Have you started planning your family winter ski vacation? If you haven’t started, today is the day!  I learned last year that Summer and early Fall are the best times for planning your family winter vacation because ski resorts are offering deals and almost every accommodation is still available. Starting to plan in November left me with slim pickings for ski resort accommodations.  I’m pretty sure I rented the very last available condo at Copper Mountain last year! These are my 4 tips to make your family winter vacation easy on parents and enjoyable for the whole family.

Tip #1 – Take advantage of ski resort deals.  I started receiving emails at the beginning of September from ski resorts in Colorado for 3^rd night free, kids ski free, and other fall deals. Kids ski free (with adult lift ticket) is a huge savings.  Also if you’re not paying for your kid’s lift ticket you don’t feel pressure to make them ski all day. Most ski resorts also offer speedee line pass if you book accommodations through them.  We loved this because skiing to the front of the line is just awesome!  There are also discount codes and coupons available if you decide to rent accommodations privately through VRBO or Airbnb. Ask the owners you are renting from and they can often times point you to deals.

Tip #2 – Everyone must be comfortable.  This is a big one.  If you are cold, or your boots are giving you blisters, or someone’s lips are chapped, it can be a long week.  So making sure everyone is comfortable is super important.  I made sure my kids had really good socks, gloves, heat packs for inside gloves, long underwear (although I think they call them “base liners” now), and tubs Waxelene for chapped noses and lips. Since we were arriving Christmas Eve I actually washed my family’s new long underwear and socks and them wrapped them for Christmas morning.  Not the most exciting gift, but the batman socks were pretty cool.

Family winter ski vacations can be magical (and easy on parents) don't wait, start planning today! Click To Tweet

Tip #3 – Don’t Over-pack! “What?” you say. “We’ll need everything and the kitchen sink for skiing and Christmas.” Or, Maybe not? Even though you are packing ski gear and Christmas into your bags, you can still avoid over-packing.  First of all, besides your ski gear you don’t need a ton of other clothes.  A few outfits will totally due and if you’re traveling with kids, you may find yourselves, in pajamas, eating in for dinner most nights.  Once we settled in to our family winter ski vacation routine we would ski all day, come back and hot tub, and eat dinner in our condo by the fire with games or a movie.  It was one of the most relaxing family winter ski vacations ever.  We also chose to keep the Christmas presents light for so many reasons, but a little was enough when everyone is looking forward to a day in the snow.  One last advantage to packing light it makes the dreaded packing up to leave SO much breezier.

Tip #4 – Pack your groceries.  Crazy, I know.  But last year we traveled on Christmas Eve, flying into Denver and then taking a shuttle to the ski resort.  We arrived after dark and the next day was Christmas. The shuttle made no stops at Whole Foods and nothing was going to be open on Christmas! I had no choice but to pack food.  I actually packed a whole frozen smoked turkey, sliced cheese, frozen chicken, rice, broccoli, green beans, snacks, popcorn, condiments, breakfast food, hot chocolate mix, coffee, butter, boxed almond milk, and most importantly…a box of wine.  (Did you say boxed wine? Yes, I did. Bottles are a little trickier to pack.) My family laughed at me, but they were grateful on Christmas morning when they had bacon and oatmeal and hot chocolate for breakfast.  We were able to eat in almost every night after hot-tubing and even skied back to the condo for lunch a few times.  Not having to take a shuttle to the grocery store during our family winter ski vacation was amazing.  Packing groceries does add weight to the luggage, so be careful to weigh each bag, but it doesn’t really qualify as over-packing because you won’t be bringing any of it home with you!

Family winter ski vacations can be magical (and easy on parents) if you consider these four tips! And don’t wait, start planning your family winter ski vacation now!