Australia? Japan? Canada? What’s really the best value place to ski?

OUR lift tickets are some of the most expensive in the world, making a trip to the snow cost a fortune. So are you really better off going to Japan or Canada?

Fresh Snow at Thredbo yesterday (5/08/15)

SKIING is crazy expensive. But so worth it. Something happens in your brain when you spend an afternoon in soft powder snow. You forget your troubles. You’re happy.

(Yes, this also applies if you’re a snowboarder!)

It’s winter in Australia and the ski resorts are looking as good as they have in years. The snow gods are throwing the white stuff down with benevolence.

But should you ski in Australia?

Would you be better off saving your money and going somewhere else instead?

New Zealand is a short flight and their resorts — which make ours look petite — are covered in more white crystals than you can poke a pair of planks at.

Treble Cone in the South Island had 46cm of snowfall in one night last week.

But maybe you could do even better by waiting and skiing while everyone else is at the beach. Japan’s skiing is famous for a reason. Then, if you want to get really serious, there’s Canada and the USA.

Should you go there? Or is the Aussie dollar too low now? It gets complex. Let’s break it down.

I’ve collected costs for flights, a week’s accommodation and ski tickets for five resorts around the world. In the foreign countries, deals I found included a ski pass built into the accommodation cost.

Here’s how they compare:

The cheapest option is a week in Thredbo.

The cheapest thing to do is take a week at Thredbo (based on their September holiday special), although New Zealand is not far behind. In the foreign countries, deals I found included a ski pass with accommodation, built into the accommodation cost.

I tried to choose options that are cheap, although not always the absolute cheapest. Why? Because that’s how I’d do it if I was booking my own holiday. I added $400 for travel connections and the high cost of ski meals, etc.

In each place you could find something cheaper if you tried, and it would be easy to find more expensive options.

And here’s another thing. If you go to Thredbo or New Zealand for a week, you can pretty easily get six days skiing in. If you fly to those other places, your time gets squeezed.

In Canada, the USA or Japan you’ll probably only get five days skiing in your week. That’s why we next have this chart that breaks down the price per day you actually spend with your boots on.

Australia looks even better when you look at the price per day.

At this stage, things are starting to look pretty obvious. Skiing in Australia is our best option! Why would anyone bother with their passport and all those tricky foreign coins?

Here’s your answer.

This graph shows snow depth in Australia for the last two years. It’s dicey.

Snow in Australia is just not that reliable. This year we waited until mid-July before there was anything much. A ski holiday without natural snow is possible thanks to snow-making, but it’s never quite the same.

Furthermore, it’s flat here. Our ancient continent has seen very little plate tectonics. That means less of the tall steep geography you get in Japan, NZ and the US West Coast.

Not Australia.

The vertical drop at Whistler is more than twice that at Thredbo, (which itself is

almost twice that at Perisher or Falls Creek)

Skiing in its pure form is not about seeing tanbark poking through and riding the

chairlift 30+ times a day. Once we adjust for quality, the northern hemisphere

starts to look a little better.

You can see I rated Thredbo 1, New Zealand 1.5 and the northern hemisphere

resorts a 2. I divided the price by these “quality factors” to make the

comparisons fairer.

Skiing in its pure form is not about seeing bits of tanbark poking through and riding the chairlift 30+ times a day. Once we adjust for quality, the northern hemisphere starts to look a little better.

You can see I rated Thredbo 1, New Zealand 1.5 and the northern hemisphere resorts a 2.

It makes the NZ resort the best value, with Niseko hot on its heels, then Whistler, then Thredbo. Park City is last.

I admit these quality ratings are totally subjective! If you’re a beginner the reverse is probably true. A local resort is probably a better place to learn. But if you’re a powder hound or a snow bunny, the numbers above may just ring true.

There’s one more wrinkle to look at. The price per day of skiing in Australia is pretty constant whether you ski one day or 20. Expensive international flights don’t factor in. If you’re coming from Perth or Darwin you might want to stay for more than a weekend, but the rest of the country can do a two-day jaunt.

What if you want to go skiing for three weeks?

If you’re going for three weeks and you’re looking for good quality snow, Canada is the best value.

This time, the resort of Whistler in Canada — just north of Vancouver — wins easily. Rated the number three resort in the world, it’s easy to see why so many young Aussies head over there for long stints. If you’ve ever been to Whistler, you know the number of Aussies there is surprising. They even call it “Whistralia.”

This is why.

Jason Murphy is an economist. He publishes the blog Thomas The Think Engine. Follow him on Twitter @jasemurphy.