Driving to Obertauern - Half Term 2025

A snowHead

Hi everyone,

We are planning a family ski trip to Obertauern, during the February half-term break in 2025, and I'm looking for some advice on the journey. We have driven to the Tarentaise Valley a few times at Easter but haven’t done the trip yet at Half Term.

So far the general plan would be to leave home right after our son finishes school (maybe earlier if we can) and head for the tunnel, which is about two hours away. Then cross and head to hopefully as far as Metz for an overnight stay. Then get an early start to cross the border into Germany early in the morning to avoid queues at border checks.
Then down the A8 towards Munich and from then towards Salzburg and then the A10. Unfortunately, there are still major construction works going on on the A10 towards Obertauern. Is there a feasible way to avoid these. I would imagine it will get quite busy on Saturday with major holiday traffic underway and the Dutch traveling south.

One alternative I can think of is turning south earlier heading towards Kufstein and then via Saalfelden, which shows up as 30 mins longer on Maps. But I suspect that route will also be very busy with people heading to Saalbach, Zell, Maria Alm, etc

Other than that, would: Calais >> Brussels >> Bonn >> Frankfurt >> Nuremburg >> Passau >> past Linz and through the Kalkalpen to approach Obertauern from the East be a viable route?

The major downside of that is that it is about 1h longer on Google Maps and far more driving through Germany, which is not as relaxed as in France and possibly more traffic and roadworks.

The border controls and roadworks are giving me some concerns that maybe I should cancel the hotel booking and find something that is more easily accessible, e.g. in Western Austria (saw a few decent options in Warth and Soelden), where we can drive through Switzerland and avoid Germany and the A10 roadworks all together.

Thanks in advance for your advice!

A snowHead

The A10 jams were huge on key Saturdays last winter, first hand account as we saw it. Stretching north for many km, static. As our taxi sailed past the other way.

Heading south our taxi driver with local knowledge used the parallel smaller roads, it worked well. But you have to head off the A10 very early, because the police block off exits to prevent the masses doing this.

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I'm unsure where your problem of German motorways comes from. This year I've drove 3 times in the winter once in the summer. Never using French toll roads. Once was to Obertauern at Easter.
We take the Friday off school drive down to Stuttgart. Then drive in to resort early(4am)in the morning. Traffic sometimes but I've never experienced anything like the traffic in to the tarentasie valley. My way isn't for everyone but it works for us and allows us to ski the 1st Saturday all day

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@Baron von chippy, A bad day on the A8 can add 3 hours to the journey any day of the week. Leaving Stuttgart at 4am will mitigate that but its not for everyone as you say

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

@ski_free, Firstly the border check thing is not relevant, they are for a political show and are causing minor if any inconvenience (from what I have read those from France / Luxembourg / Belgium / Netherlands are hardly there, only in place to avoid too many issues with Poland!). The Austrians are now very strict about tourist traffic having to stick with the Autobahn and not use side roads, this is enforced by the police on busy high season weekends. If you are planning on driving down on a high season weekend the traffic will be very busy & slow from the Munich ring road (wave at me on the way past!) until pretty much Salzburg, if you can change your schedule to avoid driving this section on a Saturday I would do so. I would also avoid the section of the A3 between Frankfurt & Nürnburg as there are long term major roadworks (be a very good road when finished but currently painful).

Personally I would go with Warth, its a lovely (though small) place and as part of the Arlberg has access to the best skiing in the eastern alps, very good snow record too. Travel best via Luxembourg, Karlsruhe, Ulm, Bregenz then mountain road to Warth (avoid the long drive up the Lechtal from Reutte, also note no road access from Lech in the winter). This has cheap petrol in Luxembourg and no road tolls just the Austrian vignette (though dont think that is needed for the Pfänder tunnel anymore but check!). Given a February weekend there will be traffic whichever route you choose. Obviously make sure you have proper winter rated tyres (snow chains not an acceptable alternative).

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@Baron von chippy, We can do Munich/Calais in under 10 hours on a quiet summer day (Sundays best as few trucks) but in winter especially Saturdays it is a different matter. I would not go near the A99 / A8 on a Saturday between early morning and late afternoon from late January until early March. I stopped doing Saturday day trips to Kitzbühel etc as the traffic simply became impossible even using side roads in Bavaria and then having to stick on the Autobahn in Austria. What should be no more than a 90 minute drive was taking at least 3 hours! I was leaving before 6 and not getting to the lift station car park until after 9. Easter is much quieter far less tourist traffic

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@munich_irish, ive never encountered major traffic going from stuttgart or Ingoldstadt leaving at 4 in the morning. maybe I'm just really lucky.

