Skier & Snowboarder-Submitted Reviews for Kitzbühel
Planning a ski trip to Kitzbühel? Browse our collection of visitor-generated reviews that rank the mountain and ski town on a scale of one to five stars in the following categories: Overall Rating, All-Mountain Terrain, Nightlife, Terrain Park and Family Friendly. See how Kitzbühel stacks up to others in terms of skiing and après, and read up on pros, cons and comments from fellow skiers and snowboarders. Don't forget to submit your own Kitzbühel review! Scroll to the bottom of this page to let other travelers know about your ski area experience.
Skier & Snowboarder-Submitted Reviews for Kitzbühel
Total (4.0)
A ski resort's overall star rating displayed here is not calculated based on a simple average but takes several factors, including the age of a review, into account.
Kitzbuhl is a beautiful town, it has some lovely places to eat and drink. The ski bus is brilliant allowing you to travel all around the ski area free of charge. We went in late December 2022 and found everything we needed. The food on the mountain is great. The gondolas are great spec’ and the heated heats and wind shields on the chair lifts are most welcome.
My major criticism is that I had a beginner as part of our family. The grading of blue 26, 29a and 66 really needs looking at. The signage on 26 needs to be clearer to avoid the short black too. The pistes weren’t groomed either which was a disappointment.
If you want a beginner slope use blue 18. It does get a lot of ski school traffic but it is possible lay the best beginner slope in the area.
Unfortunately we didn’t get to ski the horn side.
alex skopis
Plentiful slopes between jochberg & mittersill (top left on map), crowds mostly stick to same runs under the gondolas. Beautiful route #34 instead of the peak to peak, but will need 10 min walk at end or taxi. Sometimes the buses were too packed.
Nikolaus Hagleitner
Kitzbuehel has great skiing and even better dining on the mountain with lots of unique mountain restaurants/huts. You can start your apres-ski on the mountain and finish in the valley.
bcskier54
more, more, more
danielarthur743
kitzbuhel offers some really excellent and beautiful pistes for any type of skier and the town is also very appealing although the prices might not be for everyone
danielarthur743
really beautiful resort town, great for intermediates an advances skiers altough it may not be the best for beginners
Tremblay
We spent one week at the begining of February at the Hotel Strasshofer downtown Kitz. Absolutely fantastic! The domain is out of sight. One week is not enough if you want to ski Kaprun, Zell am See and Saalbach. It's skiable with only a small amount of snow, same as it's at a lower altitude. The Streif is an amazing run. We've been lucky enough to get 40 cm of new snow during our stay. Shopping downtown is pretty expensive with a Euro at this level.
This is the best resort EVER. They have the best lifts in the world, and 8 snowmaking lakes with 700 snow guns. Wherever you go, a hut is around the corner to warm up or have a nice meal. Thanks to their fast lifts, you don't freeze to death, and the lifts often have bubbles and heat seating. There are 15 ski schools to help the kids learn, and many intermediate and easy runs, as well as many expert runs. Their 3S lift is amazing, spanning an entire valley with ONE tower. But beware the Hahnenkamm at rush hour, it is SUPER crowded. If that happens, head to Jochberg, resterhöhe, and the Bärenbadkogel area. If north american ski resorts like Mammoth or Aspen want to be like Kitzbühel, get BETTER LIFTS, MORE HUTS, and MORE TERRAIN.
Rob
Kitz has some nice offerings, including a few areas of lift-accessible off-piste terrain. Unfortunately, the off-piste snow was of the mashed potatoes variety, so it was hard to enjoy it. For Spring skiing, the pistes were in pretty good shape. Lifts were modern and fast, and lines were almost non-existent. Didn't really sample the nightlife, but the town of Kirchberg looked very appealing.
My only complaint with Kitz would be the same as for most Austrian resorts...once you've been bitten by the bug of high mountain skiing in the French and Swiss alps, the mountains of Austria seem tame by comparison. The highest elevation at Kitz, 2000m, is lower than the mid-stations at Zermatt or Chamonix.
I've spent a week or two for the past ten years in Kitzbühel and that alone should tell you enough about the quality of this ski resort. Nowadays I'm in my early 30's and I have always come here with my wife who enjoys the region as much as I do.
There are a couple of important attributes to this town and its surrounding skiing region which I'll explain in more detail:
_ Site/Geographical situation _: Kitzbühel lies in the western part of Austria in the state of Tyrol in amidst the Kitzbühel Alps, which are a mountain region surrounding the town. This allows for skiing slopes on entirely different mountains and terrains with a number of different starting points to take you skiing. The only drawback from Kitzbühel's location is the low altitude of below 800 meter (2500 feet) which won't always allow you to use slopes going all the way down into the valley. If I had to quantify this limitation, I'd say the best chance for having enough snow is from the months of January to March out of a likely season starting in December and ending in April.
_ Travel _: it's rather close to three international airports (100km to Innsbruck, 80km to Salzburg and 120km to Munich) and it shouldn't be much longer than one hour to both the Italian and German border. Although the town is out of its way of the regular west-east train route (Innsbruck-Wörgl-Salzburg-Linz-Vienna), there are still several daily EC and IC trains available.
_ Town/Infrastructure _: one could almost miss the going ons in Kitzbühel and label it misleadingly as a "sleepy mountain village" and that may even be true for short amounts of time when its townfolk aren't outnumbered by vast amounts of tourists. The rather small town with about 8k townfolk offer almost 10k beds in its immediate vicinity, not counted more than 1k secondary residences. The town rather caters toward the older crowd which is manifested by a number of celebrities owning homes here, making the area feel a bit like a luxury vacation place. There are a number of important events that draw people to the area, at winter time the most notable one is the Hahnenkammrennen, one of the most prestigious downhill races in the fis world cup. If you want to meet tens of thousands people, then the third week of January would be ideal for a skiing holiday. During the Hahnenkammrennen-weekend you'll lose a few slopes that lead almost into the town, but the rest of the region is still open to you. Finally, if you're not too tired after skiing or if half a day is enough for you and you want to experience other things, then you'll have plenty chances as long as you're interested in sports or sportive events. For anything else, you aren't too far away for doing daytime trips. One such example is shopping - while the town has some nice boutiques, anyone looking for a "real" shopping trip will need to go 40-100km to Wörgl or Innsbruck.
_ Nightlife :_ there are a number of night clubs and other establishments available, but Kitzbühel could never be compared to Ischgl or St. Anton in that regard. If you're looking for aprés ski or if hooking up is an integral part of your vacation, then you're on the wrong track here and should better look for a region that caters toward younger crowds and party people.
As an ending note: after ten years of coming to Kitzbühel I haven't grown tired of the downhill terrain and its many different slopes. If you can live with a few caveats and don't have too high an expectation of anything that happens outside of the skiing part, you might like it as much as we do.
Rate this Resort
Share your experience at resort Kitzbühel to help other skiers.
