Living in Megève

Five villages within fifteen minutes of each other, with different prices and different characters: how to choose where to rent for the season.

Real price ranges for a full season in Megève and the neighbouring villages, what the rent covers, and what is charged on top.

715 metres of rail-borne descent at the foot of the Jaillet, open all year. Prices, hours, age rules and access, checked at source.

7 min read Megève isn't a resort that goes dark between ski seasons. The tourist board itself describes it first as "a village inhabited all year round," unlike resorts "created from scratch." Spring and autumn — the two quiet windows between ski winter and hiking summer — are where that identity is easiest to test for yourself. We checked, venue by venue, what's genuinely open during these two...

9 min read Megève is one of the few resorts where a seasonal family stay genuinely delivers on its promise: a largely pedestrian village, activities that don't stop when the lifts close, and real local infrastructure for children, from ski school to childcare. We've drawn on what we'd already verified in our neighbourhood, activities and restaurant guides, recombined here from the perspective of a parent...

7 min read Almost every seasonal stay in Megève starts with the same practical question: once you've landed in France or Switzerland, how do you actually get to the village? The short answer: most guests fly into Geneva Airport, about 1h15 by road, though driving and the train are both solid options depending on where you're coming from. We checked every distance and travel time directly against official...

8 min read Megève isn't one uniform village: whether you're staying in the pedestrian heart of the old town, up on the historic slopes of Rochebrune, or on the plateau at Mont d'Arbois, your stay looks genuinely different. If you've already decided between Megève, Chamonix and Courchevel, the next question is exactly this one: which part of the village to book in. We checked, area by area and against...

9 min read Megève, Chamonix, or Courchevel: the three names come up together almost automatically whenever someone is choosing an Alpine base in Haute-Savoie or Savoie. All three sit within about two and a half hours of Geneva Airport, all three carry international name recognition, and yet the three have surprisingly little in common once you look past the word "ski resort." We checked, against each...

10 min read Megève is usually described in terms of its ski season. That is only a quarter of the picture: the village works all year, and a good deal of what there is to do here has nothing to do with snow — an 18-hole golf course at 1,320 metres, more than 150 km of waymarked trails, an Olympic ice rink running public sessions in the middle of August, horse-drawn carriages waiting on the church...

8 min read Megève is more than its pistes and its starred restaurants. The village also has genuinely good bars — a panoramic rooftop, a tiny cocktail counter tucked into an old-village lane, and the mountain terraces where the ski day actually ends. We checked every address below against each venue's own official source: what is really open, what you can actually drink there, and at what time of year...