Booking the huts — the part that actually decides your Tour

On most long trails the hard part is walking. On the Tour du Mont Blanc it is getting a bed. 40 of the 59 places to sleep are sold through one booking portal; the rest, including several of the most famous, book themselves.

Refuge de la Croix du Bonhomme on the Tour du Mont Blanc, 2443 m
Photo: Rémih · CC BY-SA 4.0 — Wikimedia Commons
40huts on the portal
19book direct
Autumnwhen bookings open
Hourshow fast they go

Two booking systems, not one

The Tour du Mont-Blanc portal sells 40 of the stops on the loop. That is genuinely useful: one account, one calendar, and — because the portal publishes its availability openly — the planner can show you live status for every one of them, night by night, including how many places are left.

The remainder take their own reservations. Unfortunately this includes several huts people specifically come for: Rifugio Bonatti, Rifugio Elisabetta, Rifugio Elena, the Croix du Bonhomme, Lac Blanc and Bellachat. Each of their pages here links to the right place. There is no live availability for these — you have to ask them.

How bad is it really

Bad. A snapshot of the portal taken in July across all 40 huts and the next fourteen months returned over 14,000 full hut-nights against fewer than 900 free. That is not a bad week; that is the normal state of the Tour. Reservations for the following summer open in the autumn or winter and the sought-after nights are gone the same day.

What to do about it

  1. Book the loop, not the nights. Decide your direction and rough pace first, then take whatever beds exist and bend the schedule around them. A day that ends at an unbookable hut is not a plan.
  2. Use the clusters. La Fouly, Champex, Les Contamines and Courmayeur each have several places within a few hundred metres. Every refuge page here lists its nearest alternatives with distance and whether they book online.
  3. Watch for cancellations. They happen constantly and they are taken within minutes. The planner re-checks the portal every hour and pushes you a notification the moment a night on your plan frees up — which is the only realistic way to catch one without refreshing a website all spring.

Practicalities

Half board is the norm and usually the only sensible option — there is nowhere else to eat at 2,400 m. Bring a sleeping bag liner; blankets are provided, sleeping bags generally are not. Swiss huts often prefer cash in francs. Tell them about dietary requirements when you book, not on arrival. And cancel if you are not coming: on this trail a released bed is genuinely valuable to someone.

See what is actually free

The planner shows live availability for all 40 portal huts, night by night, and can alert you when a full night on your route opens up.

Check availability →

Frequently asked questions

When do Tour du Mont Blanc huts open for booking?
Most open reservations for the following summer during the preceding autumn or winter, and the well-known ones are full within hours. Exact dates vary by hut and change year to year, so check each one rather than assuming a single opening day.
Can I walk the Tour without booking?
Not realistically in season. On a snapshot of the portal in July, over 14,000 hut-nights were full against fewer than 900 free. Turning up and hoping is how people end up walking to the next valley in the dark.
What if the hut I want is full?
Three options, in order: take a nearby alternative (they cluster tightly — the next bed is often a few hundred metres away), shift your whole schedule by a day, or watch for a cancellation. Cancellations are common and they go within minutes, which is what the alert feature is for.
Which huts are not on the portal?
The best-known ones, awkwardly: Rifugio Bonatti, Rifugio Elisabetta, Rifugio Elena, the Refuge de la Croix du Bonhomme, the Refuge du Lac Blanc and the Refuge de Bellachat all take their own reservations, as do the village hotels. Their pages here link straight through.
Is camping allowed?
Wild camping is restricted across all three countries and rules differ by canton, commune and protected area. There are official campsites in the valleys — Les Contamines, Les Chapieux, Champex, Trient, Argentière — but the Tour is designed around huts, and planning it as a camping trip changes the route.