trivago-village: Alps | On-tour ’19 throwback!
Of the several cultural opportunities at trivago, annual on-tour is one of the unique ritual that’s been a part of the company for more than a decade! The world has changed a lot over 2020. We didn’t have an on-tour this year for the global pandemic, and we fought hard being in the travel industry! Instead, we had the unique trivacation!
In the words of CEO in 2020, “In Q2 we have moved mountains, despite the unprecedented challenges we were facing. Let’s use the trivacation to get some rest, spend time with family, recharge – and to help us continue shaping the recovery of travel in the months to come.”
It was during last year this week that we were returning from Austria after recharging from a 4-day amazing vacation.
On-tour 2019: Towards Austria
I have had the chance to witness 2 on-tours before 2019: “Holy Ship! trivago On-tour ’17!” and “Glamping & Music Festival: trivago On-tour’18!”. I had already learned after the Cruise trip that even though I’m into photography, I’m not carrying my 📷 camera anymore to the on-tours. And I don’t regret it because of the enriching experience I have that I live every moment. Thus all images in this blog are by my phone, unlike other photo-blogs.
The On-tour 2019 was amidst the nature by the Alps in the Wildkogel Ski Arena in Austria. So let me rewind back to last year this time! Watch this quick clip to summarise how trivago talents had shaped the on-tour’19!
As usual, ~800 trivago talents had arrived at the Düsseldorf train station on Thursday, 2 AM in the morning, waiting to get the party started to somewhere we didn’t know! Yes, it’s always a surprise!! Rumors did say it to be Austria though, but nothing more!
3am Breakfasts to kickstart.. with Kleiner Klopfer! 
1000 trivago talents boarding the 10hrs party train! 
10am on a Thursday morning in a moving train!
We took the trivgao-train for 10hrs. That’s a trademark party-train with beer taps and dance floors that stays equally insane (or more) every single year! I was looking at Perri’s blog from 7yrs ago and it looked exactly the same!
Wildkogel and Alps: trivago Village!
We took a bus from Vienna to arrive at the Wildkogel resort! A beautiful area in the Alpine valley with wooden cottages. In no-time, the area turned into the trivago village with the amazing vibes, home for the next 3 days!
1000 people transforming the Alpine valley into trivago village! 
Treasure hunt in the new home!
What if I told you if explored the whole of the resort with a “treasure hunt” that trivago organized where we were supposed to collect stamps on our notebooks from around the village? You would have no choice but to believe!
If you’re wondering what’s going on there, its 🍺🥇 Beer Olympics. Yes, you read it correctly.
Not often do you spend a vacation in a village resort that’s almost above the clouds!
Every year trivago organizing such paid innovative on-tours takes us down the memory lane to kinder-garden and primary school days when you could absolutely be carefree and concentrate only on living the moments.
Alps: Hiking at Frühmesser!
However difficult it might have seemed to be to wake up at 6am after partying till 4am, the hike was worth it. I have never had a more beautiful hike, especially with friends and colleagues beaming with energy and loud music. I would highly recommend the Frühmesser Rundweg.
From the Wildkogel resort, we hiked a couple of hours to the Frühmesser peak in the Alps mountain range.
The weather was fantastic and the trails were mesmerizing.
The last leg was a super rocky uphill. Cheering together with numerous lovely people around you is a completely different ambiance from hiking solo or with a small group!
Once we reached the Frühmesser summit, we found a 10 feet large iron cross, with 360 view of the snow-capped Alps, an exhilarating summit experience! And trivago being trivago, one could even get a stamp to fill up your pocket diary of treasure hunt! 🙂
If you’re curious how fantastic it looked from this summit, watch this drone video by Parkavi!
The descent hiking trail from the summit to the Herrensteigscharte passed by a beautiful mountain restaurant with the Alps view. This was where we had the lunch buffet.
We enjoyed the fall on this Hiking trail, drinking water from between mountains. I could imagine a completely different face in the winter when this turns into a skiing arena!
Music, Parties and Cultural Nights
Music, games, team-events, chilling, clubbing, and partying till dawn are regular every evening in on-tours! Of the three evenings, one of them is the cultural night when everyone wears something from their home!
trivago talents live performance! 
Pub Quiz!
Mountain Karting
Mountaincart-Strecke: One could take a 15min rope-way ride to the of the mountain stations from the Wildkogel resort for an adventurous mountain karting! These tricycled-karts have broad tyre with good breaks, but absolutely no motor, which means they run solely on the gravity.
The 4km winding mountain cart route 1600m above sea level was a really crazy summer experience that’s worthwhile. Having the speed under control was the key given the fact the trail had some sharp turns with open valleys across!
I am not proud of my mess-up here though! I did de-route into a 10km trail instead of the designated mountain trail, to end up landing onto a mountain highway on a tricycle!!!! I had to be rescued by some of my colleagues from nowhere in the hills by a car! 🤦🏻♂️ I did go-karting again the second time in the correct 4km winding route with open valley views, and loved the adrenaline every bit!
Shape your On-tour
The on-tour was special because it was shaped by and for trivago talents. We had a specific Village Day when trivago talents performed, coached, and held a session on almost everything on earth: Theatre, Improvs, Gardening, Yoga, Dance-forms, Musical instruments, Bands, Sketching, Body-paintings, different Sports, Photography, Cooking varieties, Baking, Ginger-bread painting, Wine-tasting, Brewing, Shots and Schnapps, and so much more! We even had some talents teaching Fire-breathing, phew!
It was to this extent that trivago built a web-app for us to speed-date into those ongoing events throughout the day!
We indeed lived together in the Austrian Alps with the motto: Ain’t no mountains high enough!
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