My Time ‘N’ Place owes its existence to the movie industry. And to its gregarious and entrepreneurial owner, Tony.

It all began when Tony built a cabin to rent out to the crew of Passion and Paradise, which was being filmed on the parcel of beach next door to his. After the movie crew left, Tony rented out his single cabin to tourists. And so it was until the location scouts for How Stella Got Her Groove Back came calling. Tony’s property was perfect for Stella, they said. Perfect in every way . . . except for the fact that the script required for a resort with four cabins. And so Tony built three more. (A fifth cabin will be completed by the time you read this.)

[ ALSO ON SCS: The Best Websites for Booking a Discount Caribbean Vacation ]

In the years since Stella was filmed, the beach east of My Time ‘N’ Place has seen significant development. An FDR Pebbles Resort opened next door and a new Breezes Resort is a 10 minute beach walk from that. Breezes has a little islandet (photo, below) that you can walk out to and kick back with a Red Stripe (even if you aren’t a guest). Otherwise, neither resort has much to recommended it. (One guest described the rooms at the Breezes as “grim and moldy.”)

My Time ‘N’ Place is the antithesis of those — and most any — high end resort. The accommodations here are all built from wood and mostly constructed by Tony himself. Cabins are clean and practical, though hardly luxurious. The doors and windows aren’t flush when closed. The supposed hot water isn’t. Your bed might or might not come with a top sheet.

Breakfast, included in the price, consists of Tony inviting you to his ramshackled sand-floor home. There he has a pot of coffee, a toaster, a gas stove and a refrigerator full of eggs, milk and cheese. There are makings for pancakes. There’s fruit on the table and cooked porridge. Whatever you want to eat you prepare yourself. Make yourself at home. Shirts and shoes are strictly optional.

As for dinner, it is served outside on the beach by a bond fire. When the cook is working, that is. Optionally, a My Time ‘N’ Place staff member will drive you to a beach-front joint frequented almost exclusively by Jamaicans. It is a sort of place where the whole community gathers — kids playing football/soccer in the parking lot, old men hovering over backgammon in the corner, young couples flirting at the tables. A meal of “fish tea” (a sort of soup with conch and other seafood) and an entire freshly caught fish stuffed with spices will set you back a whole US$3.50.

If you come expecting western standards you’ll be disappointed. But stay here with the intention of kicking back, going with the flow and getting sand between your toes and you’ll find that My Time ‘N’ Place is indeed that sort of special place where you can get your groove back too.

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One of the deserted beaches west of My Time 'N' Place

The view from the Bird's Nest cottage

John's Key, the islandet walkable from the nearby Beezes

The exact coordinates of My Time ‘N’ Place, derived from an igot-U Travel Blog Master GPS device:

View Larger Map

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Sound familiar? That bite disparity is not a product of your imagination and it’s not the result of luck. Mosquitoes genuinely prefer some people over others. Here’s a look at the types of people most at risk — and ways anyone can help prevent themselves from being bitten:

Who Mosquitoes Like:

Those with type-O blood. If some people in a group have lots of mosquito bites and some have none, those in the former group probably have type-O blood. Mosquitoes love the stuff, especially from people who tend to secrete saccharides (sugarlike chemicals) through their skin. Worldwide about 38% of people are type-O, though the probability varies greatly between races.

The pregnant. As if the heartburn, nausea and tiredness weren’t enough, pregnant women also have to deal with being mosquito magnets. That’s because they exhale 21% more carbon dioxide than the non-pregnant — carbon dioxide being to mosquitoes what Love Scent pheromones are to humans. The pregnant also have higher body temperatures, especially around the belly where the ambionic fluid is keeping baby toasty.

The overweight. As with pregnant women, overweight people emit more carbon dioxide than the thin. In addition, they are more likely to excrete mosquito-attracting cholesterol through their skin. Hey, those sentences rhymed!

The sweaty. Sweat contains the aforementioned cholesterol and saccharides. Plus, perspiring people excrete another mosquito favorite, lactic acid, through their seat glands.

Drinkers. Metabolizing alcohol changes skin markers in such a way that mosquitoes find irresistible. And it doesn’t take a lot — a single beer is enough to significantly increase your mosquito appeal. (Note: increasing your appeal in other ways might require other people to do the drinking.)

Mosquito Repelling Products (That Work):

Mosquito repellents in general

If you are a drunk, sweaty, overweight person with type-O blood all is not lost. There are products that truly work to help repel mosquitoes — and an awful lot that don’t^†.

