A family vacation can involve an impressive amount of parental administration. Someone is keeping track of the towels, someone is finding a missing shoe, and someone is calculating whether there is time for lunch before the next activity. I would like the adults to have something more appealing to look forward to as well.
That is one reason Hôtel Royal and the wider Evian Resort stayed with me after my visit. Alongside the family arrangements, there is enough here to build a trip around adult interests: serious golf, a substantial spa and racket sports, including pickleball. A family could come for those things and bring the children, rather than hoping the adults will find a spare hour once everybody else is happy.
Évian also makes sense for couples and groups of friends. The question is which activities matter enough to shape the dates and which can remain pleasant possibilities.
Is the golf in Évian worth travelling for?
The golf alone is a reason to come. The Champions Course at Evian Resort Golf Club hosts The Amundi Evian Championship, an LPGA major, and amateur players can book to play it as well. For clients who love golf, that puts Évian into a different conversation entirely.
Some clients will happily build most of their stay around golf. Others will want one good round while the rest of the family does something else. There is room for both kinds of holiday here.
The tournament calendar matters if the Champions Course is your reason for coming, since events affect access. It can also be a reason to choose the dates: being here for the championship is a very different proposition from a quiet week of playing.
Do you have to be an experienced golfer?
The six-hole, par-three Lake Course makes a shorter round possible for players of different abilities. It can be played in under ninety minutes, which leaves a reassuring amount of the day available for the rest of the family’s plans.
The Academy gives beginners somewhere to learn and regular golfers somewhere to work on their game. You can make golf part of the stay without committing to a full round every time.
A shorter course can also make a shared activity more realistic. You don’t need to decide that everyone is now a golfer simply because one person packed golf shoes. Trying something for a manageable amount of time is often a much better introduction than committing half the day to it.
A longer round on one morning, with everyone meeting up afterward, can work beautifully. The golfer gets the experience they came for, and nobody has to spend lunch apologising for how long it took.
Can you play pickleball at Evian Resort?
Yes. Pickleball is here, alongside tennis, padel and badminton at the resort’s Tennis and Racket Sports Club. I know that will be welcome news to quite a few clients who have no intention of giving up their game just because they’re in France.
For anyone curious about trying pickleball, a holiday is a good opportunity to give it a go together. There’s plenty of time for the family rankings to become an issue later.
Tennis and padel are also well covered, with coaching and programmes through LUX Tennis. It adds another easy way to spend time together, whether someone wants a lesson or a more competitive game.
What would I plan at the spa?
Hôtel Royal’s evian®SPA and heated indoor and outdoor pools give you a very good reason to leave part of the day open. The pools are reserved for hotel guests.
A massage after an active morning sounds very appealing to me. So does a quiet hour when nobody needs help locating a pair of goggles. There is no obligation to make a project out of relaxing.
There is also Spa Quatre Terres at Hôtel Ermitage and Les Thermes Évian in town. They are separate places with their own treatments, so there is more to explore for clients who want wellness to be a bigger part of the trip.
The connection with Évian’s water history is interesting, and I’ve explored that in the wellness article. For this part of the holiday, my ambition is simpler: give the adults time they will enjoy and enough room afterward that relaxation doesn’t end with a sprint to the next reservation.
How does this work when you’re travelling with children?
The Kid’s Resort is what makes some of that adult time possible. There are activities for different ages, along with paid baby care by reservation, so the children have their own plans to look forward to.
A morning doing different things followed by lunch together can work very well. So can an afternoon when everyone joins a game. Spending a little time apart gives the family something new to talk about when they meet again.
For mixed-generation groups, the same thinking applies. Grandparents might want their own outing, a parent might want golf, and the children might want the pool. We can give everyone a few things to anticipate without turning dinner into a daily performance review of who did what.
Would you come to Évian without children?
Absolutely. A few days built around golf, a good hotel and time by Lake Geneva would make sense for the right couple or group of friends. A concert could be another reason to choose particular dates, and the town gives you somewhere to wander between the activities you have booked.
Hôtel Royal does welcome families, so it has a different atmosphere from an adults-only retreat. For couples who enjoy a lively resort with plenty to do, that may be part of the appeal.
What I like about Évian is the possibility of planning for the adults as thoughtfully as we plan for the children. If you want a round of golf, we should make room for it. If you want a long lunch after the spa, that deserves a place in the trip, too. The missing shoe will almost certainly turn up.
Csilla Dali
Founder & Lead Travel Advisor
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