Alps

The Alps are home to some of the largest and most well known ski areas in the world. Much like the mountains themselves they can be found across multiple countries, in some cases making it possible to ski into another nation.

Major ski areas are:

• Bad Gastein
• St. Anton and Lech
• Schladming
• Zell am See

• Garmisch-Partenkirchen
• Oberstdorf

• Chamonix
• Le Grand Massif
• Portes du Soleil
• Tignes / Val d'Isère

• Seiser Alm
• Courmayeur
• Alta Badia
• Val Gardena
• Plan de Corones (Kronplatz)
• Carezza

• Crans-Montana
• Davos
• Grindelwald
• Gstaad
• Portes du Soleil
• Saas-Fee
• Samnaun
• St. Moritz
• Verbier
• Zermatt

Major international airports in or near the Alps include the airports of Geneva (GVA ^IATA), Zürich(ZRH ^IATA), Basel (BSL ^IATA), Milan(MXP ^IATA), Munich(MUC ^IATA), Innsbruck, Vienna (VIE ^IATA) and Salzburg.

While the Alps are rather centrally located within Europe, they have been a barrier to all types of travel for millennia. The 19th century brought with it a number of still impressive technological feats "taming" the Alps. While there are efforts to replace some tunnels and bridges with newer, shorter and faster routes, some passes are still used by trains today. The adjacent railways all offer various international tickets into and out of the Alps, most notably Deutsche Bahn, SNCF and ÖBB (Österreichische Bundesbahnen). While the Swiss national railways enjoy a very good reputation, they are rather new to the international business, though there are cooperations with SNCF and DB. For most international tickets special offers are available if you book early and/or avoid peak periods like weekends or holidays.

Long-distance buses are still mostly a new concept west of the former "iron curtain" and thus getting into the Alps from outside the area can be difficult and expensive. There are of course Intercity buses in Germany serving hubs like Vienna, Zürich or Salzburg and during the ski season chartered buses clog the streets with ski-groups, but other than that options can be sparse. Intercity buses in France also available in the mid-2010s. In Switzerland the "Postauto" has long been a mainstay on mountain roads and a crucial link to the rest of the country for those places not served by any railway.

Driving is often a practical way for getting around, especially on the countryside. The roads often get very congested in July and August when people from further north head to the beaches of the Mediterranean. The same goes for the ski resorts in winter (though minus the travel trailers). In the winter many mountain roads are closed to traffic and copious amounts of snowfall may mess up the traffic. Due to the high costs associated with tunnel building, some railway-only tunnels have trains carrying cars and their passengers running through them. Depending on your itinerary, taking such a train can save you a lengthy detour, time, money or a combination of all three. Sometimes making use of these offers lets you avoid toll roads. Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia have a flat-rate toll system where you pay once for a certain amount of time (in Switzerland the shortest possible period is one year, in Austria it is ten days with the next shortest being one month, in Slovenia it's one week) to use all normal highways, though there are roads that cost extra (and can in theory be used even by those not paying the general toll). In Italy and France there are distance-based tolls, and in Germany there is (as of 2016) no toll for passenger cars. Trying to avoid toll roads is not only difficult and making your trip longer than it has to be but usually not worth it in terms of money either.

Like elsewhere in Europe, train may be the best kind of public transport. If you like rail travel through scenic landscapes, the Alpine countries are certainly worth considering.

However, in some cases train travel may take longer than you expect as the terrain forces all travel to take long detours. For instance, considering the straight-line distance from Geneva to Turin, a train ride between those cities takes ridiculously long. Some major routes are upgraded with new tunnels and bridges for that reason, but construction is expensive so some routes will still be circuitous for the time being.

Switzerland in particular has an excellent rail network with very good on time performance and one of the densest networks in the world. However, there are surprisingly few high speed lines and prices can be expensive as one in four Swiss people has a half-fare travelcard, reducing prices 50% and fares are calculated accordingly. Add the general wealth of Switzerland to the equation and you will have to shell out quite some money for good service.

Smaller places, especially in Switzerland, are often connected by (post) buses to larger towns.

Flying may be an option if you want to get between the largest cities and time is important. Unlike Norway with a similar terrain, airports in the Alps are more of points for getting into the region rather than getting around.

Alpine Pearls is a consortium of 22 tourism municipalities in 6 alpine countries. The tourism association's objective is to support and promote Soft Mobility: that is offering the possibility for guests to arrive without a car at the holiday destination and to have easy access to public transportation on site and numerous offers of environmentally friendly holiday programmes. The cooperation's members fulfill strict quality criteria like town centres with reduced traffic, transfer services, environmentally friendly leisure time facilities, the guarantee of mobility without car and ecological minimum standards. The individual member municipalities (referred to as Pearls) benefit from the exchange of experiences among each other.