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When someone starts a sentence with "not to boast", you can be categorically certain they're about to do exactly that. So consider this your warning: if smug ski anecdotes aren't your thing, now's your chance to bail. To boast, I've skied at some of the world's best resorts, from St Anton (Austria's après-ski capital, as seen in the 2011 cinematic masterpiece Chalet Girl) to Les Trois Vallées, the world's largest interconnected ski area, linking eight resorts across the French Alps. And yet, my most recent skiing holiday – right here in NSW – solidly ranks among the most magical snow trips I've ever been lucky enough to take.
Australia isn’t home to the sublimely awe-inspiring peaks of Switzerland, or the endless powder of Japan, but every winter this famously sunny country’s alpine regions still draw hundreds of thousands of skiers and snowboarders. Between NSW and Victoria, Australia is home to 10 commercial ski resorts, ranging from sprawling lift networks with more than 100 runs to family-friendly beginner hills. The season typically stretches from the June long weekend to early October, with (v impressive) modern snowmaking allowing resorts to keep terrain open even when Mother Nature doesn't deliver.
According to stats from Snow Resorts Australia, Australia recorded just over 2.04 million skier visits in 2025 – the highest figure on record. The enduring popularity of snow sports in the face of increasingly variable winters says something about Australians’ desire to embrace nature’s playground right here on home turf – and after four enchanting days skiing between the Australiana-coded snow gums, I’m totally with them.
For us here in NSW, snow-based action centres around the Snowy Mountains – a place whose gorgeously unpretentious name perfectly embodies the spirit of the Australian ski fields. Skiing and snowboarding are expensive pursuits, but the atmosphere on the Australian slopes is anything but exclusive. From the orderly but merry-as-heck lift queues (incidentally, queuing for lifts in Europe is a ruthlessly manners-free sh*t show) to the bustling mountain-top pubs serving loaded parmis and ice-cold schooners, the Snowy Mountains are a microcosm of Australia’s uniquely beautiful lack of pretension.
There’s that, and then there’s the setting: gently rolling mountains dotted with spectral snow gums, and gleaming powder that turns candyfloss pink as the sun rises in the east and washes the region in warmth. As a grateful migrant to this country, I found it impossible not to be spellbound. Resting against my ski poles at the top of Mount Perisher – Australia's highest lifted peak – and looking east towards a stretch of NSW South Coast where I've swum at midnight through glowing bioluminescence, I couldn't help but wonder: what can't this country do? (Aside from granting me permanent residency. It's taking its sweet time on that one.)
Another major win was the relative lack of crowds. NSW's ski resorts operate with limits on daily visitor numbers during the snow season, a system designed to manage demand and prevent the kind of overcrowding common at many international resorts. On the last morning of my trip, I spoke with Luke Rickards, Director Base Operations at Perisher, who works around the clock ensuring a manageable number of outdoors enthusiasts are out on the slopes.
"When we're expecting bigger crowds, we let people know early through our Peak Snow Days updates so they can plan ahead. We work closely with Transport for NSW, who manage the road network, on road and parking updates, encourage guests to take the Skitube to avoid congestion on the roads, and maximise terrain and associated infrastructure to help keep people moving around the resort," Luke explained.
For a little more context on the skiing opportunities available in Australia, NSW is home to four ski resorts – Perisher, Thredbo, Charlotte Pass and Selwyn Snow Resort – clustered within and around Kosciuszko National Park. Together they offer around 230 marked ski runs, making NSW Australia's biggest ski destination by terrain. Perisher alone boasts 114 runs across four interconnected resort areas (it’s the biggest ski resort in the Southern Hemisphere), Thredbo adds around 53 runs, Charlotte Pass has roughly 20, and Selwyn offers 45 beginner and intermediate trails. Collectively, the NSW resorts account for well over half of Australia's lift-served skiing, and visitor numbers reflect the scale. Each winter, NSW's ski resorts welcome well over a million skier visits, with Perisher and Thredbo drawing the lion's share.
International visitors have traditionally played an important role in the Snowy Mountains economy (data from Tourism Research Australia shows that around one in five visitors to the Snowy Mountains region come from overseas), but the vast majority of ski visitors are domestic. Over mulled wine one evening, I heard one skier describe her family’s tradition of leaving Sydney at 4am in order to arrive in time for an afternoon on the slopes. The opportunity to ski in the country you call home, to bump into people you’ve met in your local coffee shop, is pretty special. When the snow conditions are good (and right now, they really are), skiing in Australia is pure magic.
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