If you are looking forward to a skiing or snowboarding vacation in Big Sky, Montana with your family, this is the ultimate guide! Learn where to stay in and around Big Sky resort, how to save money on food and meals, plus bonus tips to make this trip with your kids a success!
BiG Sky Family Skiing Vacation
For this year’s ski season we bought our family (2 adults and 4 kids) Ikon Passes in anticipation of finally taking the kids to larger western resorts. Although the Ikon Pass was a big initial investment, we had our sights set on skiing / snowboarding in Big Sky, Montana. Additionally, the pass afforded us to go to Copper Mountain, Winter Park, Boyne resorts in Michigan, and a Steamboat couple’s trip all this year!
Big Sky far exceeded our expectations. We had been anticipating this vacation and happy it fell during our spring break, the last week of March. It allowed us enough time to throughly explore the mountain (it’s massive!) and the snow was amazing. Apparently, they typically get the most snowfall during March, and the weather delivered!
In fact, we loved the trip so much we are planning on doing it again for next spring break. I have never snowboarded somewhere where I left (after 5 days of riding!), and wished I had more time to see it all. You could probably ride Big Sky for two solid weeks and still not get to everything!
We’ve come to learn through owning the Ikon Pass, not all resorts are family-friendly in the sense of how the mountain is laid out and terrain levels. Big Sky had a great combination of beginner to extreme expert runs, plus terrain parks to keep us all happy.
For being such a massive resort, I did find the Mountain Village to be a little small, but also there wasn’t anything we were left wanting. However, since there was only one, centrally located village, if you need to end up there for lunch or at the end of the day, you will need to be cognizant of time to get there. Did I mention the mountain is huge?!!
Where to Stay
I’ve found it pays to book early when planning a trip to Big Sky. Initially we were going to stay “on mountain” at the Shoshone condominum hotel, adjacent to the main village. They were big enough for our family of six, had 2 bathrooms, and a community hot tub. For smaller groups, their condos range in size from 1-3 bedrooms.
When I looked at them a year from our travel date, they were pretty affordable. However, when I went to book it a few months later, the cost had almost doubled! There were no other accommodations close to the center village large enough for our family.
Therefore, I turned to places in Big Sky town, which is about an eight mile drive from the resort. It has a lot more condo and house options, plus restaurants, and a couple small grocery stores. It turns out my reluctance to reserve early was a blessing in disguise.
We found a much larger patio home with private hot tub looking out to a beautiful view of the mountains. Bonus – it was cheaper than I had originally anticipated paying for Shoshone condos. Plus, we discovered we actually preferred staying in town over the village, and plan on doing the same the next year.
The drive to the resort was easy and free parking was plentiful. However, we did go in late March, so I don’t know if the same could be said other times of the year. Plus, when skiing with a mix of kids and teenagers, a leaving car is great motivation for stragglers to keep up and motivated!
There are many other hotels and accommodations in and around Big Sky. The Residence Inn (Wilson Hotel) is in Big Sky town and provides a free shuttle back and forth to the mountain. Plus there are ample condos, apartments, and houses on AirBnB and VBRO. We booked our house through Stay Montana, which is a large property manager with slightly cheaper prices.
If you would like a ski in / ski out place, there are an overwhelming amount of possibilities on mountain. There are different areas, Mountain Village, Moonlight Basin, Saddle Ridge, Lone Moose, just to name a few. If they are not right on mountain, Big Sky has lifts from the property areas to the mountain, which I have never seen provided before!
Food, recipes, and where to eat
My biggest piece of advise would be to do a grocery store pick-up or shop once you land in Bozeman. The Bozeman airport is actually in a town called Belgrade. There you will find an Albertsons, less than 5 minutes from the airport.
We landed, picked up our car, and were loaded with a week’s worth of grocery within the hour! Next to Albertsons is a large liquor store, and across the street is a great natural foods store, called Town and Country Foods, which has a large selection of gluten-free bread and snacks.
Typically when we vacation I plan for breakfast, lunch, and snacks, and go out for dinners to give myself a much deserved break! However, for this trip I did plan for some meals at “home.” It wasn’t too bad and we did save a lot of money!
For the kids, a couple nights I bought easy dinners, such as frozen pizzas, corn dogs, mac and cheese. On those nights I figured my hubby and I would go out or order in for us. For the first time ever I “cooked” on vacation. I made nachoes, with the leftover meat serving a second meal, Mexican hot dogs and frozen fries.
Some other very simple dinner ideas, that also wouldn’t require buying a lot of ingredients, would be Walking Taco Casserole and rice, Pesto Chicken and pasta, Creamy Italian Sausage Pasta and a salad, and Rosemary Pork Chops with baked potatoes.
Every morning we ate breakfast at “home” and packed our lunches for the day. We stashed our lunch backpack at The Exchange, which is right at the center of Mountain Village. It has shops, a cafeteria, bathrooms, lockers, and tables.
We never even paid for a locker, we just used a free cubby to put our backpack in. At lunchtime someone secured a table, while another person grabbed our backpack and we enjoyed our yummy lunches every day!
If you don’t want to pack, though, there are plenty of options on mountain or in the village, from restaurants to cafeteria-style food halls. Of course, you will pay a lot more for the convenience and spend more time not enjoying the slopes!
Favorite family big sky activities
Probably the highlight of every day was apres in the village. Ryan and I also stashed some post-mountain refreshments in our backpack, while the kids treated themselves to hot cocoa in the Vista Food Hall. They deemed it the best hot cocoa ever!
The village had something every day for us to enjoy, from free Paloma cocktails and passed h’orderves, s’more stations, and DJs that turned into family dance parties. There are also plenty of bars around to grab drinks, or you could buy drinks and snacks at The Hungry Moose, a small store in The Exchange.
As a family, our favorite mountain area to explore was the Six Shooter chair. Next to it was a shorter lift the smaller boys rode by themselves to go through a small terrain park over and over again, while the rest of the family went on longer runs. From the top of Six Shooter chair, you could also take up the Lone Tree lift, which had unbelievable top-to-bottom family friendly runs.
Bonus Big Sky tips
- If you are parking and have more than 3 people in your car, use the carpool lot by mountain village. It was always empty and the frequent shuttle takes you to the lift in minutes.
- Plan on hanging out in the village to Apres! This is why I would not like to stay in another area of the mountain. There was always something going on as the lifts closed, so you wouldn’t be able to “ski” back to the other areas. Otherwise, you can stay in mountain village and be right there!
- Plan ahead for groceries. Big Sky town has two small grocery stores, but they are expensive and limited. You can pick up groceries at the Albertsons, which is 5 minutes from the airport before you head to the resort.
- Big Sky runs are adequately leveled. Blues and greens are on the easier side (some other resorts I have been to the blues are more like blacks). However, their expert terrain is expert! We took the kids on the Challenger lift and it was truly a challenge to make it down with them.
- Book your accommodations early to save money! If you can do about a year out, you will substantially save and get a better place for the price.
- The Exchange in Mountain Village has free cubbies to store backpacks and small coolers so it’s easy to bring packed lunches and drinks. This will save SO MUCH MONEY and time off the slopes.
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