Build Your Next Ski Trip With These Travel Apps
We designed a winter getaway from front door to first tracks.
With those looming hassles in mind, we set out to prove that ski trips don’t necessarily need to start with a migraine. Using a few of our favorite ski apps and services, we designed a winter getaway from front door to first tracks, and left the headache at home.
Don’t let the hassle of ski travel through your annual trip upside down. Photo: Jorg Ingeli/Unsplash
Find the Deal with Liftopia
Every ski trip is born from somewhere, so why have yours start from a killer deal? Instead of browsing the Internet hoping for a miracle, let Liftopia do it for you, the best app in skiing and snowboarding for finding discounts on lift tickets, lessons and most everything else ski trip-related.
Make a list of your favorite resorts and let Liftopia go to work. Once you’ve locked in the deal, it’s time to put the plan into action.
Book the Flight with Hopper
Hopper makes it easier than ever to jump to your favorite ski destination. Photo: Chris Barbalis/Unsplash
With lift tickets in hand, it’s officially time to get from Point A to “Point Slay.” Lift tickets can be tough, but the Hopper app custom builds trips around your timeline to take a little sting off the ticket price.
Simply enter the month you want to travel, and Hopper’s Flex Watch feature will monitor the ebb and flow of ticket prices to find the cheapest travel window.
You can also set Flex Watch for geographic areas rather than specific cities, giving you a shot at a couple of airports within striking distance of deep turns.
Ship Gear with Luggage Free
You’re all set to travel, but the impending gear headache has you thinking twice. While sending your gear via mail instead of lugging it in and out of airports is nothing new, there is a new shipping service that may be the easiest way to travel with ski and snowboard gear yet.
Just book online and Luggage Free will get your ski bag from the front porch to any ski destination in the U.S. for $70 (keep in mind that the standard oversize baggage fee is around $75).
Pack your bag a week ahead of time and leave the dirty work to the experts, including adjusting flights and road transport around forecasts, bad weather, and travel delays, to get your sticks to the front stoop in time for first bell.
Catch a Lyft to the Slopes
After touching down, skip the rental car and catch a Lyft. The popular rideshare app got in on ski season this year, providing a unique ski and snowboard-specific ride for skiers and boarders in Colorado.
Anyone in search of turns in Vail, Telluride, Beaver Creek, Aspen, Winter Park and Granby can click on the Ski Rack option and receive a door-to-slope ride with a ski rack and four-wheel drive rig ready to get you there on a powder day.
The service is an extra $8 on top of the general ride fare, but compared to daily rental car rates, Lyft is offering one of the cheapest and easiest rides for skiers this season.
Stay on Piste with SkiLynx
You know the guy: the one member of your crew that always takes a right instead of a left and ends up skiing solo until apres.
Instead of wasting your precious ski turns chasing down a wayward ski buddy, download the SkiLynx app and stay connected with your posse all day long.
Using the GPS on your phone, SkiLynx tracks stats like vertical and speed, but also links up with your local trail map and tracks other app users–including your buddy, “Get Lost Gary.” If that’s not enough, SkiLynx also lets you pre-set messages to indicate meetup points anywhere on the hill.
