High, snow sure and built for skiing.
Tignes sits at 2,100m and shares the Espace Killy with Val d'Isère, so it holds snow beautifully and opens early. It is a functional, purpose built resort rather than a chocolate box village, and it rewards you with quick access to a huge amount of terrain.
Know the mountain before you go.
The skiing
You can ski from the door across wide open slopes, drop over to Val d'Isère for lunch, and finish on the glacier when conditions lower down are thin. It is a strong pick for mixed groups who want mileage.
The village and the evenings
The lake side hub of Le Lac has the most going on, while Val Claret sits highest for the fastest glacier access. It is less about nightlife and more about getting the most out of the mountain.
Beyond the skiing.
Free, and worth knowing
La Banquise, Tignes le Lac. A free snow village on the lake side: an igloo village you can walk into, a curling rink, Inuit games, and a fifteen metre toboggan slope gentle enough for a two year old. All of it free, no booking, no supervision to pay for.
Snow Village, Val Claret. The second and larger free snow area, and the one most people miss. An igloo village, an oversized igloo you can go inside, Inuit games, a land art area where the resort's technical teams build ephemeral snow structures, a life size walk around snow spiral and a labyrinth. Free from half past ten in the morning until eight at night.
Four free sledging areas. One in each of Tignes le Lac, Le Lavachet, Tignes 1800 and Les Brevieres, all free, all open to everybody, and all reachable with a pushchair. Sledging is not allowed on the pistes, so these are where it happens.
Nine free beginner lifts. Four magic carpets at Claret, Centre, Boisses 1 and Boisses 2, two drag lifts at Lavachet and Grande Parei, and three chairlifts, Bollin, Almes and Rosset. No pass needed on any of them. That is nine lifts of free practice, which is more than any other resort in this set offers.
Two lifts that carry pedestrians for nothing. Nine lifts take pedestrians and seven of them want a pass. The Brevieres gondola and the Bollin chairlift do not. That gives somebody who is not skiing a way up the mountain and back down for free, which is unusual.
Le Panorama, the free half. Three floors above the tourist office at Tignes le Lac with a three hundred and sixty degree view, and most of what is inside costs nothing. A virtual reality headset takes you through a hundred years of Tignes history, from farming through the dam and the move up the mountain. There is an augmented reality map table with six points of interest and a game for younger children, and two augmented reality telescopes on the terraces that name the peaks.
Free guided walking tours. Two cultural walks led by a heritage guide. One starts at the church in Tignes 1800 and takes in the rebuilt Saint Jacques, the other starts at the Maison de Tignes le Lac and covers how the resort was built from the 1930s onwards. Both free.
Walking across the frozen lake. The tourist office actively recommends crossing the frozen lake on foot as the quick link between Tignes le Lac and Val Claret, and the activity operators use it as the walking access to their lakeside meeting point. It is free, it is flat, and it is a better ten minutes than the road.
Free events with dates already published. Opening weekend on 21 November 2026, the Yeti Race on 29 November, Christmas on the 24th and 25th, New Year's Eve, the Mountain Shaker festival from 17 to 22 January 2027, Spring Break across the last two weeks of the season and Black Shoes, the thirty fifth telemark gathering, from 23 to 25 April 2027.
Free with a pass you already hold. A snowpark on the Palet sector with a chill zone, a terrace, deckchairs and picnic tables. A twelve hundred metre boardercross with banked turns and bumps off the Col du Palet drag. A parallel slalom race track off the Palafour chairlift. And the themed family piste off the free Bollin chairlift, which needs no pass at all.
A few of the rest
Ice diving under the frozen lake. Under one to two metres of ice on the lake at Tignes le Lac, and it is the most distinctive thing we have found in any French resort. A day dive, a night dive, or a three dive ice diver qualification spread over two days. The meeting point is a cabin on the lake shore below the aquatic centre, so it is a walk from the middle of the village rather than an expedition. Over 50 euros.
Expedition Cobra. A sledge descent from the top of the Palafour chairlift, sold from a chalet at the bottom, with everything provided. Twelve euros a run makes it the cheapest paid activity on the mountain here. Under 20 euros.
Snow tubing at Val Claret. Rubber rings down a shaped course at the entrance to the Grande Motte park, half an hour or an hour, and there is a family rate. From age three, which makes it one of the very few paid mountain activities that takes a toddler. Under 20 euros.
All 29 picks for Tignes, dining included, live in the Ski Snug app.
These are our own picks, not paid placements. Prices and opening times change, so it is always worth checking before you set off.
Getting there
Fly to Geneva or Lyon and transfer up in around three hours, or drive in and settle for the week.
Tignes guides
Not sure where to stay in Tignes?
Our Tignes team will match you to the right chalet, apartment or hotel. One team, one price, zero faff.