After all it is free

@ski_free, Your assumptions about the A10 are probably correct and your alternate route is everyone's alternate route. I'd recommend pushing on as far as you can on the Friday. If you can get South of Munich by 8am on the Saturday you should be fine. Yes the A10 can be very busy, but as long as there are no accidents it will be moving. There are even more offers for Park and Ride and discounted train tickets in Salzburgerland for next season and I'd expect more people taking them up than last year so it might not be as bad.

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Thanks for all the feedback, everyone.

In general, I don’t enjoy driving on German motorways—they’re usually very busy, full of trucks, and there seem to be frequent accidents. I tend to drive at higher speeds (though not excessively so), and yet I still find myself checking my rear-view mirror far more often on the Autobahn compared to the more relaxed French toll roads. I may be a bit biased because I often travel the A8 between Stuttgart and Ulm, and that stretch of motorway is terrible, especially in winter over the Alb. The other route I use regularly is the A96, which isn’t as bad but still doesn’t compare to the French or Austrian motorways.

It sounds like the A10 could be a nightmare. Logistically, I’m not sure we can make it south of Munich, since realistically, the earliest we could leave is around noon. We’re already taking our son out of school for a week before Christmas, so I don’t want to push my luck too much. If we stayed overnight at a B&B outside Strasbourg, that would still leave us about four hours from reaching the south of Munich in good conditions. Pushing all the way to Stuttgart for an overnight stop might be tough—if we arrive in France at 17:00 local time, we wouldn’t reach Stuttgart until around 1 a.m. Getting a bit of sleep and then hitting the road again at 5:30 a.m. would still probably put us south of Munich after 8 a.m., where we’d likely run into the Kitzbühel and SkiWelt day-trippers.

Maybe we’ll have to try to take the full day off, as Baron von Chippy suggested. That would give us a head start on the crowds and allow us more time for skiing, but it depends on the pushback we get from our Christmas plans.

I’ve only driven to Tarentaise at Easter, so fortunately, I’m not familiar with the half-term madness there.

One alternative could be flying into Vienna and renting a car, as flight prices there don’t seem too bad. For some reason, though, car rentals in Vienna are ridiculously expensive.

We’re still considering Warth (we’ve booked Obertauern but can cancel for free until November 15th). Logistically, Warth is much easier to reach, and it’s a fantastic ski region. I’ve been to Arlberg a few times but never made it to Warth. For some reason, I have my heart set on Salzburgerland for this half-term. From Obertauern, I’m also eager to explore Aineck and Grosseck, as I’ve seen some videos and the slopes look great, with stunning vistas.

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@ski_free, we've flown in to Nuremberg before on the Friday stayed with family in Ingoldstadt abd drive in from there on the Saturday early. Nuremberg flights were considerably cheaper than anywhere else

@ski_free, In the best part of 35 years driving on the Autobahns, I have seen very few accidents. Clearly they do happen (our local fire brigade has fairly regular call outs but then we live next to the busiest motorway in Europe) but not that often. I know what you mean with the speed thing, which is very noticeable on stretches of the A8, you think you are going fast (say 160kmh/100mph) and someone zooms up behind you, which can be disconcerting and tiring. Conversely parts of the Austrian autobahns have a low speed limit with lots of cameras which becomes painful. Avoid driving in Switzerland if possible they have got very keen on handing out big traffic fines (maybe brits can avoid these!).

I think the bottom line is that getting to the Salzburgerland on a peak season weekend is going to be slow whatever route you take, a significant proportion of the Dutch, Belgian, German population will be doing the same thing! If you cant avoid the Saturday then you might be better off biting the bullet and flying. For instance Friday night flight to Munich, stay near the train station, early train to Salzburg, then on to Radstadt and book a transfer to Obertauern, you should be able to be there for 12:00

You know it makes sense.

@ski_free, Why not fly to Salzburg? Not sure where you are in the UK but lots of flights in the winter direct to SZG. Yes car hire in Austria is ridiculous but you don't need a car in Obertauren and the Trains and buses are excellent. The Ski Amade Ski Buses (incl link to Obertauren) are dirt cheap or free and the buses skip the A10 traffic.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

Thanks for all the input so far folks, all very helpful.

