Affordable Skiing at Montafon with Youth Hostel Comfort
Ski accommodation often comes with a high price tag, but a cosy youth hostel in Austria’s Montafon resort offers an accessible option for budget-conscious travellers eager to enjoy the region’s renowned ski runs.
“Want to come skiing in Austria at half-term?” I asked my 13-year-old son.
“It’ll be just like one of those luxury chalet holidays, only we’ll make our own beds, cook our own dinners and carry our gear back to our accommodation ourselves.”Osian didn’t catch the caveats.
“Sounds amazing,”he said, his imagination already picturing a cinematic sweep of white powder and the chance to perfect his 360 spin.
For many families, the dream of a catered chalet—with its ready-lit fires, homemade strudels, and chauffeured lift shuttles—remains out of reach. Apartments provide slope access at lower costs but typically require a minimum seven-night stay. For shorter trips or limited budgets, hotels fill the gap but can be expensive.
Instead, Osian and I chose youth hostelling. I secured the last available room during the February school holidays at St Josefsheim, located in Schruns, a small town in western Austria. I then searched for ski salopettes on Vinted. Opened in December 2021, St Josefsheim occupies a stately, blue-shuttered villa built in the early 1900s originally as a hospital and maternity facility. It is the first—and so far only—hostel in the Silvretta Montafon ski area. The hostel is conveniently situated five minutes’ walk from Schruns railway station and directly opposite a bus stop, but most importantly, just two minutes’ ski-booted shuffle from a gondola station.
The hostel features a ground-floor restaurant and bar, with 13 bedrooms and bunkrooms above. Some rooms are doubles, while others accommodate up to eight guests in cosy wooden sleeping pods. Although there is currently no communal games room or lounge, guests have access to a shared kitchen. In a playful nod to the building’s past as a baby unit, the bathrooms are tiled in pinks and blues.
St Josefsheim uses a contactless self check-in system, and early check-ins are not permitted. When we arrived on a lunchtime train from Zurich, we could not leave our luggage until the designated 3pm check-in time. Fortunately, Christian, the restaurant manager, noticed us waiting on the steps and kindly offered to watch our suitcases while we explored the town and arranged ski hire.
The Silvretta Montafon ski area, less commercial than many Austrian resorts, stretches along the Montafon valley in Vorarlberg’s southern corner. It is known for its snow-sure pistes, all covered by the Montafon ski pass. This pass also grants access to the valley’s buses and trains, facilitating easy travel between ski areas to tailor your slopeside itinerary. Golm, in Vandans, is ideal for younger children, featuring a new kindergarten and the Golmi Land fun park. Hochjoch, directly above Schruns, is the largest ski area in the valley with 140km of marked runs. Schruns’ proximity to these slopes and its compact town centre—where nearly everything is within a five-minute walk—make it a popular family base, along with its subdued après-ski atmosphere.
Returning to St Josefsheim in the late afternoon, equipped with skis, boots, and helmets, we encountered groups of sea-shantying sailors and choreographed human sunbeams dancing away the snow-clouded dusk during the town’s annual carnival celebrations.
Inside our twin room, the atmosphere was more cocoon than carnival. The room was spacious and bright, with no creaks or rattles from door handles to flooring. A cord stretched between hooks on either side of the main window served as a convenient line for drying damp clothes, and shoe racks in the corridors helped maintain cleanliness. We made our beds with the cheerful gingham bed linen provided, unpacked our ski clothes into the pristine pink lockers, and headed down to the communal kitchen for an early dinner.
The kitchen has only two cooking stations and quickly fills if everyone cooks simultaneously. Since it was carnival time and most town restaurants were closed, the kitchen was busy. Osian and I shared a table with a German family who told us it was their first time skiing from a youth hostel.
“We like Schruns and usually book an apartment, but finding something for only a few days, which we wanted this time, is not so easy. This was an affordable alternative.”
The next morning, the kitchen was already bustling with families enjoying muesli, local cheeses, and steaming coffee. We, however, collected our gear from the cellar’s ski room and took the five-minute bus ride to the Zamang lift to meet Natascha Zandveld from the Silvretta Montafon ski company. She was heading up the slopes for breakfast at the newly renovated Bergrestaurant Zamang. There, we enjoyed scrambled eggs and bacon while admiring panoramic views of peaks and pistes through floor-to-ceiling windows.
In summer, cows graze the mountainsides, and Osian claimed he caught a whiff of hay on the lift.
“It’s a working farming community here rather than a resort,”Natascha explained.
“Tourism in Montafon began with locals renting rooms in their homes to visitors prescribed alpine air by their doctors, and most hotels are still family-run.”
Snow clouds gathered on the horizon, so we clipped in and set off while sunlight still lingered. Our first run was a long, glorious blue trail weaving through towering pines. Sunlight filtered through the trees, and when we stopped for hot chocolate at the mountain hut Kristberg, the terrace was so warm we shed our jackets.
The following day, we took the bus in the opposite direction to Golm. The sky was filled with inkblot clouds, but the snow beneath our skis was soft and fluffy. Higher up, it was difficult to distinguish the piste from the sky, but on the lower slopes, we glided between fir trees heavy with snow. The forested tracks were blissfully quiet early in the day. We refuelled at the Bergrestaurant Golm, a steam-fogged mountain chalet popular for its fluffy kaiserschmarrn (sweet pancakes cut into bite-sized pieces) and jam-filled germknödel, a roly-poly-like dumpling.
A local sustainability initiative urged visitors to
“Burn calories, not electricity,”and we eagerly complied, carving through squeaky powder all afternoon to make room for dinner back at St Josefsheim. Inside the bar, locals mingled with guests beneath a suspended vintage gondola cabin. The restaurant buzzed as we ordered plates of schweinsbraten (roast pork with caraway-laced bread dumplings) and pillowy keesknöpfli (Austrian mac ’n’ cheese).
On our final evening, we took another bus to Garfrescha to go sledging. Snow fell thick and fast as a retro chairlift carried us nearly 1,400m up the mountain before our sledges propelled us downhill in a rush of exhilaration.
“This is amaaaazing!”Osian exclaimed, disappearing into the dark ahead of me, both of us laughing uncontrollably.
Waiting for the bus at the mountain’s base, we looked up at the cluster of exclusive chalets above, steam rising from hot tubs and the sound of clinking glasses inside. By taking local buses, joining carnival crowds, and chatting with fellow travellers at St Josefsheim, we felt more connected to the valley—and to each other. That, it turned out, was the true luxury.
Beds in shared dormitories at St Josefsheim start from €30 per person per night, with private rooms from €135 for four guests. The accommodation was provided by Silvretta Montafon and Montafon Tourismus. Flight-free travel options were offered by ÖBB, Deutsche Bahn, and FlixTrain.