Unfortunately, most mosquito repellents these days are still made with N,N-Diethyl-meta-toluamide, or DEET. Though the US Environmental Protection agency has determined that DEET can be used safely, it is toxic and research shows that mosquitoes are becoming immune to it.

Happily there are DEET alternatives, the best (and safest) of which include:

• Metofluthrin — It’s applied to an object that’s hung or worn, not placed directly on skin. Metofluthrin is very effective but requires a breeze to spread its anti-mosquito properties. The mosquito coils that are popular in India and Southeast Asia usually work by burning metofluthrin.

• Permethrin — A synthetic version of a natural chemical. In addition to being a pretty good insecticide, it also happens to bind well to clothing (see below). In Canada and Scandinavia, Permethrin is sold over-the-counter under trade name Nix.

• Citronella and eucalyptus oils — There are several oils that emit odors mosquitoes find repulsive. Other oils, including peppermint, lemongrass and cedar, can work too. They all have the advantage of being completely natural and they can be effective provided the oil scent is being continually released (by burning it in candle form, for example). When rubbed on the skin, the oil’s repellent effect is generally short-lived.

The best mosquito repellent products

There’s a huge variety of anti-mosquito items for use in your home and backyard — we’ll leave a review of those for another post. In terms of traveling and being out in the world, there are three products Spot Cool Stuff especially likes. In addition to repelling mosquitoes, each is also effective keeping away gnats, flies, tics and other biting insects:

Insect Shield Apparel. Clothing with permethrin woven into the fabric might be the most convenient ways to protect against mosquito bites. Based on our review of ExOfficio’s line of insect-repellent clothing we conducted in four countries, we found permethrin-infused clothing to be one of the more effective means of protection too. Note that you can also buy your own permethrin spray. We didn’t find that clothing we sprayed ourselves worked quite as well, but the spray is very helpful for treating tents, backpacks and other cloth items.

Incognito Anti-Mosquito is our absolute favorite repellent spray. It is made from all natural ingredients. It doesn’t smell, well, repellent (to humans). And it’s extremely effective — more effective than DEET and incompatibly better than any non-DEET spray. London-based Incognito doesn’t have much of a distribution network in North America (order it from the USA Amazon store and they have to ship it from England) but it is available in Europe.

Mosquitno makes a silicone rubber band you wear around your wrist. A scientist would say that the convenient band repels mosquitoes because it is infused with citronella oil but we think it works because it’s engraved with the words Hey! Don’t bite me, please. The band, which is available in both kids and adult sizes, is nontoxic, waterproof and — as a cool bonus — comes in an air-tight resealable bag.

Use of those anti-mosquito products aren’t mutually exclusive, of course. So the best strategy when next you travel to a mosquito-infested locale might be: Use all three at once!

^†  Spot Cool Stuff previously planned to write a post on the best mosquito repelling smartphone apps (of which there are surprisingly many). After trying out eight of them without detecting the slightest bit of benefit we’ve concluded that they’re all shite. Also on our list of ineffective products: Avon Skin So Soft and thiamine-based patches.

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For a limited time, American Airlines is giving away — for free, no strings attached — a pass to their Admirals Club business class lounge to anyone who is influential on Twitter.

How do they know who on Twitter is influential? who might ask. For that, American Airlines partnered Klout.

Klout is a website that uses a complicated, semi-secrete (and, in our opinion, semi-accurate) formula to score every Tweeter’s influence from 1 to 100. The scale is logarithmic, meaning it is easier to improve your score from 10 to 20 than it is to move from 20 to 30. The average Twitter account has a Klout score of 40.

You need a Klout of 55 or over to score (pun!) your free Admirals Club day pass from American Airlines. And you have to go to aa.com/klout to sign up.

And that’s it. You don’t even need to wait for your pass to arrive in the mail. You can print it out immediately or save it to your smartphone. Then bring the pass to any Admirals Club — there’s one in most major cities American serves, including Dallas, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Tokyo and London — and you’ll be lounging on couches, surfing the web, eating high-carb snacks and drinking complimentary wine in no time.

[ MORE ON SCS: Fly Economy, Use Business-Class Lounges, With Priority Pass ]

And here’s the best part: You don’t need to fly on American Airlines to use your Admiral Clubs pass. There’s not even a requirement that you send out a tweet about your lounge experience, though obviously American hopes that you will.

