Colorado · mountain

What a trip to Vail costs

A week in Vail for eight people works out around $15,300 before flights — $554 a night for a place sleeping four, scaled for the group, plus $87 per adult per day for food. From Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, Seattle and Phoenix it is cheaper for a family of four to drive than to fly.

A purpose-built ski resort town in the Gore Creek valley. Vail Mountain covers more than 5,000 acres, including the Back Bowls on its southern side.

with children okadults-only trip goodstroller / limited mobility poorelevation 8,150 ft

Vail sits at 8,150 ft. Altitude is worth discussing with a doctor before traveling with infants, and worth allowing a day to adjust for everyone else.

What a week costs

Lodging and food only. Seven nights, whole-property rental, all fees in.

Group	Lodging	Food	Total	Per person
4 people	$3,880	$2,440	$6,310	$1,580
8 people	$10,400	$4,870	$15,300	$1,910
12 people	$14,300	$7,310	$21,600	$1,800

Note the per-person column does not simply fall. A place sleeping four is the efficient unit; going to eight means changing property class, which costs more than double. Past eight it improves again — each additional person adds roughly half what they did over the first jump. The expensive step is condo to house, not the people you put in it.

How Vail compares

VailColorado median of 4Mountains median of 8All destinations median of 40

Nightly lodging for a property sleeping four, month by month. Medians are taken across the seeded destinations in each group, so they are the middle of that group rather than any one place.

Averaged across the year, Vail runs $734 a night for a property that sleeps four. That is 149% above the median for all 40 destinations in the library ($295), making it the 2nd most expensive of 40 destinations. Against its own kind it is 46% above the typical mountain ($503), the 2nd most expensive of 8 mountains.

The same week costs $3,782 more in January than in April on lodging alone, before anyone has bought a flight.
It is at its most expensive in January and cheapest in April — the opposite of the library as a whole, which peaks in July. Advice about avoiding summer prices is the wrong way round here.
Within Colorado (4 destinations here), it is 27% above the regional median of $579 a night.
Driving beats four seats from Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, Seattle and Phoenix. The longest of those is Chicago — 1,122 road miles and 18.2h each way, and only $18 cheaper than four seats — thin enough that most groups would fly anyway.
The cheapest seven nights of the year fall in April, at $3,878 for the whole property — $7,660 for the same week in January.
The sharpest single step is between March and April: moving the same week across that line changes the lodging bill by $3,782.
The closest thing to it on price is San Diego, CA, a beach town: $14,973 for a week for eight against $15,309 here, 2% apart — the same money for a completely different trip.

When to go

Vail is at its most expensive in January and cheapest in April — a 98% swing on the same property.

Month	Per night, sleeps 4
January	$1,094
February	$1,094
March	$1,094
April	$554
May	$554
June	$554
July	$554
August	$554
September	$554
October	$554
November	$554
December	$1,094

Getting there

The two halves are not priced the same way, which is the whole point: a seat costs per person, a car costs the same whatever the headcount.

	Flying		Driving
From	Round tripper person	Each wayhours	Round tripper car	Each wayhours	Cheaperfor four
Atlanta	$459	5.6h	$2,205	23.4h3 days	flying
Chicago	$431	4.9h	$1,706	18.2h2 days	driving
Dallas	$405	4.3h	$1,240	13.4h2 days	driving
Denver	$351	3.1h	$229	3.1h	driving
Los Angeles	$408	4.4h	$1,284	13.9h2 days	driving
New York	$498	8.3h	$2,919	31.0h4 days	flying
Seattle	$425	4.8h	$1,596	17.1h2 days	driving
Phoenix	$386	3.9h	$901	10.0h	driving

Drives over ten hours are shown in days as well: nobody drives that in one go. The nights on the road are not counted here, so a long drive is cheaper on this page than it would be in life. All fares are modeled from distance — no published average covers this airport. Driving uses the IRS standard mileage rate, which includes running costs, not just fuel.

See all 8 mountains in the library →

Compare Vail against other destinations →

Where these numbers come from

Lodging is indexed from the US federal per-diem schedule (GSA) for this county, calibrated against real rental listings. Food uses this location's own federal meal tier. Fares come from the DOT Consumer Airfare Report where that airport pair is published, and from a model fitted to 2,089 real DOT fares otherwise. Everything here is an estimate for planning, not a quote — check real prices before booking.