There’s no single right answer here — it depends on your resort, your kids’ ages, and how much you value flexibility over speed. Here’s how we weigh it up.
Driving: our preferred route to France
For French resorts, driving is our go-to. A few reasons it works well for a family:No luggage limits. Ski gear takes up real space, and you’re not paying baggage fees or playing Tetris with boot bags at check-in.
No transfer needed. You go straight from your car to your accommodation — no coach transfer with tired kids at the end of a travel day.
Flexibility. You control the schedule entirely, which matters more than people expect with young kids.
The trick that makes a long drive actually workable: break it up with an overnight stop. We look for an Airbnb outside the typical tourist areas along the route — these are often surprisingly cheap, and splitting the drive over two days means you arrive at the resort rested and ready to ski, rather than shattered from a single long haul.
Flying: faster, but factor in the whole journey
Flying can work well, especially for resorts further from the UK or when time is tight. But the real journey time isn’t just the flight — it’s flight plus transfer, and transfer times to alpine resorts can run anywhere from 30 minutes to 3+ hours depending on the resort.
Watch for:Early flight times combined with long transfers — a 6am flight plus a 2-hour transfer makes for a genuinely exhausting first day
Luggage allowances for ski gear, which often cost extra
Transfer coaches that make multiple resort stops before reaching yours.
Train: worth considering, especially for Sweden
If you’re heading somewhere like Sweden, the night train is a genuine highlight rather than just a means of transport — you board in the evening and wake up in snow, no early alarm or airport stress involved. For European Alps resorts, train options have improved significantly too and are worth comparing against flying, particularly for reducing the stress of the journey with kids.
Our honest take
If you’re going to France and don’t mind the drive, do it — the flexibility and the overnight stop trick make it genuinely manageable, and you’ll likely save money over flights plus transfer costs for a family of five. For anywhere further, or if you can’t share the driving, the train is an excellent option, remembering to weigh the total door-to-door time (not just flight time) before deciding.
