How to recreate Meribel in your home town.

We love Meribel, it is possibly the greatest ski resort in the world for many, many reasons. It is those reasons that make us miss the resort when we are not there. We obviously spend much of the winter there, but it is during the summer months, when we decamp to England that we miss it most. “Why not stay there in the summer if you love it so much?”, that is not an easy answer and is probably a whole blog on its own.

If you, like us, miss Meribel then let us help you recreate the feeling of being in one of the best ski resorts in Europe. Or possibly the world. Before you start though, you should take a look at our guide on how to recreate the chalet holiday at home, as it will help you complete the experience of being on a ski holiday at home.

First things first, identify where you are going to ski or snowboard. By that we mean what is your planned activity that is similar to your chosen winter sport. Now this could be Mountain Boarding, Water skiing, Grass skiing, Sand boarding or Wakeboarding. It could even be that you may be going to a dry ski slope or an indoor one. But remember your goal is to make it feel like Meribel.

Once you have left your chalet you need to get to your activity. As we all know Meribel is a vast network of Cul-de-sacs and chalets. It is fair to say that it is not always that easy to get to the centre of town. To make it easier to get to your starting destination all good chalet companies will offer a minibus service.  So book yourself a minibus to take you to your slopes. Make sure you sling your skis in an outside rack and worry the entire journey that they will fall out, despite this very rarely happening.

Once you have reached your destination you need to make sure you get in a queue. During peak times Meribel can have a lot people trying to get up the mountains. Often there is a wait, but this is being dealt with every year by the lift operators and will soon be a thing of the past. As this is a Meribel queue you are pretending to be in, make sure you imagine that other people are skipping the line and passively complain about it.

As we are pretending that we are in Meribel it is imperative that while you are at your activity you have more fun than you have ever done before. You must imagine that you are in an extensive playground of variety and excitement. You must also feel us uncool as possible while you are surrounded by the coolest people in the world.

Next up you must stop your activity, no matter what it is, and find a pub, if you are sensible you will have planned this in advance. Make sure you eat some food that is inappropriate to the activity that you are doing. We suggest that a kilogram of melted cheese is the perfect meal to accompany an active afternoon. Then before you get back to whichever sport you are doing you should probably have a pint or two and a toffee vodka.

You are on holiday so don’t go over doing that activity and as this is Meribel that we are pretending to be in, you need to find a less strenuous activity. We recommend that you may want to find a pub. Especially one that has a loud rocky covers band. Failing that we suggest that you head to the jukebox and put on songs from the Killers, Stereophonics and Frans Ferdinand. Insist on paying twice as much for any drink that you buy in the bar.

Once you are drunk and ready for food you need to head home. As we have previously mentioned, negotiating the labyrinth of Meribel is tricky. Harder when you have had a Mutzig or three. Hopefully all you will need to do is remember where you arranged for the Minibus to meet you. If not by the time you have found your home you will be sober enough to enjoy some lovely wine.

Or alternatively you could just wait until the winter starts and just go on holiday to Meribel and do all of the above for real and in the snow.