What The Mountains Hold
Retreat into the Alps, return with perspective, with Sankalpa Travel
There's a moment, somewhere between the trailhead and the treeline, when the internal noise stops. Not just the emails and half-finished conversations — the running commentary. The list of things you should be doing instead of this. Most retreats will tell you that moment is the destination. Sankalpa Travel would tell you it's just the beginning.
Sankalpa’s founder, Conny Erschen, knows exactly how loud that internal noise can get. She spent 16 years inside two Fortune 500 companies leading international teams. What drove her then drives her now: a genuine belief in people's capacity to grow.
She initially came to yoga through rock climbing, before going all in. With 500+ hours of training across Vinyasa, Yin, Hatha and Ashtanga — including transformative months in India and the Himalayas — she teaches with depth and warmth, and keeps it real. Twelve years of ballet in her youth gave her an eye for alignment and, she'll tell you with a laugh, not as much flexibility as you would think. "I always say my inflexibility is a weird kind of gift," she says. "Because that's where the discovery and the dialogue with the body starts."
Where the body resists is where the real conversation begins: between performance and presence, between what you think you're capable of and what you've been telling yourself for years. Most people walk into their first class convinced that inflexibility is the obstacle. Conny would tell you it's the invitation. The yoga at Sankalpa is rooted in tradition and taught without shortcuts. Skilled yoga teachers lead a holistic practice that goes well beyond asanas, accompanied by experienced mountain guides who bring the same philosophy to mat and terrain — present, unhurried, genuinely committed to the work. Where yoga pairs with hiking or other outdoor activities, the two work in conversation: one opens something up, the other gives it a name. But whether inside or out, the standard remains the same. The mat doesn't lie. Neither does the mountain.
Sankalpa’s retreats are hosted in a landscape that earns its reputation the honest way: by being genuinely its own. The Austrian Alps don't meet you halfway. The silence here has a different register — wider, less curated, harder to fill with noise you've brought from home. That's not incidental to the retreats. It's the whole point.
Retreats are held in venues chosen for character and warmth: from family-run four-star wellness hotels to boutique spa properties to mountain lodges with genuine soul.
What the mountains offer is something older than wellness and harder to name. Human beings have always been drawn upward — to high places, sharp air, the silence above the treeline. Mountains produce awe: a sudden recalibration of scale that makes you feel both very small and very clear. Psychologists have words for this; the mountains were doing it long before anyone needed them. Perspective, unlike relaxation, is something you carry home. The view changes not because your life changes, but because you do.
The name is a signal. Sankalpa — Sanskrit for a resolve made from the deepest part of the self — is not a goal or a wish. It's closer to a vow to yourself. The whole architecture of the retreats is designed to help you find yours.
Sankalpa Travel GmbH offers yoga retreats in the Austrian Alps, often paired with hiking and outdoor experiences.
Visit sankalpa-retreats.com to learn more.
Sankalpa Travel GmbH is also a proud sponsor of the OM Yoga Show 2026.
Om Magazine
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