I'm hoping to take my wife and son (he'll be 20 months) to the alps for the summer. Does anyone have any recomendations for a town to stay. Has any one done any summer alps holidays with young kids?

Ideally I'm looking for either a hotel (preferably with pool and kids club) or a chalet for the three of us. Happy for recommendations for a tour operator but will probably just book the holiday myself.

Cheers,
Chris

Spent a lot of time in bourg saint maurice in the french alps during the summer time. I used to go out there for summer canoe slalom training and absolutely love that town. Its the main/last stop for trains in the alps I think and the funiculaire from bourg takes you straight up to les arcs.

With bourg being a decent sized town at the bottom of the valley there's a few shops and stuff around. Also endless ammounts of activities from white water rafting, canoeing, paragliding, mountain biking..... Everything you'd expect in an adventure sport town.

Its not too far from albertville for a walk around a bigger town if you want that sort of stuff.

As far as booking stuff I'd do it all seperate, you could road trip it out there or fly/train to bourg. Plenty of accommodation too, can easily pick up cheap appartments or chalets and stuff and then its nice and flexible for eating/feeding with the young one. Also you'd prob want a car to be able to get about a lot easier, just makes getting simple things like shopping so much easier.

I'd just start searching self catering accommodation bourg saint maurice and it'll throw up tons of stuff.and work from there. Hope that's some sort of help, but I love that town and could easily spend every summer there living a nice simple life! Just a shame I have to work!

Not cheap but I can recommend the Kinder Hotels, Various locations in Austria but are absolutely amazing for kids.

Yeah the kinder hotels is not cheap but looks pretty interesting too! Has the advantage that most of the hotels have the start of the scottish holidays as mid season rather than high season. Are you able to recommend any of their hotels?

Hello Chris,

I wish you and your family a very happy and healthy New Year !

I am sure you know that my message will be biased in favour of my valley. You know it in winter but you might be interested to come over in summer. It's also a great place to be in the warm season between lakes and peaceful mountains. There are cheap flights from Scotland to Geneva and then cheap transfer cabs or you can rent a car in Geneva airport.

[www.valleedaulps.com]

If you need further information or help, please contact me.

Greetings from the Portes du Soleil,

Lionel

This is my village at the foot of the hills and facing Lake Geneva.

We went to Hotel Alpenrose in Lermoos in winter 2008, Flew easy jet from Edinburgh to Munich and the the a taxi arranged by the hotel picked us up for the transfer. Facilities were excellent in the hotel, food was really good. Not a huge amount of English speaking families in the hotel but our kids made friends quite easily. I would go back again summer or winter. Just need to save a bit as the prices appear to be more expensive than I remembered, But that may be a combination of inflation and exchange rate. As it was winter I cannot comment on summer activities. They do have an indoor and outdoor swimming pool. My kids love skiing but said that they would happily go back to Alpenrose and not bother with skiing because they enjoyed it so much. [www.youtube.com]

It was mates of my wife that recommended the Kinder Hotels, A few of them had been during the summer and came back raving about the childcare facilities and activities on offer.