Research carried out by Santander Cards states that the average price of a ski holiday to Chamonix this year is around £1,200 once you factor in hiring the equipment and getting a ski pass.

However, there are many deals on offer which should allow you to spend a lot less than that. Below are three deals for January, including flights from London.

Chamonix for two people
Two people can stay in a studio for four at Residence Maeva La Riviere for £305 between January 16th and 23rd. This includes British Airways flights from Gatwick.

Chamonix for four people
For the same week, you can get flights from Gatwick and accommodation in a studio for four in Residence Maeva La Riviere for only £207 per person.

Chamonix for six people
Including flights from Gatwick, six people can stay at Lagrange Prestige le Cristal d’Argentière for £244 for that same week.

All of the above ski deals can be found if you head to Expedia’s Chamonix page.

Although Chamonix can be a relatively expensive ski resort, there are a number of bargains to be had, particularly if you look for last minute deals. Otherwise, here is some of the cheaper accommodation available.

Chamonix accommodation for two people
Odalys Résidence Le Grand Balcon is the cheapest option for two people. It is just outside Chamonix itself at Les Houches ski resort. Les Houches is covered by the Mont Blanc Unlimited ski pass and there are regular free buses.

There are self-catering chalets for four available at Odalys Résidence Le Grand Balcon for just £40 a night in January. This is with a sofabed and bunk beds though, so would perhaps be better suited to two.

Chamonix accommodation for four people
Again, Odalys Résidence Le Grand Balcon is the cheapest. If the £40 a night rooms mentioned above don’t take your fancy, there are also four person chalets with separate rooms for £48 a night.

Alternatively, Residence Maeva La Riviere is in Chamonix itself and has four person studio apartments available for around £69 a night.

All of the above deals are available through Expedia’s Chamonix page.

We’ve found a couple of good deals for Avoriaz ski holidays this January.

Manchester to Avoriaz
A week at Pierre and Vacances Residence Quartier de la Falaise in Avoriaz with flights from Manchester is available for just £271 per person. This is based on four people sharing and includes flights with Jet2.

London to Avoriaz
A week at the same hotel as above between Saturday 16th January and Saturday 23rd January is available from London for £256 per person, this time with flights from British Airways. Pierre and Vacances Residence Les Balcons du Soleil is also available for £268 per person on the same basis.

Birmingham to Avoriaz
ski holiday packages from Birmingham are slightly harder to come by. Nevertheless, the same ski holiday as from Manchester between Saturday 9th January and Saturday 16th January is currently available for £314 per person with Swiss Air flights.

All the above deals are available through Expedia’s Avoriaz page.

I can’t speak for other people, but these are the highlights of Chamonix ski resort as far as I’m concerned.

1. Half price beer – I think it was at the Monkey and it may actually have been two-for-one, but it amounts to the same thing, doesn’t it? Was it the Monkey? Do I remember pictures of monkeys on the walls?
2. Pictures on the wall of the pub – Maybe it wasn’t monkeys. I distinctly remember life-size photographs of people. The girl was hot. The lad, less so.
3. The tree in the middle of a slope – It’s not right in the middle and to be honest, it’s pretty easy to avoid. Nevertheless, despite having a full minute to react because he was only moving at about 2mph, my mate Tim hit it. He thought no-one had noticed, but a friend in a chairlift had a bird’s eye view of the sad debacle.

If you’re actually half-decent at skiing, I believe that Chamonix is also a great destination for a ski holiday.

I’ve been skiing three times. I’ve been to Chamonix, Livigno and Les Deux Alpes.

Chamonix
I couldn’t ski at all. It was hard. It was dispiriting. There was a lot of fear at the top of slopes, because I tended to visualise losing control and it was a bit embarrassing falling down so much. That said, falling over is far and away the most fun element of the actual skiing. More fun than watching other people fall over, even.

Livigno
This was a bit better. I could ski semi-competently and could experience far more of the mountains as a result. There were no lessons – which was good – and food and drink in Livigno is cheap, so that was good too. There was still a good deal of fear, but satisfaction at overcoming it.

