mountain offers slopes suitable for all beginners. Slightly more demanding pistes can be found on the resort’s other mountain: the Penken.
Children from the age of 2 can take lessons that gently introduce them to the skiing sport. The new Fantasy Land features magic carpets, exciting obstacles and friendly mascots who support the children while they are trying out their first turn.
Lech
Known as the cradle of alpine skiing, the ski resort Lech am Arlberg is part of the Ski Arlberg, the biggest ski alliance in Austria. It takes less than 3h to reach the ski resort from Munich, and Innsbruck is only 1.5h away from Lech.
With more than 300km of slopes, the Arlberg ski area is one of the biggest ski resorts worldwide. 131km of the resort’s slopes are blue, meaning easy, which is simply perfect for beginners. Next to group lessons, ski schools in Lech offer a wide range of private ski lessons for children and adults.
Sallbach-Hinterglemm
The ski resort Saalbach-Hinterglemm is part of the biggest interconnected ski area in Austria, the Skicircus Saalbach-Hinterglemm-Leogang-Fieberbrunn, and covers around 270km of slopes. Half of the slopes are marked as blue and therefore are perfect for families and beginners.
Beginners first practice the basics of skiing in a training area before discovering the beginner-friendly slopes.
