Courchevel Ski Resort Guide: Four Villages, One Mountain

Courchevel is not one resort, it is four villages stacked up one mountainside, and the number after the name is the altitude in metres. That single fact decides most of your holiday: how much you pay, how the village feels at night, and how reliable the snow is on your doorstep. Le Praz at 1300 m and Courchevel 1850 are the same lift pass and the same mountain, but they are different holidays at different prices, and picking the wrong one is the most common mistake people make here.

All four sit in the Courchevel valley, the western end of Les 3 Vallées -- the largest linked ski area on earth at around 600 km of pistes and 150-plus lifts, spanning eight resorts from here across to Méribel and Val Thorens. Courchevel's own sector is roughly 150 km of that, which is a full resort in its own right before you ever cross a ridge.

The four villages, by altitude

The rebrand in 2011 dropped the numbers officially -- 1850 is now just "Courchevel", 1650 is "Moriond", 1550 is "Village", 1300 is "Le Praz" -- but everyone still uses the altitudes, because they are the only labels that tell you anything useful.

Le Praz (1300) is the one with a soul. It is a real Savoyard village of old larch chalets around a church and a small lake, wrapped in forest, and it hosted the ski-jumping and Nordic events when the 1992 Albertville Olympics came to the valley -- the giant jump towers still stand over the village. It is the quietest, most characterful and generally cheapest of the four, with proper tree-lined skiing home at the end of the day. The catch is the altitude: at 1300 m the home runs are the first to suffer in a warm or thin snow year, and you rely on a gondola to get up into the main area each morning.

Village (1550) is the plain one, and honest about it. It sits in the trees below 1850 with gentle terrain, a family feel and the lowest lift-linked prices in the resort. There is not much to do here after dark, and a funicular or gondola shuttles you up to the action. It suits people who want the Courchevel ski area and a Courchevel pass without paying Courchevel-1850 prices for the bed, and who do not need a nightlife.

Moriond (1650) is the value sweet spot, and the one I would point most families and intermediates at. It faces southeast, so it is the sunniest of the four, it has its own quiet sector of wide, cruisy runs that rarely get the 1850 crowds, and the prices are a real step down from the flagship. The village has grown up a lot in the last decade with new lifts and lodging, and the Ariondaz gondola links it cleanly into the rest of the mountain. Sun, space, gentler prices -- if you are not here to be seen, this is the smart address.

Courchevel 1850 is the reason the resort is a byword for money. It is the highest, snowiest and best-connected village, with the most lifts on its doorstep and direct access to the Saulire and La Vizelle terrain that feeds into Méribel. It also has the Altiport, the designer boutiques, the Michelin-starred restaurants and the highest concentration of five-star hotels in the Alps. This is where the private jets and helicopters land their passengers, where a coffee costs what a lunch costs elsewhere, and where the ski-in ski-out chalets sell for tens of millions. The skiing off 1850 is genuinely excellent. The bill is genuinely brutal.

The skiing: better for improvers than the price suggests

Here is the thing the luxury branding hides: Courchevel is one of the best resorts in the Alps for beginners and early intermediates, not just for people who want to ski hard in a fur coat.

The terrain above 1850 and 1650 is full of wide, gentle, immaculately groomed blues and greens, and the resort backs that up with infrastructure most places do not bother with. There are around a dozen free lifts and several fenced-off beginner zones -- many branded ZEN (Zones for the Evolution of Novices) -- so a nervous first-timer can spend day one learning without buying a full lift pass at all. The free Bellecôte green in 1850 is a proper wide learner slope right in the village. For a family with mixed abilities, that combination of free terrain and gentle progression is worth real money.

Intermediates get the run of the whole Three Valleys from here, which is close to a bottomless supply of red and blue cruising. La Saulire, at 2,740 m above 1850, is the key gateway: from the top you can drop back toward Courchevel or over the back into Méribel, and from Méribel the whole system opens up toward Val Thorens. You can ski a different valley every day for a week and not repeat yourself.

Experts are the group Courchevel serves least well on paper -- the marked steep terrain is more limited than at, say, Val d'Isère -- but the couloirs off the Saulire ridge and the off-piste on the shady north-facing slopes hold snow and reward a guide. It is not a bad experts' mountain. It is just not the headline.

The altiport and the private-jet thing

The Courchevel Altiport, cut into the slope above 1850, is one of the most famous small runways in aviation: short, steeply pitched and demanding a special pilot certification. Light aircraft and helicopters use it, and it is a big part of why Courchevel attracts the crowd it does -- Russian and Middle Eastern money in particular made 1850 its winter base through the 2000s and 2010s. You will see the helicopters shuttling in from Geneva and Chambéry all season.

For everyone else, this changes nothing practical. You arrive the normal way: Geneva, Lyon, Chambéry or Grenoble airport and a road transfer up the valley, typically two to three hours from Geneva depending on traffic and weather. The altiport is a spectacle to watch from the piste, not a travel plan for mortals.

What it actually costs

Let's be plain about money, because it is the whole question with Courchevel. The lift pass is not the expensive part -- a 6-day Three Valleys adult pass is around €409 for the 2025/26 season and often sold six-for-five, which is in line with any big French mega-area, and a Courchevel-only pass is cheaper again. The expensive part is everything else in 1850: the bed, the lunch, the après beer, the ski hire on the main street.

The move that saves a non-billionaire's Courchevel holiday is simple: buy the same lift pass, ski the same mountain, and sleep in a cheaper village. A chalet or apartment in Le Praz, Village or Moriond puts you on the identical Three Valleys terrain for a fraction of the 1850 rate, and you are never more than a gondola ride from the flagship if you want to visit it for a day. Lunch on the mountain follows the same logic -- eat at the simpler places off 1650, not the see-and-be-seen terraces above 1850.

If even the outer villages feel steep, the truth is that the neighbours are cheaper for the same ski area. Val Thorens and Les Menuires at the far end of the Three Valleys are more affordable bases on the same 600 km, and the wider Tarentaise valley around you -- La Plagne, Les Arcs, Tignes -- offers a lot of skiing for a lot less prestige tax.

Where to stay

Match the village to what you are actually here for. Want character, quiet and forest skiing, and you will trade some snow reliability at village level? Le Praz. Travelling as a family on a budget and value the ski area over the nightlife? Village (1550) or Moriond (1650) -- and of the two, Moriond for the sun and its own quiet sector. Here to ski straight onto the best-connected terrain, or here for the full luxury experience and the budget to match? 1850, eyes open about the prices.

For most families and mixed-ability groups who want the Courchevel mountain without the Courchevel-1850 bill, Moriond is the answer, and it is the one that surprises people most.

How it compares

Within the Three Valleys, Courchevel and Méribel are the two you will most often weigh against each other -- Méribel sits in the middle valley, is more chalet-holiday and less bling, and is worth reading up on in our Courchevel vs Méribel breakdown. Val Thorens is the high, snow-sure, purpose-built option at the top of the system, and Val d'Isère is the Tarentaise rival over in Espace Killy with a harder edge to its terrain and its nightlife.

If you are still narrowing down the region rather than the resort, the French Alps overview maps out how the Tarentaise stacks up against Chamonix, the Portes du Soleil and the rest. But if the shortlist is already Courchevel, the only real decision left is which of the four numbers you book -- and that decision is about your wallet and your evenings far more than your skiing.