@ Baron von chippy and @ johnE: Thank you for those suggestion! I have checked a few airports including Ljubljana, Vienna and Bratislava. Out of those Vienna was the cheapest with the best flight times. But had not checked Nuremburg and turns out there are quite reasonably priced flights from Stansted to Nuremburg, even when I add all of our gear. Heading out on Friday evening and arriving in Nuremburg at around 22:00. We could then rent a car and head south and overnight maybe somewhere around Unterhaching. Then head for Obertauern early Saturday morning and arrive in time for a full day of skiing. Cost wise it isn't actually that much more than driving. Return flight would be 21:30, so should still be able to squeeze in a half day of skiing and still leave plenty of leeway for the return Journey to Nuremburg.
For the return journey I suppose we should leave plenty of leeway. So possibly ski to mid-day and then head towards the airport.

Generally i prefer driving as I can just stuff everything we want to take into the car, and its just that little more flexible and overall less stressful than flying. Especially flying from Stansted on a half term Friday probably isn't anyone's idea of a pleasant experience, but in this instance it may well be the superior option. Getting the ski bag to weight in a sub 20kg will be a challenge for sure Very Happy

@ munich_irish: So far I have managed to dodge getting caught speeding in Switzerland, though I have been done in Austria around Landeck. The rental car company processing fee of the fine was larger than the fine itself Smile

. Its possible I get a little unlucky, and you obviously have a much larger sample of traveling on Autobahns, but I always seem to encoutner issues on the A8 when I use it. So far this year have been twice and in both instances we had major delays, in June there was a jam caused by an accident and in late April there was snow falling which it a tough slog over the Alb. Whenever I fly to Stuttgart instead of Munich I end up regretting it, primarily because of the A8.
On the other hand, maybe I have just been spoiled by empty French motorways at Easter. Cruise control at 100 mph and just watch the miles go by. The French are even kind enough to put up warning signs for speed cameras well in advance.

@ RedandWhiteFlachau: Flights to Salzburg are about £600 per person. The Nuremburg ones came in at about £230 each (including all gear). Adding car rental, and night in hotel on top for Nuremburg it still comes out cheaper, than jsut the Flights to Salzburg. Though I suppose since we are now considering flying, I'll probably take a look at some package deals, for the area, which should fly us into Salzburg. Then I can also enjoy a few pints at the airport Smile

A snowHead

A snowHead

Last there was an hour delay caused by people rubber-necking the accident on the opposite carriageway

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@ski_free, which hotel in Flachau?

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Ive Skied Damuels and Warth both about two or three times. As @munich_irish, says great ski areas. On all occasions, I flew to Friedrichshafen, taxi once, Car hire twice. Easy journey with pretty light traffic. Lovely places to ski, some of the best family skiing anywhere. I may well go back this season.

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@holidayloverxx The Hotel is the Schlosshotel Lacknerhof. Decor appears to be a little eccentric, but kids facilities look top notch. Please do share any thoughts on it if you have. Also there appear to be quite a few Ski school in Flachau, are there any that stand out (positively or negatively)?

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@ski_free, aha, my flat is just before the lackner. No real thoughts apart from it looks hideous but a great location. Yes, kids facilities will be good.

Ski schools..dunno really, it's years since I've used them and it depends who you get. Redandwhiteflachau is an instructor in Flachau, maybe drop him a PM

After all it is free

@ @holidayloverxx, Thank you for your feedback. Will check in with Redandwhiteflachau.

@ski_free, All the ski schools are good but you need to book early (now!) for that week. Ski school runs Sun-Thu. We also get a lot of returners who request the same instructors for private lessons. I'm already booked mornings 16-19 Feb 25.

The nearest to the Lacknerhof are Sport am Jet, where I work and the Herman Maier (Dad, not the man himself). Both do equipment deals with ski school bookings and offer supervised lunches if you don't like your kids. If you're looking for complete beginners, I'd recommend us because our training area is at the top of the Achter Jet. The others are at the bottom of the valley and that's not so easy to meet up for lunch.

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@RedandWhiteFlachau, Thank you for the feedback. We do tend to send our son for lessons with supervised lunches so we can explore a little farther afield. Usually we get him 3-4 days of lessons and the rest we go together. Will need to make a decision and nail down the bookings then.

Still mulling Damuels/Warth (driving) and Flachau (flying to Nuremberg). Could just go Flachau next year, though next year half term week looks like another Armageddon type event. Dutch South & Central, UK, Fasching, Vienna, Lower Austria, Burgenland all in the same week.

So may just go for it this HT.

Help!!

Driving to Obertauern - Half Term 2025

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