If your Klout score isn’t high enough to make the grade there are several steps you can take to raise it. The single most important is to engage with your followers and to send tweets of the sorts that others will share. You can also give Klout to others (such as Spot Cool Stuff, by clicking here, hint, hint, hint) and encourage them to give a +K to you.

It’s worth raising your Klout even if you can’t get it above 55 by the time this American Airlines promotion ends. Sony, Samsung, Revlon and Red Bull are among the brands that have previously offered Perks to Tweeters of a certain Klout score. Others companies will surely follow.

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What’s stranger: The water laps up in waves onto Gulpiyuri Beach, even when it isn’t windy and when there’s seemingly no other source to cause waves.

And the beach falls and rises with the tides.

And the water is ocean saltwater!

How is that possible? Because what you are really seeing at Gulpiyuri is the result of a tunnel. One end of the tunnel is beneath the Bay of Biscay that lays 100 meters to the north. The other end of the tunnel pops up in the meadow. Water from the bay (which, in turn, is attached to the Atlantic Ocean) flows through the tunnel, bringing the sand with it to form the beach.

The downside of this geologic arrangement, at least for cold water wimps like Spot Cool Stuff, is that this tunnel water is rather chilly. Still, we suspect many of our readers would think the water temperature refreshing after making the 20 minute trek from the nearest road to Gulpiyuri on a hot day.

You’ll find Playa del Gulpiyuri in northern Spain near the traditional fishing town of Llanes. The town is scenically set atop some seaside cliffs but otherwise doesn’t offer much of traditional tourist interest.

If you are passing through the area, Gulpiyuri makes for a wonderful stop as it’s relatively close to the A8 motorway. Simply hop off at exit 313, bring some walking shoes (and perhaps a GPS device—see below) and you can find yourself in the middle of a meadow at one of the world’s most unusual beaches.

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Read more reviews of unusual natural wonders

The ABBA Museum has enough shimmering boots, outdated costumes and catchy tunes to make you yell Mamma mia! Vintage posters, original instruments and music awards won by the band are among the items you’d expect to see at a place called “The ABBA Museum.” The curators also went through great length creating displays that we can’t imagine anyone but the most ardent, and now grey-haired, fans of the band would care about. Like a reproduction of the island cottage where ABBA wrote many of their songs. Or a replica of the changing rooms at Edmonton Ice Hockey Arena where ABBA performed their last concert.

What’s cool about The ABBA Museum is not any of that. It’s the creativity, humor and high-tech savvy on offer. Among our favorite exhibits:

• Ring Ring. There’s a telephone in a public area of the museum that only ABBA band members have the number to. And, yes, they do call to randomly talk to whoever happens to pick up.

• Benny’ Piano. A piano in the museum is virtually connected to one that ABBA pianist Benny Andersson has in his studio. (Is there anything the internet can’t do?) When Benny plays his studio piano the one in the museum will play too!

• The Dance Floor. How many museums have a disco running during all open hours?

• Virtual ABBA Band. Holographic ABBA members dance, sing and strum next to a very real microphone where you can join in. (Pic above.)

The ABBA Museum anchors the new Swedish Music Hall of Fame, which is scenically located on Stockholm’s Djurgården Island. The Hall will also have exhibits on the likes of Monica Zetterlund, Zarah Leander, Hasse & Tage, Cornelis Vreeswijk, Yngwie Malmsten, First Aid Kit, Carola and Povel Ramel — not exactly household names outside of Sweden. That said, the SMuHof^† was just getting going at the time of writing so we’ll reserve judgment.

As for The ABBA Museum, it’s so well done that fans of museums in general — if not ABBA in particular — will be happily humming Lay Your Love All Over Me by the end of their stay.

LEARN MORE | SWEDEN GUIDEBOOKS | ABBA MUSIC |

^†  Nobody actually calls it the “Smuhof,” but we’re hoping they’ll start.

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Spot Cool Stuff went to visit The Emerson as part of our road trip test drive of a Kia Sportage EX and our family road trip around the Catskills area of New York State. We stayed at The Lodge at the Emerson (the family-friendly section of the resort), toured The Inn at the Emerson (the resort’s adult portion) and did some shopping at the resort’s country store, which, among other things, is the unlikely home to the world’s largest kaleidoscope. Here’s what we found at each:

The Lodge at the Emerson

Lodge accommodations

The Lodge at the Emerson should, technically, be called the Lodges at the Emerson. The Lodge’s family-friendly rooms are divided among three separate buildings — code-named Black Bear, Grey Wolf and Red Fox — each a minute’s walk apart. Rooms in the former lodge (numbers 302 through 320) generally have the best river views; rooms in the latter two have the possible advantage of offering direct outside access.

