Cortina d’Ampezzo is the glamorous one. The Queen of the Dolomites, all designer shopfronts and Aperols on the Corso, and, this February, one of the host towns of the Winter Olympics. It comes with a reputation for prices that make your eyes water before your card has even left your pocket. But there is a great deal more to Cortina than the glitz and glamour of the ski season, and here is the thing nobody in a fur coat wants you to know: you do not have to be wealthy to love it.
We first came here in 2024 knowing almost nothing about the place. We know it a good deal better now, and somewhere between that first visit and this one we fell for it completely. These days Cortina feels like home, even if it does leave us a little poorer every time we come. This was our second trip and our second time camping here, and we have come to think of it as one of the best value bases in the whole range, provided you are willing to sleep under canvas rather than under a chandelier. Yes, it can be expensive. But it can be also incredibly budget friendy.
The Trick Is Camping
The single decision that makes Cortina affordable is where you sleep. We stayed at Camping Cortina for the first time this trip, and it is a lovely site with the one facility that matters most after a long day in the mountains: an on-site pizzeria. The maths does the rest. Camping brings the cost of five nights down to roughly what a single night in a Cortina hotel would set you back, which means the money you save on a bed is money you can happily spend on the bits of Cortina actually worth spending on. There is also a genuinely beautiful walk from the campsite into town, so you are never marooned out of the action.
Aperols and Shopping, Guilt Free
This is the part people get wrong about doing Cortina cheaply. Budget does not have to mean going without. Because we were not haemorrhaging money on a hotel, we could still wander into town for an Aperol, do a bit of shopping and enjoy the Corso in all its people-watching glory without a flicker of guilt (even when a thunderstorm hit). That is the whole point of the exercise. Camp for the savings, then spend them on the experiences rather than the pillow.
Eating Well Without the Corso Prices
Our approach to food was the same balance we strike everywhere: we did not penny pinch, but we did not splurge either. Some days that meant a lunch out, and La Suite was the standout, serving up fantastic focaccia for just €10 a head, which by Cortina standards is practically a rounding error. Other days it meant a stop at La Cooperativa for supplies and a proper meal cooked on the camp stove back at the site, or the reliable one-two of a Bretzel for lunch followed by pizza at the campsite that evening. Mix the two and you eat very well for a week without the bill Cortina is famous for.
Walks and Via Ferrata on the Doorstep
For all its glamour, what keeps pulling us back to Cortina is what surrounds it. There is a lovely, gentle walk around Lago di Pianozes and the Gores de Federa that is genuinely peaceful, a rare thing in the Dolomites in summer, and blissfully away from the madding crowds. And if you want the big stuff, some of the best via ferrata’s in the range are right on your doorstep. We climbed the Sci Club 18 straight above town, and Tre Cime di Lavaredo is only about forty minutes away by car, which makes Cortina a superb base for a climbing week as much as a budget one.
One Warning
A word of caution if you are camping, because we learned this one the slightly chilly way. Even when the days are gloriously hot, 30 degrees or more, the temperature up there can drop into single figures overnight. Pack warm layers for the evenings, however unlikely that feels when you are sweating up a via ferrata at lunchtime.
The Verdict
We will always go back to Cortina. Its reputation for being expensive is not entirely undeserved, but it is only the whole story if you let it be. Sleep under canvas, cook a few of your own dinners, and save the spending for a good lunch and an Aperol with a view, and the Queen of the Dolomites turns out to be far more welcoming to a normal budget than her reputation suggests.
Camp, and she’s all yours.
On the map
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