Brèche de Roland: 2010 v. 2022
When Greta Thunberg told us that ‘Our house is on fire‘ in 2019, it seemed like she was talking figuratively. Just three years later, it seems literal. We have already seen glaciers collapsing in Italy and closing early for summer in France. This trend is evident in the French Pyrénées at the Brèche de Roland....
Sunweb offering night train to the Alps from Netherlands/Belgium
In another indicator of the growing provision of rail options by travel companies to match the increased demand for this low-carbon form of travel. Last week we wrote about the ANMSM’s goal to lobby for improved rail services to the Alps. Their research showed a high potential level of demand, if there were more trains...
French ski resorts lobby for more trains
The National Association of Mayors of Mountain Resorts (ANMSM) has called for better train services to ski resorts in France to reduce the carbon footprint of ski holidays. A survey commissioned by the ANMSM and conducted by G2A Consulting showed that almost half of respondents would change the way they travel to resort if the...
Case Study: Chamonix by Train from the UK
In May 2022, Iain from Ski Flight Free travelled to Chamonix in France by train. He left London St Pancras at 08:01 BST and arrived in Chamonix at 19:02 CET (18:02 BST). This is his report of the journey. London-Paris I live in Brighton, so actually my journey started early with a direct train to...
Paris-Briancon Night Carriages to be upgraded
Good news from Serre Chevalier for lovers of train travel – France Relance, the plan introduced by the French Government to stimulate the economy, has invested in new night trains. There is an overall investment of EUR100 million and the Paris-Briançon line carriages will be among those first to be renovated. A total of 44...
Travelski Express Review 2022 by Charlie Mack
This was the first season of the Travelski Express direct train from London St Pancras to the Tarentaise, but what did travellers think of the service. Review: Charlie Mack Ski Flight Free follower Charlie Mack contacted us with his review of the Travelski Express. Charlie had previously travelled to Arc 1800 seven years in a...
POW Europe launch ‘POW Mobility week’
POW Europe have recently launched a sustainable transport hub to raise awareness about transport-related emissions generated by outdoor sports. As regular visitors to Ski Flight Free will be aware, your travel to and from a ski resort generate anything from 50-70% of the emissions associated with your holiday. POW Europe also note that train travel is the...
Case Study: Switzerland by Train from the UK
In March 2022, Iain from Ski Flight Free travelled to Andermatt in Switzerland by train. He left London St Pancras at 08:01 GMT and arrived in Andermatt at 19:06 CET (18:06 GMT). This is his report of the journey. London-Paris Although I started in Brighton, let’s start off this blog post from London, as this...
Free Tickets on the Funicular to Les Arcs for train travellers
Last weekend I travelled to Les Arcs on the inaugural Travelski Express train service, direct from London St Pancras to Bourg St Maurice. You can find out more about the experience of travelling overnight on the train in my article for InTheSnow Magazine, this video or in the podcast I published about it for The...
WhoSki launch new website for pre-owned ski kit
We were delighted to see that whoski.com launched their new website this week. Founded by Sally Warren and Nicola Davenport, WhoSki.com is a peer-to-peer marketplace for buying and selling pre-owned ski kit. Every season we see more and more interest in the sustainable fashion revolution and WhoSki is one of the platforms that allows users...
Alpe d’Huez delivers a subtle hint to take the train
I loved this subtle guerilla campaign that Alpe d’Huez recently ran in conjunction with SNCF. Many resorts are encouraging holidaymakers to take the train rather than fly or drive, but the resorts of Alpe d’Huez teamed up for a few days with Ouigo, the SNCF’s low-cost offering. Travel to resort is typically 50-80% of the...
“Dude, where’s my flying car?”
With new announcements about ‘electric planes’ regularly appearing in the press, I found this article by Andrew Orlowski in The Telegraph interesting. He points out that despite the many new prototypes for e-VTOL (electric vertical take-off and landing) models, there are precious few in production. Orlowski writes: “Jet fuel has 70 times the energy density of...