With the log cabin walls and dated wall art, you could be forgiven for glancing at a photo of an individual Lodge room and being reminded of a summer camp cabin. But chances are your summer camp didn’t offer luxuries like fluffy mattress covers, whirlpool bathtubs, 26-inch flat screen televisions (along with access to a library of DVDs), free high-speed wifi internet, plush robes, gas fireplaces and private riverside decks. And that’s the beauty of staying here — it has a woodsy “getting away from it all” feeling while also being very comfortable.

Our room at The Lodge was in a two-floor Junior Suite. It had a living room (with a fold-out queen bed sofa), television and mini-kitchenette on the ground floor and a huge room with two queen beds above. Traveling with children, as we were, this set-up was perfect. The YAKs (young adults and kids) could fall asleep upstairs while the parents had some much-needed recuperation time below. Rates for the Junior Suite were around US$200 per night — an excellent value given the quality and huge space.

Another bonus: The Lodge at the Emerson is friendly towards canine family members too. There’s a fenced-in dog play area on the grounds and the front desk will rent you a dog crate ($10 to $20 per night) if needed. (Click here for more on their pet policy.)

Family activities

Unlike some other rural family resorts, The Emerson doesn’t have a lot of open activities you could show up and spontaneously do without any advanced planning — the seasonal swimming pool is the main one that comes to mind.

However, also unlike most other rural family resorts, there’s a huge variety of personalized activities the friendly Emerson staff can organize for families if you simply ask.

One especially worth mentioning is hiking. The Catskills mountains abound with hikes, of course. But which hike to choose? And how not to get lost? Tell an Emerson staff member how long you’d like to hike for, how difficult you’d like it to be, what sorts of things you’d like to see and they’ll liaison with a local family-owned company to provide a guide to take you (and to pack a picnic for you, too, if you so choose). Many of the hikes available through the Emerson are on private land and thus not ones you could do yourself.

A hike to the nearby Kaaterskills Falls, the highest waterfall in New York state

In the winter there’s also snow shoeing and cross-country skiing on the grounds. In the summer there’s mountain biking. High-end equipment for both is available to rent on-site.

In addition, there’s excellent fishing in the Esopus River that flows through the Emerson’s property — the staff can set you up. Plus, there are multiple daily yoga classes, cooking and photography classes (though not at the same time), tubing, kayaking, winery tours, board games and more.

Meals

Like many family-oriented resorts, The Emerson makes meal-time easy by having several restaurants on site. The The Catamount Restaurant, or the “Cat,” open every evening, is located amongst the Lodge buildings.

The atmosphere at the Cat echoes the Lodge with warm wood, a stone fireplace and a casual, friendly bar. If you eat here with kids, you’ll need to know that the open-mic night is uncensored and there are multiple televisions in the restaurant. You should also know that the creative, delicious fare, as well as the upscale service might make you forget you’re in a family-friendly restaurant  — until the waiter assures you it’s no problem to make numerous alterations to a dish just to meet your child’s tastes. You’ll certainly have left-overs, which you can store in your room’s mini fridge and gobble up the next day. On warm sunny days, the outdoor deck overlooking the river adds an additional layer of charm to “Cat” meals.

The river-side outdoor deck at the Catamount Restaurant

The Inn at the Emerson

Inn accommodations

The Inn at the Emerson is a mere five-minute walk from The Lodge but the rooms are a world apart. If the Lodge is a game of Lincoln Logs then the Inn is something along the lines of Baccarat  — elegant, simple, sophisticated with a hint of pretentiousness. All the rooms are modern, with clean lines and wood accents. All feature canopy beds, large jet tubs and Swiss showers and flatscreen televisions.

A Regal Suite

The basic “Regal Suite” runs around $230~300 a night (depending on the time of year and day of the week). For 40~50% more you can upgrade to the two-story Imperial Suite. It has a large living room area downstairs and a loft bedroom upstairs, with a bathroom and television on each floor. It makes for a perfect wedding suite. (Not coincidentally, the Emerson has their own on-site wedding coordinator.)

Looking down on the first floor of the Imperial Suite

The facilities

The Inn is located in the Emerson’s main building, which is also where you’ll find the hotel’s lobby, fitness center, Phoenix Restaurant (see below), spa and “Great Room.” The latter is a large space of the sort where, in a begone era, men would sit smoking cigars and discussing politics. These days, the Great Room is an inviting area where anyone can hang by the fireplace, lounge on a couch or play one of the freely available board games.

