Ski Utah - trip plan

After a hiatus of family ski vacation in 2019, we got right into it at the start of 2020! The whole family went to Park City at Utah to ski.

Ski vacation is expensive; our philosophy is to spend as needed and to save when possible while maintaining the quality of the vacation.  However savings from several big ticket items, i.e. airfare, lodging, ski rental and lift tickets, are possible when carefully planned.

Airfare/Airport parking - we chose to leave DFW on January 1st, New Year's Day, on a 9pm flight, return on Monday January 6th at 9 am from Salt lake city. These days of the week and times of day, not only allow us to get better airfare, but also help us to beat local traffic. Airfare plus prepaid airport parking saved us ~ $500.

mountains near great salt lake

Itinerary -  in the past we typically allotted 5 days for ski trip, two days on the road,  ski 3 days. This time due to the flight schedule, we allotted 6 days, four days at the destination, but only ski three days, with one day for rest. We arrived at the apartment near midnight of January 1st , and rested on Jan 2nd   - we went grocery shopping first, and then Lily and I went to Great Salt Lake , about 1 hour drive from the ski resort, for an excursion.

snow covered great salt lake

snow covered salt flat

Lodging - Ski-in and ski-out is ideal but super expensive at Park City mountain village. We rented 

an apartment with kitchen and 2 full bath in a building across a parking lot from the ski resort, about a quarter mile from the lifts at the base of the slopes - we could walk to the lifts in about 5 minutes! we saved ~ $1000 without sacrificing conveniences too much.

back of the apartment building we stayed

Ski lift tickets and ski rentals - we bought the lift tickets ahead of time, online through a EpicMix program - which offered close to ~ 40% discount compared to tickets at the window. We rented skis, boots, poles and an helmet from a independent shop, Jake's ski rental, which was at ski resort but not on the main traffic path. Total saving was ~ $720.

Food - food is expensive at and near the ski resort, and even more so when we lunch at the restaurants in the mountain, a burger with fries is ~ $20 - 25! We ate in the mountains during our ski days, but cook dinners for 3 nights. This saved us ~ $200 and an added bonus was that cooking kept us away from cellphones and laptops, we had more real "together" time.