Hotel Nesslerhof: Austria's 'natural happiness hotel' where naked is the norm

Hotel Nesslerhof sits in Austria's Grossarl Valley, roughly an hour outside Salzburg and under two hours by train from Munich. It brands itself the "natural happiness hotel," and its house rule sets the tone: "It's weird if you're not naked."

The valley is nicknamed the "Valley of Alpine Pastures" in Salzburger Land, and the hotel leans all the way into the local Lebensgefühl, the "life-feeling" of slow, embodied presence - Leben is life, Gefühl is feeling. That rule gets tested in the Zwanzigsechzehn sauna area, open to guests aged 16 and over. It holds five co-ed, clothing-optional saunas, a salt steam bath, infrared loungers and an 800-square-metre natural swimming pond for a cold plunge between rounds of heat. A few suites add a private sauna for anyone who prefers to steam alone.

Condé Nast Traveler writer Bridget Knowles arrived burned out, attention scattered across screens, and tried the daily "infusion" sessions, where a nude sauna master guides nearly 50 people through regional botanicals - thyme, sage, Swiss stone pine and eucalyptus - swirled over glowing stones in clouds of scented steam. She lost the towel, joined the crowd, and over three days bounced between stone-pine saunas and cold mountain ponds with regulars who waved her over for a beer "for the electrolytes." Her verdict: "The only thing mortifying about this experience is my belief that this is a mortifying experience."

The food

Meals are a ritual of their own. A first-course soup, the Vorspeisensuppe, opens almost every sitting, a ceremonial anchor of Austrian hospitality. Dinner is a five-course affair at Atelier N, all local and nose-to-tail: roast venison, fried veal Butterschnitzel, and trout and game pulled from Hohe Tauern National Park, plus honey from the valley bees kept by Anni and Sepp Inhög. Baker Toni brings fresh bread and pastries each morning.

The property has been family-run for over 40 years by owner Tina Neudegger, her husband Hermann and their three daughters. Her philosophy is blunt: "Life's simple. You can do anything once, right? So do it." Next door, the Kieserlbahn cable car climbs to Wolke7, the family's ski lodge, which doubles as a lookout over the valley in summer.