Tennis camp mornings at Stanglwirt are demanding in the best way, two hours of group instruction plus whatever else I’d signed myself up for, and by early evening, my legs had a precise memory of how many hours I’d spent on clay that day. What made the week work as a whole, though, wasn’t just the tennis. It was everything the resort does once the racquet goes back in the bag: a wellness world dug into the hillside, food that tastes as if it came from just outside the window (because it did), and an entire alpine valley waiting right outside the property line.
It helps to know that none of this is a recent add-on built to complement the tennis. Stanglwirt started life as a tavern in 1609 and has been in the Hauser family’s hands since 1722, which means the version of the resort I was staying in, a five-star hotel, working organic farm, sports academy, and spa all at once, is the product of more than four hundred years of the same family slowly figuring out how to seamlessly make one property do all of that at the same time.
The Oxygen Chamber
Of everything I tried outside the tennis program, the altitude chamber was the thing I couldn’t stop thinking about. The concept is simple enough to explain in a sentence: you sit (or exercise) in a chamber where the air is deliberately oxygen-depleted, simulating conditions at roughly 8,000 to 10,000 feet, well above the hotel’s actual elevation of 2,500 feet. The idea, built with local partners Altitude Balance and AAP, is that this stress prompts your body to adapt, working at the cellular level to activate mitochondria, the parts of your cells responsible for energy production, which in turn is supposed to improve oxygen utilization, support recovery, and sharpen mental clarity. I’m not a physiologist and can’t vouch for the mechanism beyond what the staff walked me through, but after a session, I felt noticeably clearer-headed. I slept better that night than I had after the tennis-only days, as someone who takes their running much more seriously than their tennis. I’d read a lot about the training adaptations achieved at altitude, but outside of a few runs in Colorado, I never had the opportunity to test it myself. Having this opportunity at the resort and achieving these outcomes in such a safe manner is truly an unmatched feature. I also figured that if it was good enough for the many championship-level boxers that have trained at Stanglwirt over the years, then it was more than suitable for an amateur athlete like myself.
A Spa Built Into the Hillside
The spa itself is truly an entire small world you move through, and the numbers alone are hard to picture until you’re actually inside them. The treatment area covers about 16,000 square feet, but the full wellness world, once you count every pool, sauna, and relaxation space, spans closer to 130,000 square feet. Guests can choose between five saunas and three steam baths, including a so-called Crystal Sauna built from translucent stone, and there’s a salt grotto tucked in alongside them for good measure.
The design does a lot of the emotional work. You climb a staircase cut into simulated stone, the same gray as the mountains outside, up to a sunroom at the top level where floor-to-ceiling windows frame the Wilder Kaiser directly. Water runs down a rock face in full view of a large, rimless hot tub shaped like a natural mountain pool rather than anything you’d expect to find installed in a hotel. There’s even an aquarium built into the scene, full of neon-colored tropical fish and, memorably, a couple of small sharks patrolling past while you soak. From there, a set of stairs leads down past more cascading water to an indoor pool bordered by what looks like an extension of the same rock face, with windows onto a grassy inner courtyard where I could see the same kind of kids’ treehouse my own children had climbed on my first visit here, a small reminder that the family side of Stanglwirt is never far away even when you’ve come alone. A short tunnel connects that indoor pool directly to a small outdoor one, and there’s a separate lap pool tucked into a corner of the courtyard for anyone who’d rather swim laps than float. After a demanding morning on the court, working through the saunas, the steam, and eventually that hot tub with the mountains still visible through the glass, felt less like a spa visit and more like the entire day finally exhaling.
Just next door, in its own dedicated wing, is the Fitness Garden, a roughly 6,000 square feet indoor training space fitted out with cardio and strength equipment plus a Kinesis circuit-training system, staffed by trainers who’ll build you a program around whatever you’re actually trying to fix, whether that’s back pain, weight goals, or general conditioning. After a few days of tennis, adding weight training sessions was not appealing to me; however, the facility came in handy as I warmed up and stretched every morning before the tennis program began.
Eating Like the Farm Is Right Outside
The food deserves its own mention, not just because it’s good, but because so much of it is grown on the property rather than trucked in. Breakfast alone could justify the trip alone (And is often the first thing mentioned when you speak to a fellow Stanglwirt alumn, such was the case a few months earlier when I came across German tennis star, Tommy Haas, former ATP #2 and a regular at Stanglwirt). Picture this: a buffet running from 7 to 11am stocked with the hotel’s own yogurt, milk, curd cheese, butter, and bread, alongside cured meats, smoked salmon, a proper deli spread, fresh fruit, and a made-to-order egg-and-omelet bar. In preparation for a demanding morning on the court, I made sure to take full advantage of everything on offer at the buffet.
