The art of paying attention: How Austria’s Alps reward slowing down

After the sweltering summer months of packed social calendars, overcrowded beaches and travel itineraries planned out down to the second, the changing season offers a chance to slow down and breathe. 70% of Brits say a busy summer schedule negatively affects their wellbeing which is no surprise given that even the way we travel has become a competition to consume as many places as quickly as possible. Against the busy grind of daily life, holidays are supposed to offer a break from the noise, but bloated AI itineraries and saved TikTok recommendations are turning travel into yet another checklist to tick off. 

Perhaps that’s why more travellers are beginning to reject the race to see as much as possible, choosing to focus on building depth and meaning instead. A recent global survey of 14,000 travelers across 14 countries revealed a growing embrace of the ​“whycation”, where travel is driven by the desire to rest, reconnect with nature and seek out experiences that feel more meaningful. 

In the Austrian Alps, this attentiveness has long been a part of everyday life. Here, paying attention is more than just a travel trend. In the mountains, you feel the wind in your hair, the sun in your eyes, your body aching after a long hike. These experiences force you to slow down and exist in the moment. 

Captured in the Austrian philosophy of Lebensgefühl – the uplifting, life-affirming awareness of the joy of being alive – it is embedded into the way that local artists and musicians engage with the landscape. Across the country, mountains, rivers and forests are treated as creative collaborators. This growing movement of Austria-based artists, musicians, ecologists and cultural programmers are encouraging people to slow down and pay closer attention to the environment around them.

When Austrian percussionist, composer and producer Manu Delago was living in London, he started to miss the rivers and mountains he grew up around. Feeling disconnected from the electronic music he was making indoors, he decided to go back to his roots and record an album where the mountains themselves became the studio. During the creation of his 2018 album, Parasol Peak, Delago took seven musicians on a mountaineering expedition to various locations in the Tyrolean Alps, recording eight tracks that featured field recordings of their natural surroundings. The resulting album blends ambient sounds and modern classical with dynamic, experimental percussion and swelling orchestral compositions that evoke sprawling valleys, glaciers and exposed mountain ridges. The unpredictable landscape shaped the record, forcing the musicians to pay attention. ​“There’s a little bit of suffering involved when you’re playing in those conditions,” Delago recalls. ​“It was snowing which made it even more of a strong experience.” 

The natural environment also shapes the work of artists at international art residency sommer.frische.kunst. which brings together artists, collectors, gallery owners and art lovers in the imposing Alpine scenery of the Gastein Valley. This year’s theme, Between Waters, invited painters, sculptors and filmmakers to engage with the element of water ​“as a resource, myth, healing substance and ecological system.” Bad Gastein is a town where the power of water is deeply felt. Artists worked on their projects in the depths of a valley with 17 thermal springs on one side and the majestic Bad Gastein waterfall on the other. ​“Everything is fluid,” says founder Andrea von Goetz. ​“Artists feel really free here. I think nature gives you the power to feel free and open your mind and they reflect that in their work.” For von Goetz, water is political. 

This idea of water as both a creative collaborator and a powerful ecosystem runs throughout Austria’s alpine art scene. The River Lech starts in Voralberg and is one of the last wild river landscapes in Europe. Artists and scientists are now exploring how paying attention to natural rhythms can change our understanding of place. In mapping the river through field recordings, research and satellite imagery, the FLOW project seeks to readdress our relationship with rivers, reflecting on climate change and how water can both safeguard communities and challenge them.

A 2025 Strava report revealed that the desire to experience landscapes on foot is shaping the way people travel, with 58% of its 30,000 respondents saying they had travelled specifically to go hiking. This idea of slowing down and listening to the landscape extends beyond the artist creating the work to change how audiences experience their surroundings. In Bludenze, the new Alpine Art Sounds festival transforms selected stops along the hiking trail into concert stages. Attendees are invited to experience both the landscape and the music gradually. Walking becomes a way into listening deeply, natural sounds blending with manmade music, as they did on Delago’s Parasol Peak project.

The Alpine Art Sounds festival is part of the Muttersberg Art Trail, which encourages hikers to linger in select spots rather than maintaining constant motion. Founded in 2018, the trail is a permanent outdoor contemporary art exhibition that transforms a 3.9km circular hiking route through alpine meadows and woodlands into an open-air gallery, featuring artwork from Vorarlberg artists inspired by the surrounding environment. Artworks are positioned to be discovered rather than consumed. Each piece is integrated into the trail in a way that allows them to be discovered gradually, inviting visitors to slow down and pay attention to their surroundings. 

For Delago, this act of slowing down in the mountains allows his creative ideas to emerge. ​“I spend a lot of time outside,” he says. ​“It gives me time to digest everything and that’s when ideas come to me.” One such idea was born in lockdown when he decided to record an album in nature again, because Covid restrictions made recording together in a studio impossible. The Environ Me project started with him writing down all the sounds he could hear. ​“I had an A4 sheet and I wrote down everything that surrounds me that makes a sound,” he says, ​“whether that’s plants, animals, the elements air or water or fire, or machines and cars and industry.”

All 11 tracks on the album were accompanied by a music video. ​“If I filmed a burning fire, then the fire became part of the music,” says Delago. ​“I recorded a lake where some percussionists were playing, then the water sound became part of the music. I did the same with birds and animals. Each track is connected to a different aspect of the environment” This project became the ultimate lesson in slowing down, with each video taking one to two weeks to complete. 

In Bad Gastein, where sommer.frische.kunst. takes place, being in touch with nature is a way of life. ​“People living here are all in really good contact with nature,” says von Goetz. ​“If they have problems, they go to the mountains.” When demands for our attention are being pulled in a thousand different directions, whether by insidious tech companies or demanding bosses, running away to the mountains is a tempting proposition. ​“We are living in a really hard time when our environment and our political situation is getting worse so I think a lot of people are coming back to the simple things in life,” von Goetz concludes. 

In the Alps, Austrian artists are using their environment to challenge the way we travel. Mountains are no longer just spectacular backdrops for the perfect Instagram grid post, but spaces that encourage visitors to respond with curiosity. In an era of climate anxiety and overtourism, art and music have become tools for reimagining what sustainable tourism can look like. It’s a reminder that the most meaningful journeys aren’t about ticking a destination off a checklist, but stepping away with a different worldview. 

Plan your autumn Austria escape now.

Sophie Lou Wilson is a freelance culture journalist. Follow her on Instagram.