Les Deux Alpes
I don’t know what’s the next step up from ’semi-competent’ – ‘competent’ seems a bit of a generous assessment – but whatever it is, that’s what I was for this ski holiday. There was lots to explore, but there was disappointingly little falling over. In the end, it felt like repeatedly turning left then right and going down a hill. That’s basically what skiing is, but it doesn’t feel too exciting.

I’m still quite tempted to go again this year though. Why? I’ve boiled the ski holiday experience down to the two main plus points:

• Apres ski – There is no better feeling than being a bit knackered and settling down somewhere comfortable with a beer
• Food - If you’re out doing activity all day, you can justify eating a ridiculous amount of food

If you’re a surfer and you’re thinking of spending some time in the area between Aljezur and Vila do Bispo on the south-west coast of Portugal, you are a wise person. It’s a great place and as far as I can tell, it seems pretty decent for surfing. Then again, I’m no expert.

However, one thing I would say to all those people is ‘leave me alone’. I’m not a surfer, but I had a go at bodyboarding and while I was out there, surfers followed me incessantly.

For those that don’t know, bodyboarding is surfing without the difficulty or the kudos. You catch the waves just the same, only you don’t stand up, you just sort of lie on your board. It’s good value, because it’s easier to get out to where the big, cool waves are and you also get more than three seconds of fun before the sea flips you over and stuffs you head-first into the frothing surf. In fact, a complete novice like me can easily catch a wave and speed into shore at a rate of knots.

As a complete novice, I tried to stay away from everyone else. Unfortunately, surfers are such a sheeplike lot that if they see you bobbing around separate from everyone else, they think you have secret knowledge about the waves and head over towards you. You then head in the exact opposite direction and they follow you again. You’re like a pied piper of muscled, sun-tanned dudes.

The surfers need a leader. I don’t want to be that leader.

It’s a little known fact that Montechoro on the Algarve was the site of the world’s finest example of the paunchy, bald-headed, red Englishman.

Back in 2002, Terry Jessop of Doncaster woke on the third day of his holiday to find that his previously immaculate alabaster white skin had not been protected by the patchy covering of hair all over his torso. He was the colour of his beloved Man Utd shirt and this, allied to his middle-aged spread and shaven head, led to him being granted the title of Most English-Looking Man in History.

Things to do in Montechoro

With its lines of traditional English pubs, this is an area where you can embrace the traditional English lifestyle where you drink lager, watch football, go bald, grow a paunch, get sunburnt and be a man. The last point is particularly important. If you truly want to live the lifestyle, you should on no account be a woman. It’s just not the done thing.

It’s got altitude, which is important – you always need height so you can look down on stuff. It’s got sea, which is good too. It’s also got a few flowers.

However, if we were to nitpick, we’d say that this was a bit too urban. This is all manmade. The perfect spot for a beer has more nature than this and fewer people within hearing distance.

Mostly it’s the big fuck-off satellite dish though.

From Flickr.

Now I’ve got to be honest, I don’t remember a huge amount about this place. I’m pretty sure it was borderline unpleasant, but it might just have been that whole ’sleeping in a room with a load of weird strangers’ thing. That always taints your memories of a place.

What I do remember is the toilet. Specifically, I remember that you pressed a button and the toilet seat slowly rotated. There was a bit at the back which cleaned it. Unfortunately, I seem to remember that someone had done a turd on the seat itself and then pushed the button to rotate it.

The cleaning mechanism wasn’t up to the task, obviously and the excrement got all scrunched up and smeared. On balance, it wasn’t one of the nicer things I’ve seen in my time.

If you’re considering taking a holiday on Culatra, you’re probably wondering what you can do while you’re there.

As you’re no doubt aware, Culatra is a fantastically lively place and its leisure activities reflect this.

One of the most popular things to do is to go joyriding on the beach:

From Flickr.

You can also indulge in the Culatrans favourite pastime of ‘inappropriate canine positioning’:

From Flickr.