Dinner runs on its own logic, a five-course meal that changes theme nightly: Italian one evening, Tyrolean mountain fare the next, the chef’s own creations on a third, always opening with a buffet of salads, vegetables, fruit, and cheese before a choice of entrées that reliably includes a vegetarian option. If you need something in between, there are several options for an afternoon snack, including the new on-site wellness restaurant with fresh juices and chef’s creations, or coffee, tea, and pastry served in the library, which turned out to be a nice, quiet ritual to fold into the slower part of the day. That was until I happened across the German national team on the big screen one evening, playing during the FIFA World Cup, and the library was transformed into a raucous party.
Hiking Into the Wilder Kaiser
Off the court, the mountains were impossible to ignore for long. Trailheads start essentially at the hotel’s front door, part of a well-signposted, well-maintained network that fans out across the Kitzbühel Alps, which makes it dangerously easy to decide, mid-morning, that you have no choice but to go for a hike. What’s easy to forget until you’re actually on a trail is that the Wilder Kaiser isn’t just scenery. Its jagged peaks and cliff faces have drawn mountaineers since the earliest days of alpine climbing in the 1920s, and legends like Hans Dülfer and Hermann Buhl helped build its reputation on the international climbing scene. You don’t need technical skills to feel some of that history. A simple walk on a clear morning, limestone rising on one side and the valley falling away on the other, is enough to understand why people have been drawn here for a century. Some of the higher routes get properly demanding, the kind where you’re smart to hang onto the cable bolted into the rock on the steep sections. Mountain huts scattered along the way offer refreshments and even overnight lodging if you want to turn a hike into something longer. The hotel keeps the more casual version approachable too, with a free guided walk offered every week and a popular hike up to the Stangl-Alm hut that requires no planning and no gear beyond decent shoes.
A Non-Golfer at the Driving Range
I’ll say upfront that I am not a golfer. I don’t have a swing or the patience required to even think about taking this sport seriously. Still, Stanglwirt has a training center, driving range, and putting and pitching green right on the property, just steps from the entrance, open from March through October, and it seemed like a waste not to try it while I was there. It turned out to be a highlight of my trip: an hour of hitting balls with the Wilder Kaiser standing directly behind the green. I was fortunate enough to experience instruction from Head Golf Professional and CEO of Sport Academy, Ulf Wendling. Ulf was very patient with me and able to impart some valuable tips that I’ll be able to put to good use if I do find myself on the course anytime soon. I didn’t have time on this trip to get out to one of the actual courses nearby, though there’s one just 2 miles s away in Ellmau and another within an hour’s drive, so a real round is already on the list for a future visit.
A Walk Through Going
The last piece of my off-court time was the simplest and, in some ways, the most grounding: a walk into Going am Wilden Kaiser itself, the actual village Stanglwirt sits inside. Surrounded by everything the resort offers on its own property, it’s easy to forget you’re not in a self-contained bubble but inside a real alpine town with its own quiet, everyday rhythm. Wandering through it for an hour was a nice change of pace from the intensity of tennis camp days. It was also a reminder that there’s a whole valley here worth exploring beyond the courts and the spa, including a lift into the ski terrain less than a mile away and the fabled Hahnenkamm downhill course in Kitzbühel just 15 minutes off by taxi, both good reasons to think about a winter version of this trip somewhere down the line. Having visited twice and only in the summer, I can only imagine that a winter visit would be just as delightful, with five indoor courts as well as the padel court, the boxing ring, the oxygen chamber, and the spacious spa.
Two Very Different Trips, One Place
Between the oxygen chamber, the spa, the food, the hike, the range, and the walk through town, my afternoons and evenings ended up being just as memorable as my mornings on the court, and I came away understanding Stanglwirt a little differently than I had after that first family visit. The version built around the kids’ farm and the water slide and the version built around a week of serious tennis instruction, were remarkably different. Yet, they’re both unmistakably the same place. Whilst in my instance I experienced them separately, I can imagine that Stanglwirt is the perfect place to combine a family vacation and a tennis vacation. There are so many activities to do that the parents and the children will never tire, except for exercising too much.
Whichever reason brings you here, on your own or with the whole family in tow, Stanglwirt has already built the version of the day you didn’t know you needed.
