We saved every receipt — here's how much it actually costs to go on a budget ski trip

28.02.2024 - 17:01 / thepointsguy.com

Ever wonder how much someone's vacation really costs?

Knowing the true line-item cost of a trip can help you decide if it seems worth booking yourself. It can also give you some insight into how you might make some tweaks and do it even better — or more affordably — than someone else did.

Normally, it's no fun to go on a trip and come home with a calculator totaling up every snack, ticket and gallon of gas purchased. However, that was part of the goal of a recent ski trip I took with my kids.

I wanted to see if a ski trip could still fall within the realm of affordability — without living on PB&Js and ramen or skipping all the extras like ski lessons. So, we headed out to Brian Head ski resort in Utah, looking to save every receipt and see just how much a ski trip costs ... if you purposefully visit an affordable ski resort.

With the purchases totaled up, here's how much a family ski trip cost us this year.

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Before covering each expense from my trip, it's important to know a few key details.

For this trip, I considered the costs for myself, my teenager and my 8-year-old. My parents were also there, but we didn't count their expenses in our total (nor did we cheat and hand them over all the bills for meals or the rental car).

I did not factor our transportation to Las Vegas into the total cost either since that expense can vary significantly based on where you are coming from.

I did include the car rental from Vegas, as you can't just wiggle your nose and magically appear in this part of southern Utah. The other aspects of our visit I included are the two nights we spent in Cedar City, Utah, and all of our expenses for the two days we skied on the mountain.

As mentioned, we purposefully selected an affordable ski mountain, Brian Head, for this trip, but we didn't alter our spending to be more or less than it otherwise would have been for this article. That also means that if you ski in a big-name mountain like Vail, Aspen or Park City, your cost will be much higher — often double for many things. So, select your ski destination according to your budget.

Related: How to plan your ski trip using points and miles

Lift tickets are usually one of the biggest ski expenses, but you can save a lot off retail prices if you are selective in when you buy, how you buy and where you ski.

If you're going to a big-name resort, you'll almost certainly want to get a ski pass like the Epic Pass, Ikon Pass or Mountain Collective, even if you just go for a few days. That can take your per-person, per-day lift ticket cost from $200 or $300 to $100 or less.

In our case, we went where kids ski free and lift tickets for teens and adults are simply more