This was by far the most fun trip we’ve been on while living in Europe. If you’re looking for adventure, laughs, and beautiful scenery, this is a must do.

Over Martin Luther King Jr. Day (Thu –Mon), we went to Wildkogel Arena, a ski resort in Neukirchen am Großvenediger, Austria. This was our biggest travel group yet, going with 10 people, and luckily a trip where the more the merrier. We flew out of Manchester around noon, had a layover in Frankfurt, and arrived at Salzburg Airport shortly after 1700. The resort was an hour forty five minutes away, so we rented two cars (you could catch a shuttle to the resort, but it was €40 per person each way). We stayed at the Wildkogel Resorts – DAS Bramberg which had a spa, indoor pool, plenty of restaurants, was right in front of the lift, and was extremely nice. When we arrived, I struggled a bit because I don’t speak German and I didn’t know where to meet the receptionist since the check-in area was closed. It took about 30 minutes, but we eventually made it inside our 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath apartment. Overall, the apartment and car cost us about €280 per person which I consider a pretty sweet deal.

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During the trip we actually didn’t ski, but instead went tobogganing down the world’s longest floodlit toboggan run! It was 8.5 miles long and took about 45-60 minutes to complete. I think I completed my fastest run in about 35 minutes when I leaned all the way back on my sled, left everyone, and didn’t stop at a beer garden.. Did you catch that? Beer gardens on the track! We also went on a Friday, so we got to experience nighttime tobogganing. More on that later. If you go on Tuesday or Friday, the lift runs until 1830 and you have until 2200 to get down the mountain.

Friday morning we ate breakfast at a restaurant in the resort which I wouldn’t recommend, although I would suggest eating at them for lunch and/or dinner. It was €13 for a breakfast buffet, but the options were extremely limited and we were better off making our own breakfast (which we did for the rest of the trip). Afterwards, we picked up our €8 sled rentals which we reserved, but I don’t think was necessary, and bought our €32 day pass lift tickets. The lift took about 7 minutes to get 2100 meters above sea level, and the views from it were amazing. The sky was beautifully blue and the air was cold and crisp. You could see the snow covering the mountains and houses and the sunlight reflecting ever so brightly off of it.  When we got off the lift, you could tell everyone was really nervous. We took some pictures, got to the edge of the mountain and basically dropped. You could go ridiculously fast on the sleds and had to be careful on the turns because you could literally end up falling off the side of a mountain. Luckily for us, no one tumbled down the side.

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There were two beer gardens on the run, one about 5 minutes in, and another about half way down. All 10 of us met at the halfway mark, coming in at various times, and exchanged funny stories about getting there. Some sleds left their owners, some riders crashed into walls or each other, and some had no issues at all (points to self). The real fun came during the second half of the run because the slopes increased and you picked up some real speed. You know it’s about to get crazy when you see a sign reminding you to “slow down,” though no one paid that any attention. We did the trail another three times during the day, stopping to get lunch and run to the store before the night time run.

I thought we were nervous before, but when we were going up in the dark, our lift was completely silent. It was actually quite terrifying to go down at night! The trail was all ice by that time, so you went even faster than before and stopping became more difficult. We all hit some pretty deep bumps that hurled us off the sleds, but no one was severely injured. It was wild, but one heck of an experience. If you decide to go, definitely give the nighttime run a go if you’re up for a challenge.

The next day everyone woke up all kinds of sore. Back, abs, legs, arms – you name it, it was sore. I guess that means we had a really great workout! We cooked up some breakfast, threw on our snow clothes, and decided that we would go snow tubing. It was about a 5 minute drive from the resort which was perfect. Luckily I stopped in the visitor center and picked up a map because it wasn’t on google maps. We got a group discount from €4 an hour down to €3 for tubing. Unfortunately there was no “lift” for us to take, so we had to walk it up the hill after going down every time, but it was still amazing! We tried all kinds of combos: one by one, two by two, all 10 of us at once, and we had a blast. It snowed while we were out there so we had the perfect snow for a snowball fight. We tired out pretty quickly and made “David” the snowman. He got destroyed by snowballs and someone tackling him.

Sunday was our chill day. We wanted to go to the spa, but it turns out it was closed on Sunday. Also found out it required you to be naked, but I saw people have towels on so that would have been fine (for me anyways). Some went swimming in the indoor pool and others went for a walk. Afterwards we met up at the resort’s pizzeria which had some BOMB pizza. Who know Austrian’s could make a bangin’ pizza.

During the down time we played quite a bit of games. I brought with me Weird Things Humans Search For, Dos (the next Uno), Phase 10, and just a regular pack of playing cards. I introduced the group (some already heard of it or played) to a game called Mafia. Everyone is dealt a card and you have to figure out who is in the mafia and get rid of them before all of you are killed. There’s a narrator who makes up stories about each death and everyone seemed to really enjoy that game. We played it for HOURS. It’s a really good game to play with a lot of people because you can have one of five roles, work in teams, and come up with pretty clever stories. I’m really glad everyone had a great time.

#LessonsLearned – If you’re traveling in a large group, have a plan for dividing up food and stuff. For future trips, downloaded the app splitwise. Everyone in the party puts in what they pay for and it’ll separate who owes who and take care of that. I hate when people don’t contribute but take just as much as if they did.