All of those facilities are open to guests of The Lodge, too.

The Great Room

The Emerson Spa is worth a special mention. You enter through a 17th century door that was once the part of a palace in Rajasthan, India. While the door adds a bit of old world charm, the spa itself — with full-size lockers, plush robes, glittery sunset-colored tiled showers, a steam room and sauna — is clean, modern and luxurious. A large variety of massages, body treatments, facials, and mani-pedis are available both individually as well as part of several spa packages. As with most spas, the differences are in the small details. Ice water with fruit, a selection of Harney & Sons teas, magazines and chaise lounges in the sunny waiting room add to the experience. The locker room is equipped with hair dryers and a sundry of body products, making it unnecessary to even bring your own toiletries.

The entrance to the spa

Meals

The Phoenix serves both breakfast and lunch (but not dinner). As with The Cat, the Phoenix’s menu is expansive and kid-friendly and the service was top notch, happily accommodating our requests for a single plain yogurt. Detailed decor and fine table settings abound, making for a beautiful setting that’s more fit for a formal party than breakfast with a baby.

Chocolate chip pancakes at The Phoenix

The Country Store & World’s Largest Kaleidoscope

Attached via walkway to the hotel’s main building is the Emerson Country Store. It’s less of a single traditional country store and more a collection of boutiques collectively selling antiques, art, clothing, kitchen wares and gourmet food. There’s also a little cafe with coffee, ice cream and baked goods.

The Country Store is located within a 19th century dairy barn, whose former grain silo has been converted into the world’s largest kaleidoscope. Why a kaleidoscope? The Emerson’s owner simply figured “it would be a good idea” to convert the silo in such a way.

That idea has had the effect of turning the Emerson into a mecca for kaleidoscope enthusiasts — yes, there are such people — who have come from as far away as Japan to watch the trippy 15-minute kaleidoscope show. (The show is free for Emerson guests.) Also on display is the world’s smallest kaleidoscope along with a wide variety of kaleidoscopes for sale at the “Kaleidobar.”

Spot Cool Stuff, not being kaleidoscope enthusiasts, would not travel to The Emerson specifically for the world’s largest kaleidoscope. But it, combined with the luxurious rooms and the multitude of activities, add up to The Inn and the Lodge at The Emerson being one cool place to stay.

For more on the accommodations and attractions of the Catskills area, see our family road trip page — or check out the review of the Kia Sportage that took us there.

LEARN MORE & BOOK | CATSKILLS GUIDEBOOKS |

Spot Cool Stuff recently returned from a week-long road trip around the Catskills. In addition to being a family vacation, the trip was an opportunity to test drive a Kia Sportage compact SUV.

Over the next month we’ll be publishing reviews from our Catskills trip, every one a different travel idea that’s family friendly but genuinely fun for adults too. To be notified when those are published, follow us on Twitter or join us on Facebook. Or, check back with this page and click on the links below:

The après ski concept has taken hold in some places more than others. Here’s Spot Cool Stuff’s rundown of the coolest après ski countries. Read on or click through to your country of choice:

Austria
Canada
Argentina
United States
France


Austria

Go après ski in Austria and it’s like eating at a sushi restaurant in Japan or hula dancing in Hawaii. Austria is the place for après skiing  — it’s the birthplace of the concept and still the best place to partake. A whole genre of après ski songs have even sprung up to support and celebrate all that partying.

The variety and quantity of après venues in Austria is astounding, but any discussion of them has to start with Mooserwirt and Krazy Kangaruh. Both bars are located virtually next door to each other on the main ski run of St. Anton. Imagine a combination of a ski lodge and Animal House: people dancing in ski boots up on the tables, couples making out in corners and friendly fräuleins working the crowd pouring Jägermeister shots into people’s mouths.

St. Anton, together with the nearby resort of Ischgl, have the world’s rowdiest après ski crowds. But Austria has pretty much every type to après scene you could want, from family friendly (try Obergurgl) to rich and glamorous (Lech) to older and slower-paced (Oberau). Perhaps nowhere typifies the variety more than Mayhofen — the resort has plenty of techno-centric nightclubs (of them, we prefer Schlüsselalm) but is also home to our single favorite après bar to kick back and chill out: the White Lounge ice bar. It’s inside a series of igloos! (See how the bar is constructed in the video, below.)

