Igloo Holidays

We have a range of winter activity holidays where you can experience igloo building, sleeping in an igloo or even building your own igloo and sleeping in it overnight. These are all possible as part of a winter multi activity holiday in the Alps or if you want to come for a short break, you can choose any of these igloo based activities on a mini winter adventure weekend in the Alps. 

Both these holidays are fully customisable using our unique activity points system where you can choose from a range of winter activities including any of the igloo activities below.

Sleep in an Igloo

Wrap up and go Eskimo for the night. Sleeping in an igloo is a truly memorable experience and a real adventure.

It is the sort of activity you do once, you will remember it forever and will probably tell your children and grandchildren about it, but whether or not you choose to repeat it is debatable!

Some resorts offer purpose built igloo villages where they build the igloos in advance and you can experience a night in them usually accompanied with a dinner and starlit walk. 

Have a read of Independent journalist, Jo Kessel's account of her night in an igloo on our press cuttings page!

Build an Igloo

Despite their cold appearance snow flakes trap a lot of air and are a surprisingly good insulator - a property exploited by the Inuit for centuries!! The Inuit are the masters of igloo building and have devised all types of snow shelters from overnight hunting shelters to full semi-permanent igloo villages! 

To build an igloo with blocks you need hard packed snow that you can cut and shape to be able to cut out the blocks. There is reasonable level of skill required for the actual construction and it can take a few attempts to get it right. 

A snow shelter or quinzee is a good alternative for a chance of success on your first attempt! It requires much less skill to build and is as warm as an igloo. 

You still need to have enough and the right kind of snow to build one though. The ideal snow for building a snow shelter is the sort of snow that makes good snowballs. Very powdery and sugar like snow is impossible to build a snow shelter with. In these situations you need to dig down to harder packed snow or find wind swept packed snow in a drift. The snow crystals in wind packed snow interlock so it sticks together better making it possible to build with!

Go on an Igloo Expedition

Igloo expeditions will differ depending on where you are doing them and who is taking you.

However, in general the idea is that you go off into the wilderness, build an igloo and sleep in it for the night.

A real winter survival adventure in the snow!