Avoriaz stands at 1,800 m on a shelf above Morzine and is closed to cars: luggage moves by horse-drawn sleigh or snow taxi, and the whole village is walked. The buildings are clad in wood and set into the slope — the resort calls it organic architecture — so Avoriaz reads as an outcrop rather than a row of blocks.
How to get there: Geneva airport is 94 km away, about 1 hr 40; Geneva station 72 km. Thonon station is 44 km, Cluses 42 km, Lyon-Saint-Exupéry 212 km. Cars stay in the car parks at the entrance.
Slopes and lifts: the Avoriaz sector itself covers around 75 km of slopes over 54 runs. Beyond it, the Portes du Soleil links 12 resorts across France and Switzerland on one pass, with close to 600 km of slopes, and Avoriaz sits in the middle of that network rather than at its edge.
Freestyle: five zones — the Arare and La Chapelle snowparks, The Stash, Lil’Stash and the DVA Park, an avalanche-transceiver training area. This is the part of the Portes du Soleil that freestyle skiers come for.
What else there is: Aquariaz is an indoor tropical water park inside the resort, which matters on the day the weather closes in.
Where you stay: everything is ski-in, ski-out by design — the snow comes up to the doors — and accommodation is apartments and residences rather than chalets scattered along a valley road.
