Champéry with children – Planachaux, Kids Club and the train from Aigle

Champéry is a village of wooden chalets strung along one long street, at the far end of the Val d'Illiez below the jagged Dents du Midi. It sits at around 1,050 metres, has about 1,400 inhabitants and has been welcoming tourists for longer than most places in Valais. It's not a purpose-built ski station but a village where people live all year round, with the skiing a cable car ride up.

The lifts are run by Portes du Soleil Suisse SA, which manages the Swiss part of the big cross-border ski area. More resorts in the country are compared in ski resorts in Switzerland.

The village in the valley, the slopes on the mountain

The most important thing to understand before you go is that Champéry has no slopes in the village. Everything starts with the red and white the cable car to Croix-de-Culet, built in 1987, which climbs 899 metres in five minutes and arrives at almost 2,000 metres. The valley station is at the end of the railway line, so if you arrive by train you walk almost straight into the cabin.

From there, Planachaux lies just below: an open alpine area with easy, wide slopes, restaurants and views of the Dents du Midi. This is where most families spend their first days.

The other way up is the Grand-Paradis–Planachaux chairlift, a six-seater chairlift from 1,063 to 1,697 metres. Grand-Paradis is a little way outside the centre, and the pistes lead back down there when there is enough snow. You can't ski down to the village itself. From Grand-Paradis, a free shuttle bus runs to the centre, the station and the cable car every day during the season.

Planachaux – where the youngest start

Up on Planachaux there's a magic carpet for beginners near the Coquoz restaurant. It has no lower age limit and no ski instructor of its own, so here it's the parents who are in charge. It works well as a first stop for a three-year-old who wants to get a feel for gliding, with a café within sight.

Once the children can turn and stop, several easy runs are waiting on Planachaux, and the chairlift towards Les Crosets opens up the next part of the area. With the Minipass Champéry–Crosets you get the cable car, the chairlift from Grand-Paradis, the Crosets lift, the magic carpet on Planachaux and the beginner lifts in Les Crosets. That's plenty for the first few days, and you don't need to pay for the whole Portes du Soleil until the children want to go further.

Ski school and Kids Club

There are several ski schools in the village, and they meet in different places. Check the meeting point before you book your accommodation.

School	Age	Format and meeting point
ESS Champéry, Kids Club	aged 3–5	Half days 9.30–12.30 and 13.30–16.30, every day, at Grand-Paradis next to the chairlift
ESS Champéry, weekly course	from age 7	Starts Mondays at 9.15, three hours, meeting at the car park opposite the cable car, race on the Friday
ESS Champéry, weekend course	ages 7–17	Saturday and Sunday at 10, two hours, at the cable car's top station on Planachaux
Experience Snowsports School	ages 3–16	At 10 every day except Saturday, two and a half hours, at the cable car's top station

ESS Champéry has been around since 1932. You sign up for Kids Club at the school's office on the village street. The school wants every child to have a note with their name, their address in Champéry, a parent's mobile number and the language the child speaks. In Kids Club the instructors speak French and English.

ESS weekly courses run from 21 December 2026 to 5 April 2027 and the weekend courses from 12 December 2026 to 11 April 2027. Lift passes aren't included, and the children need a pass from the first day. Helmets aren't compulsory in Switzerland, but all the schools recommend one.

If this is the children's first time on the slopes, the guide to your first ski holiday with children gathers what's good to know in advance.

Lift passes and ages 2026/27

• Under five: free, but the child must have their own pass, collected at the ticket office on showing ID.
• Ages 5–15: child rate.
• Ages 16–25: youth rate.
• Family discount: online only, for passes from five hours to three days, when at least four paying people, two parents and children up to 19, buy at the same time and for the same number of days.

Multi-day passes are available both for the Swiss side and for the whole Portes du Soleil, including France. Current prices are listed in the Portes du Soleil Suisse ticket shop.

The 2026/27 season

The cable car runs for a first weekend on 5–8 December 2026 and then every day from Friday 11 December. The whole Portes du Soleil officially opens on 19 December, and Champéry and Les Crosets close on Sunday 11 April 2027. It all depends on the snow.

Rest day and evenings

Palladium in the middle of the village has a 25-metre indoor pool with a separate pool for small children, a public ice rink and a curling hall. Champéry was the first Olympic venue in Valais, hosting the curling at the 2020 Youth Olympic Games. At Grand-Paradis there's an area off the pistes for sledging and bobsleighs, close to Kids Club.

Parents who want to see something special can take the chairlift to Chavanette and look down Le Mur Suisse, just over a kilometre long with an average gradient of 37 degrees and moguls that can reach two metres high. It's only for very strong skiers, but standing at the edge and looking down is an experience in itself. For other ways to fill a day without ski boots, see ski holiday without skiing.

How to get to Champéry

• By train: change to the R72 regional train in Aigle. It runs once an hour and takes just over an hour through Monthey and the Val d'Illiez to Champéry, with no change. It's the old AOMC line, now run by TPC.
• From Geneva Airport: InterRegio to Aigle and on with the R72, about two hours and 45 minutes.
• By car: from Monthey via Troistorrents and Val-d'Illiez. If you drive on Swiss motorways, the car needs a vignette (motorway toll sticker).

You can reach Champéry by train all the way from Sweden, and train to the Alps walks you through the changes. Before you leave, there's the ski trip packing list.

Champéry or the neighbours?

Choose Champéry if you want to stay in a real Swiss village and can live with the cable car as your daily commute. Avoriaz, on the other side of the Chavanette, has ski-in/ski-out doorsteps and sits higher. Morzine is bigger and livelier, Châtel is the French family village closest to Morgins, and Les Gets has its children's slopes right in the village. Within Switzerland, Villars lies on the other side of the Rhône valley. More family resorts are compared in ski holiday in the Alps with children.