Family ski-in/ski-out resorts and accommodation in France

Ski to your door in any of four altitude villages, from 1600 to 2000 m. Les Arcs wrote the book on ski-in/ski-out, and the Vanoise Express cable car stitches it to La Plagne to form the giant Paradiski domain.

More Michelin stars than any ski village on earth, and a western doorway into Les 3 Vallées. Courchevel stacks six villages by altitude, from the palace hotels of 1850 down to the family runs of Le Praz.

The value gateway into Les 3 Vallées, Les Menuires gives you the whole 600 km domain without the Courchevel price tag. Recent makeovers have softened its functional reputation.

Right in the middle of Les 3 Vallées, Méribel is the easiest way into the domain. Wooden chalets, a central lift hub and an unapologetically British après-ski crowd give it a warmth the purpose-built resorts lack.

Ten villages, one Olympic bobsleigh track and a glacier at Bellecôte that holds snow into spring. La Plagne is the other half of Paradiski, and one of the surest family bets in the whole Tarentaise.

A car-free, ski-in/ski-out village of striking timber towers, Avoriaz is the French heart of the cross-border Portes du Soleil. Snow gets around on sledges, not cars.

Love it or hate it, Flaine's listed Bauhaus concrete is the most architecturally serious resort in France. Behind the brutalist Forum sits a high, snow-holding bowl and the gateway to the vast Grand Massif.

Stone barns, a slate-roofed bell tower, and the quiet hum of a village square that happens to sit on the back doorstep of Les 3 Vallées. Saint-Martin-de-Belleville is the Savoyard ringer of the Belleville valley, where you can chase 600 km of pistes by day and walk to a 3-Michelin-starred dining room by night. It is the version of the world's largest linked ski area that still feels like a real place.

Three hundred days of sunshine a year have earned it the nickname of the sun terrace of the Alps. Alpe d'Huez is also home to the Sarenne, the longest black run on the planet at 16 km with a 2,000 m drop.

Sitting at 1,860 m on the Italian border, Montgenèvre is the French gateway to the huge Via Lattea domain. High, snowy and good value, it is a quietly excellent family and intermediate base.

A sunny, snow-sure balcony above the Tarentaise, La Rosière links over the Petit-Saint-Bernard pass into La Thuile in Italy. It is a quiet, family-first alternative to the big-name neighbours.

Larch forests, a long beam of afternoon sun across the Tarentaise, and the Vanoise Express drifting overhead on its way across the valley to La Plagne. Peisey-Vallandry is the Paradiski entry that still looks like the Alps, with old Peisey down in the trees and Plan-Peisey and Vallandry strung along the slopes above. It is for skiers who want the 425 km of Paradiski but would rather sleep among larches than under floodlights.