Plan Your Trip to Kitzbühel
Pick your season and days, add what you want to do, and get a day-by-day plan you can save as a PDF.
1. Pick what you want to do
Tap to add. Full days, half days and evenings are planning suggestions, not opening times: check each guide before you go.
Where to ski
Mountains and lakes
Town, food and evenings
2. Your plan
Add a few things from the list and they'll appear here, spread across your days.
Plan a Kitzbühel trip in this order: pick the season, book the base, choose your airport and transfer, then fill the days. Book early for Hahnenkamm race week in January and for the Christmas and New Year weeks. The town centre is walkable, so a car is optional unless you want day trips.
The planner above turns your choices into a day-by-day plan you can save or share. This guide is the part before that: why the order of decisions matters, and which detailed page to open at each step. Get the order wrong and you end up with good flights and nowhere to sleep in race week.
Each step below has a short answer and a link to the guide that goes into detail.
1. Pick your season
Choose the season first, because it decides what you’ll do, what it costs and how early you need to book.
Winter is for skiing, tobogganing and the Christmas market. Summer is for hiking, the lake and mountain lifts without crowds. The months in between are quiet and cheaper, but many lifts and huts close. If you’re coming for one specific thing, such as the Hahnenkamm race in January or the Advent market, that fixes the season for you, and everything else follows from it. Our guide to the best time to visit goes month by month. Then read the winter guide or summer in Kitzbühel to see what each season looks like.
2. Decide if it’s right for you
Check that Kitzbühel fits your group before you commit. It’s a real town with famous skiing and high prices, which suits some trips better than others.
If you’re unsure, read is it worth the trip, our honest take on who it suits. Skiers should look at skiing in Kitzbühel to see whether the ski area matches their level. If someone in your group doesn’t ski, look at what non-skiers can do before you book.
3. Choose where to stay
Stay in the town centre unless you have a clear reason not to. You can walk to restaurants, the station and both mountain lifts.
The villages around Kitzbühel trade atmosphere for value or quiet: some suit skiers, some suit families with a car. Our guide to hotels near the lifts compares the town centre with Kirchberg, Reith, Jochberg and Aurach. In race week and over Christmas, book the base before you book flights. Rooms run out long before seats do.
4. Choose your airport and how to get here
Pick the airport that gives you the best flights, then choose train, bus, transfer or car. There’s no single right answer.
| Airport | Best for | Options |
|---|---|---|
| Munich | The widest choice of flights | Train, transfer, car |
| Salzburg | A smaller airport to the east | Train, transfer, car |
| Innsbruck | Arriving from the west | Train, transfer, car |
Munich has the most flights, and our page on transfers from Munich compares the train with a door-to-door transfer. Salzburg is smaller and often easier, and the guide to transfers from Salzburg Airport explains the options. Flying into Tyrol’s capital? Compare a transfer with the train from Innsbruck. Check timetables on ÖBB before you book. Once you’re here, our page on getting around covers trains, buses and taxis.
Plan your trip
Where to stay
Compare hotels and apartments in the town centre, near the Hahnenkamm lift or in quieter Reith and Kirchberg.
Airport transfer
Shared and private transfers from Munich, Salzburg and Innsbruck airports, door to door.
Car rental
Useful for day trips and mountain roads. In winter, ask for a car fitted with winter tyres.
Some links are affiliate links. If you book through them we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. How this works.
5. Work out how many days
Two or three days covers the town and a mountain. A week suits a ski holiday or a hiking trip.
For a short stay, follow a day-by-day plan so you don’t waste the first morning deciding. For a longer one, add a day away: Salzburg and Saalfelden Leogang are the obvious trips further afield, and the Hallstatt day trip is the long one worth an early start. The planner at the top of this page places your choices into days for you.
6. Budget
Kitzbühel is expensive, but you control most of the cost. Season, location and the lift pass decide most of the bill.
The same room can cost far more in race week or over New Year than in late January or March. Staying in a village saves money but may cost time. A multi-day lift pass is the biggest single item for skiers. Our guide to budgeting for Kitzbühel puts sourced numbers on all of this.
7. Book the extras
Book ski rental, lessons and any guided tours before you arrive in peak weeks. Leave hut lunches until you’re there.
Reserving equipment ahead saves the first-morning queue, and our page on where to rent skis explains how. For lunch on the mountain, read the best huts for lunch and book a table only for the famous ones in high season. In town, our guide to where to eat covers the old town, and for one special dinner see fine dining in Kitzbühel. Guided snowshoe walks, day trips and lessons can be booked online: see tours and activities in Kitzbühel (affiliate link).
Mistakes to avoid
The most common one is booking a shoulder month by accident. The weeks between the ski season and the summer lifts, and again in late autumn, look cheap because parts of the lift network and many huts are closed, so check the season dates on kitzski.at before you book.
The second is choosing a base for the skiers and forgetting everyone else. A ski-in hotel on the edge of town suits the skier and strands the non-skier, who then needs a bus or a walk every morning.
The third is leaving race week to chance. If your dates touch the second half of January, check whether the Hahnenkamm races fall in your stay before you commit, because they change the price and the feel of the whole town.
A planning timeline
Book the busiest weeks months ahead, ordinary weeks a few weeks ahead, and the details when you arrive.
- Three months or more ahead: accommodation for Hahnenkamm race week in January and for the Christmas and New Year weeks, then flights.
- Four to six weeks ahead: accommodation and flights for ordinary winter and summer weeks, plus ski rental and lessons.
- On arrival: hut lunches, the weather-dependent walks, and lift tickets if you’re only skiing a day or two.
Keep the European emergency number, 112, in your phone, as it works across Austria.
Where to go next
If you haven’t picked dates, start with the best-time guide. If you have dates but no bed, go straight to the where-to-stay guide. If both are done, use the planner above to lay out your days, and browse everything else to do in Kitzbühel to fill them.