*Originally published in 2020 but recently updated as one of the highest performing articles*

If you’re considering a family ski holiday, Bulgaria is an option worth exploring. It’s often seen as a budget-friendly alternative to skiing in the Alps, but does it live up to expectations? Here’s what we found on our trip.

Why Choose Bulgaria for a Family Ski Trip?

Skiing can be an expensive holiday, especially for families. Bulgaria is often praised for its affordability, and that’s what drew us in. The lift passes, ski hire, and lessons are much cheaper compared to France, Austria, or Switzerland – but cost aside, we wanted to see if it was a good experience overall.

Where We Stayed

We chose Bansko, one of Bulgaria’s most popular ski resorts. It’s known for its modern ski facilities, family-friendly atmosphere, and great value for money. The accommodation options range from budget-friendly hotels to more luxurious stays, and we found something that worked well for us. You can stay in better accommodation than you perhaps normally would, because prices are lower. So we stayed in a 4* place with a lovely large pool, sauna, steam room etc, which is wonderful after a day on the slopes.

We booked with Balkan Holidays and stayed at St. Georges Palace in Bansko. We really liked the accommodation, but on the whole, we weren’t very impressed with the travel company They didn’t seem to have any local knowledge, or be particularly interested in helping you find the information needed.

Skiing with Kids in Bulgaria

One of our main concerns was whether Bulgaria would be suitable for children learning to ski. The good news? The ski schools here are fantastic! The instructors were patient, friendly, and great with kids. The beginner slopes were well-maintained, making it easier for little ones to get the hang of skiing.

The kids nursery and ski school was well set up. When we found out what the actual system was and where to go this worked quite well. The staff there spoke English to the boys and were very kind. The boys were well fed at ski school. They would have a ski, then go in for a play and something like sausage and chips, then more skiing and some snow play. The only issue we had with ski school was that the boys found it a bit boring by the end of the week. They were skiing so well the lessons became a bit basic. We made up for this by them skiing with us every afternoon though.

If your children are complete beginners, Bulgaria is a great place to start. It’s less overwhelming than some of the bigger European resorts, and the lessons are more affordable.

The Downsides of Skiing in Bulgaria

No place is perfect, and Bulgaria has its drawbacks. The ski lifts can be crowded, especially during peak season. We also found that the food options on the slopes were a bit limited compared to other ski destinations.

If you, like me have spent a number of years skiing in France and enjoying the vast slopes, ski runs for all abilities, and been spoilt by largely door-to-door skiing – I guarantee you will be disappointed with Bulgaria as a ski destination.

If however, skiing is a new thing for you and you have no real expectations or knowledge of other ski resorts in the world, then I’m pretty sure you’d be quite happy skiing in Bulgaria.

The transfers were not idea. This was problematic with young children. We arrived late, around midnight at our hotel, then obviously needed to get lift passes and find out all the info about the children’s ski school the next day.

Communication from the holiday company was really poor and no one seemed to know anything. We really had to hassle people to find out what we needed to know and the language was a problem. I’m used to speaking French to people, understanding the set up and knowing where we need to go and when – this was much harder. If you were just travelling as a couple this would be fine, but with four kids in tow, all with different needs and at varying stages of their skiing, this part was hard. My basic Bulgarian that I’d learnt via Duolingo before our trip didn’t seem to go down very well, so there was lots of pointing and signalling to get by.

It’s not door-to-door skiing, far from it. You have to get in a shuttle bus at the hotel, which was a bit haphazard in terms of times. It drops you near the gondola, where there was then had a big queue to get the the actual slopes. This is hard with children and all the skis and poles – this was a real bottleneck.

There were very few ski runs, so not much variety and the snow wasn’t amazing whilst we were there, which was a bit restrictive some days. However, we skied so much as a family, which was amazing. I hadn’t thought that this would be possible just yet, but the four children all made such fantastic progress that we could all ski together everyday – and really, that’s the thing that brings me the most joy!

The Advantages of Skiing in Bulgaria

If you’re looking for an affordable ski trip with children, Bulgaria is a fantastic option. It’s not as polished as the Alps, but it offers a great balance between cost and quality. The cost is by far the biggest advantage of skiing in Bulgaria. We went out there for the second half of the Christmas holidays, over New Year. When I compared a similar hotel for the same week in France, the cost was £4,000 more! I mean, that’s the cost of another holiday right there!

Food and drink was good value. We are used to paying a small fortune for a mulled wine and a beer in the mountains in France, so it was really nice to be able to enjoy a mountain drink and get some warm snacks for the kids without needing to re-mortgage! We had some lovely meals out in the resort and the food and drink at the hotel was also really good.

There was a small supermarket about a ten minute walk away from our hotel, which, again was well priced and had most things we needed whilst we we there.

The mountains were still beautiful – it wasn’t The Alps but it was still stunning, especially on those glorious blue sky days.

Would we go back?

It’s a tricky one. Overall I’d always take skiing over not skiing. So, if skiing in Bulgaria was the only affordable option, I’d much rather go than not, but that doesn’t stop me longing for the wide open slopes of the French Alps and wondering if we should have just saved up a bit longer and gone there instead.