Best après ski resorts: Virtually all of them, but most especially St. Anton, Ischgl and Mayhofen



Krazy Kangaruh, St Anton, Austria





White Lounge, Mayrhofen








Canada

In the east of the country, the height of après ski fun, both literally and figuratively, is in Quebec, a two hour drive north of Ottawa, at Mont Tremblant. Skiers here have their choice of at least five cool bars and nightclubs hosting après revelry. Le P’tit Caribou is our choice for those 21 and older; teens and parents looking for a more family friendly atmosphere should try Le Shack Resto Bar.

In western Canada, ski enthusiasts can (and do) have heated discussions about which resort has the best après scene. We’re partial to Whistler in British Columbia. It has Canada’s best known and most popular après ski bar, the Garibaldi Lift Co. Bar & Grill, which sports a wonderful patio, fantastic music and a bevy of special events, all in a prime location above the Whistler Gondola building. But there are lots of other great bars and nightclubs too, including the Irish-themed Dubh Linn Gate, the Caribbean-themed Jamaican Bobsled Team Hospitality House and the country-western-themed Longhorn Saloon. Can’t pick between them? There are organized après bar crawls that will hit them all.

Best après ski resorts: Whistler, Mont Tremblant, Banff, Lake Louise, Jasper / Marmot Basin



Garibaldi Lift Co. Bar & Grill, Whistler, BC



Argentina

When the snow melts in Europe and North America, Bariloche gets going. A large slice of the Buenos Aires dining and night life scene can be found here from the first snow fall (usually in June) through early September. July has the best skiing but for the après ski there’s no better time to visit than during August’s National Snow Festival. In addition to the ski races and wild parties, the festival includes a torchlight parade, street buskers, a snow rugby tournament and, of course, the Election of the Queen of Snow and Chocolate.

Best après ski resort: Bariloche



United States

Virtually every large ski resort in the United States has some sort of après ski. With so many choices, it’s impossible to pick a favorite bar. But among our favorites we’d include:

• The difficult-to-get-to Minturn Saloon, a charmingly ramshackled place in otherwise chichi Vail. (For a more traditional place in Vail, try the drinks and people watching at Garfinkel’s).

• The Lobby Lounge at the Viceroy Snowmass, where you can sip fine cognac in front of a double-sided fireplace in Aspen.

• The Montanya Distillery in Silverton, Colorado — a rum distillery in an antique Victorian home!

• The wild west-themed The Million Dollar Cowboy Bar, in Jackson Hole where horse saddles double as bar stools.

• Le Chamois & the Loft Bar, a ski-in and ski-out bar in Squaw Valley, where “The Buddy Pass” will get you 20 pints of Budweiser for a mere $40!

• The Shed, a brewery that serves samples on old skis, at Vermont’s Stowe resort.

While picking out America’s best après ski bars might be an impossible task, choosing the best way to travel between bars is not. That distinction goes to the multimedia transportation provided by the Ultimate Taxi in Aspen — a traditional checker cab with a very nontraditional laser light show, disco ball and fog machine inside the vehicle! The gregarious driver will sing, play musical instruments and work some DJ magic on the sound mixing board all while steering your to your next après ski destination. (Those concerned about distracted driving should most definitely look for their ride elsewhere.)

Best après ski resorts: Aspen, Vail, Telluride, Breckenridge, Jackson Hole, Lake Tahoe, Squaw Valley, Killington



Ultimate Taxi, Aspen



France

Val d’Isere has the coolest après ski scene in France (and in Italy too, a mere 5km away). The resort is famous for drawing the rich and beautiful. Those in the former category don’t seem to mind paying the exorbitant alcohol prices. Those in the latter category presumably find some one in the former category to pay for them. If you are in neither category consider heading to Cafe Face around 4pm when pints of beer can be had for €2. Alternatively, the nearby Tignes resort has more budget-friendly après ski offerings.

What’s sometimes lost in the glitz and glamor of the Val d’Isere party scene is the skiing is absolutely fabulous too. There are 2 glaciers and 94 lifts that can carry you to an astounding 300 kilometers of trails. If you are a less-than-expert skier consider heading from Rocher de Bellevarde to the “ski tranquille” area.

Best apres ski resorts: Val d’Isere, Les Deux Alpes, Chamonix-Mont Blanc, Courchevel, Méribel, Megève



Val d’Isere



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published: 29 April 2013



More from Spot Cool Stuff:

Cool Places To Go Skiing NOT On Snow
3 Off-The-Beaten-Path European Ski Destinations
The Iglu-Dorf Igloo Hotel Chain
The Best Cameras for Travel



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