Breckenridge vs Vail: Required Reading Before Booking Lodging

#5. Cooler Town
Breckenridge, Colorado has everything you’re looking for in a ski town: high-end restaurants as well as local dives; dance clubs as well as casual hang outs; lodging for every budget; boutique shopping, and of course, awesome skiing! And it’s all in a centralized location so unlike Vail with its dizzying bus lines, you can walk from your condo to the restaurants to the shops. Vail is so spread out and pretentious that it’s lost the charm of a quaint mountain town that Breckenridge maintains. Founded as a mining town in the 1800’s, Breckenridge has preserved the Victorian buildings and the charm that makes it more than just a good ski mountain.

#4. Cheaper (and Free Parking!!)
Breckenridge is owned by Vail Resorts so you’ll only save a few dollars on the actual lift ticket. The price of an all-day ticket during peak season at Breckenridge is $86, which is less than what you’ll pay at Vail. However, when you take into account the price differences in lodging, food, equipment rentals, and lessons, it starts adding up to a pretty massive discrepancy. Plus, let’s not forget the huge difference in parking between the two resorts. At Vail, you’re considered lucky if you wake up early enough to pay $20 to park all day in a lot where you’ll be shuttled to the lifts. But the unlucky ones who pressed snooze a few too many times may find themselves paying just as much to park along a street, and then doing the graceful skiers’ walk (boarders: don’t think you don’t look equally clumsy carrying your gear) to the shuttle stop before eventually making it to the slopes. However, at Breckenridge, there’s actually such a thing as free parking – next to the gondola, even!

#3. Closer to Denver
Whether you’re a Denverite or you’re flying into Denver International Airport from out of state, you’ll have no choice but to join the herds of ski rack-carrying SUV’s slowly making their way up I-70. And the less time you spend on the icy, uphill, jam-packed freeway, the better. So this is why Breckenridge’s closer proximity to Denver makes it #3 on the top 5 reasons it’s better than Vail: you get off I-70 a good 30 – 40 minutes sooner when coming from Denver. Plus, for those living on the south side of Denver or coming from Colorado Springs (which also has an airport), I-70 can be avoided altogether by taking the less congested alternative of highway 285. Although parts of the highway have only 1 lane, it’s a scenic drive with some good restaurants along the way in Bailey and Fairplay (aka South Park – yes, the one and only!). However, beware of the speed traps in the small towns of Alma and Fairplay. When they say 30mph, they mean 25!

#2. Family Friendly
Whereas Vail attracts the skier/rider who is intermediate or a little above, Breckenridge offers a little something for everyone. It has more beginner runs for beginners and Texans (sorry Texans – we love you!), but it also has the highest chairlift in North America and one of the steepest mogul runs in North America: Devil’s Crotch. For the adrenaline junky, Breckenridge has 9 terrain parks covering 25 acres. However, I’m not totally biased; I’ll admit that Vail’s back bowls are sweet. For a few glorious minutes you can float above the powder without seeing another skier or rider in the wide open bowls. But all good things must end and the trails to the chairlifts can be long and flat, which is especially brutal on the knuckle draggers.

#1. Highest Chairlift in North America
In the #2 reason why Breckenridge is better than Vail, I mentioned that Breckenridge has the highest chairlift in North America. But that is such an important point that it not only deserves its own paragraph, but it’s actually the #1 reason to visit Breckenridge instead of Vail! The Imperial Express Super Chair drops you off at an oxygen-thin elevation of 12,840ft above sea level. The runs up there are not for the faint of heart! I’ll warn you that the wind can get kicking at that altitude, but if that scares you away, you probably don’t have the testicular fortitude to handle those runs anyway. So put on your helmet and get ready for some speed because from the highest lift in North America, there’s only one way to go: down. Once you’ve conquered the runs off the Imperial Express Super Chair, everything else will seem like the hills of North Carolina and you will have earned bragging rights when talking about your ski trip back home.

Breckenridge Lodging
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