Start your weekend on Wednesday? Not quite – but with a mix of workation and weekend getaway, you can get pretty close. The small hotel Das Rübezahl in Allgäu is ideal for this! It offers a variety of small, quiet corners (with stable and fast Wi-Fi) as well as a beautiful mountain and meadow landscape right outside the door. After all, fresh air is good for the brain!
This is the eighth installment in our series “Tips for a sustainable weekend getaway“. Look for a new green idea every three weeks on our blog!
Workation days in the Allgäu
But what could a Workation weekend look like in detail? If you can’t think of anything right now, we’ve come up with something together with Das Rübezahl. 4 nights, inspiring surroundings, delicious food and mountain views – not only will you be able to work productively, but also come back feeling refreshed.
Wednesday (arrival):
After work, off it goes. Off to Füssen in the Allgäu – to the beautiful landscape of the German Alps and the fairytale panorama of the German royal castles of Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau.
For a sustainable trip, you should take the train. It also has the advantage of allowing you to leave the office earlier and get the rest of your work done during the trip. The Füssen train station is just 3 kilometers from the Hotel Das Rübezahl in Schwangau, and the hotel offers a free shuttle service to support a climate-friendly trip!
👉 Another environmentally friendly way to get to Füssen is to take the long-distance bus, as we described in this blog post.
After checking in (from 3pm) and exploring the hotel, you can enjoy dinner in the cozy Louis II restaurant until 9pm. The menu of the day is always made with fresh organic ingredients from the region, and there’s always a vegetarian/vegan option. (Personally, though, I would go for the Allgäuer Kässpatzen – the classic on the menu.)
Thursday (Workation Day 1)
Wake up at the usual time – only not at home, but at the hotel, where you can enjoy your first coffee with a view of the mountains and a delicious breakfast buffet. It’s a completely different feeling when you open your work laptop, isn’t it?
It is this fusion of work and vacation (work + vacation = workation) that makes this type of travel so appealing. Instead of going to the office, you just find a nice spot in the hotel with your laptop and work materials. At Das Rübezahl you can choose between:
- The desk in the hotel room
- Terrace, balcony or conservatory of your hotel room (there are 54 individual rooms in total)
- The conference room of the hotel
- Outside in the wellness garden or garden barn
- In the pavilion with a mountain backdrop
After work, you can relax in the wellness area with panoramic sauna and natural swimming pond.
Friday (Workation Day 2)
If Thursday’s remote work went well, today is a special day – in the remote office on the mountain! (After all, you want your colleagues to be jealous, too. 🙂)
For this, you put the laptop in your backpack and climb up the Tegelberg to the Rohrkopfhütte right after breakfast. The hut at 1,320 meters is part of the hotel and as a Workation guest you can spend a whole day here in the mountains (with WLAN).
There are two hiking trails to the Rohrkopfhütte – we recommend the easy ascent via the road. Here you hike moderately uphill for about an hour.
Saturday (vacation day):
Your weekend begins differently this time, because even though you’ve been working for hours, you’re already in a vacation mood and settled into your hotel. You now have a number of options for Saturday:
- Hiking or cycling. The hotel offers bike rental at the reception (bikes and e-bikes) and guided hiking and biking tours with active guide Bergbaschdi.
👉 You can get to know the active guide Bergbaschdi in this interview.
- Visit the royal castles of Neuschwanstein, Hohenschwangau or the Museum of the Bavarian Kings in Hohenschwangau. Tickets are also available at the reception. Info: A visit to the castles is only possible in combination with a guided tour – it takes about 45 minutes.
- Spend a relaxing day in the wellness garden and maybe take a 10 minute walk to the Rübezahl apiary. On some days, the hotel’s own beekeeper, Sebastian, offers a tour of the apiary.
Sunday (departure day):
Check-out is possible until 11 a.m., allowing you to safely store your luggage until departure and continue to enjoy the spa and all hotel amenities.
When you return to the office on Monday, it will be like you were on vacation – without losing a single day of work!
7 tips for a sustainable workation
- Leave your home without leaving appliances on standby to avoid unnecessary power consumption.
- Choose a sustainable travel option such as train or long-distance bus.
- Bring travel food from home and avoid the use of single-use packaging for food and beverages while on the road.
- Bring your own slippers for the spa area so you don’t have to use the hotel’s disposable slippers.
- Choose sustainable accommodations, such as the Hotel Das Rübezahl.
- Send emails and messages without needlessly large images or videos. Here are some ways to reduce the carbon footprint of your emails.
- Use your vacation time for environmentally friendly activities, such as hiking, and avoid less sustainable things (such as helicopter tours, to take an extreme example).
PS: The benefits of fresh air for the brain have been proven, for example, by this study from the Max Planck Institute for Human Development.
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