Doing a Season in Les Arcs

Les Arcs is four separate villages built into the same mountainside above the Tarentaise valley in Savoie, France. They sit between 1,600m and 2,000m altitude, connected to each other by lifts and runs, and connected to La Plagne in the adjacent valley by the Vanoise Express cable car. The combined Paradiski area — Les Arcs plus La Plagne — covers 425km of marked piste. For a seasonaire, that's enough terrain to ski all winter without repeating yourself. For most that's the headline, and it's a legitimate one.

The Four Villages

Understanding Les Arcs means understanding that the four villages are meaningfully different from each other — not just different names for the same place at different altitudes.

Arc 1600 (1,600m)

The lowest village and the oldest, built from 1968 as part of the original development. Arc 1600 sits closest to Bourg-Saint-Maurice on the valley floor and has a slightly different character to the villages above it — smaller, quieter, with a more limited range of accommodation and services. The lift connections to the rest of the resort are functional, but 1600 isn't where most seasonaires base themselves. It's worth knowing it exists; it's not where you'll be looking for work or accommodation in most cases.

Arc 1800 (1,800m)

This is the main village and the practical seasonaire base. Arc 1800 has the highest concentration of accommodation, the widest range of employers, and the services that matter for daily life: a supermarket, a pharmacy, ski rental shops, a reasonable spread of restaurants and bars. The architecture is classic 1970s purpose-built — large apartment blocks in functional concrete, built to maximise beds and lift access rather than aesthetics. It's not the most attractive resort in the Alps, and it doesn't pretend to be. What it is, is practical.

British tour operators — Crystal, Inghams, and a range of independents — run chalet and hotel programmes concentrated primarily in Arc 1800. If you're looking for a first-season job with a UK operator, 1800 is where most of those contracts are based. The French domestic hotel and apartment sector also has significant presence here.

Arc 2000 (2,000m)

Higher, more exposed, and substantially smaller than 1800. Arc 2000's altitude gives it better snow reliability — in low-snowfall winters, the upper mountain holds conditions when the lower villages are struggling. The lift infrastructure here connects directly to the highest terrain, including the glacier sections. The trade-off is limited services and a smaller employment base. Some seasonaires prefer 2000 for the snow reliability and the access to high-altitude terrain; the majority end up in 1800 for the practical reasons.

Arc 1950 (1,950m)

The newest of the four villages, with development beginning in 2003. Arc 1950 was designed from the start to look different from the 1970s concrete of 1800 — traditional Savoyard chalet architecture, pedestrianised centre, intentionally more attractive. It succeeds aesthetically. The trade-off is that Arc 1950 is more expensive and has fewer employment opportunities than 1800. Seasonaires doing a first season on a tight budget, or chasing the widest range of job options, are usually better served by 1800. If you've done a few seasons, have specific employment lined up, and can afford the premium on accommodation, 1950 is a more pleasant place to live.

The Ski Area

Les Arcs on its own covers around 200km of piste, with skiing from the glacier at 3,226m down to Arc 1600 at 1,600m — a 1,600m vertical range that gives the resort good altitude variety across the season. The terrain mix is broad: wide motorway runs at mid-mountain are accessible for all levels, with steeper sections off the Aiguille Rouge at the top of the domain for more experienced skiers.

As a seasonaire, the upper mountain repays sustained attention. The terrain accessible from the top of the Aiguille Rouge lift is where Les Arcs earns its off-piste reputation — open powder fields, genuine couloirs, and routes down to Villaroger and the Plan Peisey sector that take you through consistently interesting mountain terrain. When conditions are good, you can spend entire days up here without repeating a line.

The Paradiski Connection

The Vanoise Express departs from Plan Peisey / Vallandry, reachable from Arc 1800 by lift. It's the world's largest double-decker cable car — a practical and slightly spectacular way to cross from one valley to the next. On the other side is La Plagne and a further 225km of piste, with its own range of villages, terrain, and character.

The combined 425km Paradiski area is the honest reason why Les Arcs is worth considering over smaller resorts for a full season. At most 200km resorts you'll have skied everything interesting within the first two months. With Paradiski access, the terrain genuinely sustains a 20-week season. The Vanoise Express connection means you can spend entire days in La Plagne, build familiarity with that mountain as well as Les Arcs, and effectively have two resorts' worth of skiing on a single pass.

A Note on Snowboarding

Les Arcs has a specific claim in snowboard history that isn't widely known outside the boarding community. The slope at Arc 1800 is where Régis Rolland filmed Apocalypse Snow in 1983 — a short film that is widely credited with introducing snowboarding to a European audience and sparking its growth across the Alps in the decade that followed. The resort's association with snowboarding runs deeper than a historical footnote: the riding culture is embedded in the resort's identity in a way that isn't universally true across French ski stations. If you're a snowboarder, you're in good company in Les Arcs.

Bourg-Saint-Maurice

Ten kilometres below Les Arcs at 840m altitude, Bourg-Saint-Maurice is the nearest real town — population around 7,000, with full supermarkets (including a large Carrefour), banks, a medical centre, and a proper range of services that resort living doesn't provide. For seasonaires, Bourg-Saint-Maurice is where you do your weekly food shop at non-resort prices. The cost saving on a 20-week season of buying groceries in Bourg versus buying them on the shelf in Arc 1800 is material — worth the trip down.

What makes Bourg-Saint-Maurice unusually useful is the train connection. The town has a mainline station that is the terminus for Eurostar trains from London St Pancras (via Paris) in winter. The direct rail link to London means seasonaires can travel home mid-season or at the end of their contract without flying — and arrive at the start of the season without needing a car transfer from Geneva or Lyon. It's a genuinely convenient connection that not many Savoie resorts can match.

Working Rights

France — EU freedom of movement applies to EU citizens. UK nationals post-Brexit require French work authorisation. See /visa-guides/france for the current requirements and process.

Cost of Living

Arc 1800 shared accommodation runs at approximately €400–650 per month — lower than Courchevel or Val d'Isère, broadly in line with Méribel and Three Valleys resorts, and achievable to find independently rather than only through employer-provided staff housing. Bourg-Saint-Maurice shopping keeps the weekly food budget at standard French prices rather than resort markup. Les Arcs is not the cheapest resort in France to do a season, but it is meaningfully more affordable than the prestige Savoie names while offering comparable skiing — that's the underlying proposition for a cost-conscious seasonaire.