Absolutely! Tirol is a great destination for families with children - especially if you embrace the five lessons learned by our author while staying in the Wilder Kaiser Mountains.

East Tirol. Christian, my husband, has been backcountry skiing and ski touring in Villgratental Valley several times. Every time he returned home, he was totally enthralled by the experience. Not only because of the varied backcountry terrain; he also liked the remote valleys and the pristine wilderness in this area on the border to South Tyrol. East Tirol is where Austria and Italy collide. There is no mass tourism here. Instead of vast hotel complexes, the mountainsides here are dotted with sun-bleached timbered farmhouses. But that's not to say that it’s a backwater, just alluringly remote. East Tirol is close to Italy and to the Sexten Dolomites, with the world renowned Tre Cime (Italian for "three peaks"). These distinctive battlement-like peaks of northeastern Italy are on display in East Tirol, Dolomites near and far can be seen. Moreover, the fusion of an Austrian-Italian style of cooking makes this place a hit.

In this guest blog, Ischgl hotel owner Alexander von der Thannen gives you the inside scoop to the perfect ski vacation in Ischgl: From his Trofana Royal Five Star Superior Hotel over his favourite ski trails to fine dining options and top vantage spots.

Peter Fankhauser from the village of Kaltenbach in the Zillertal Valley has launched his own personal cooking revolution. It goes by the name of "Guatz’Essen" and is a restaurant serving only vegetarian and vegan dishes – nothing special in London or Berlin, but a bold step in meat-loving Tirol. All the ingredients used in the kitchen are sourced from his own permaculture garden. While the vibe is similar to what you will find in some of Austria's hippest dining locations, the prices at Guatz’Essen are very down-to-earth. We met up with the man himself to find out more.

Gravel paths, forest roads, long bike paths along the river – up until now you needed various different bikes in order to explore Tirol. But now we have gravel bikes for all these different routes. These bikes with their wide tyres and the light road bike frame promise lots of fun on the road as well as on challenging terrain. Is that true? This bike experiment – three days, light baggage and 200 kilometres – will give us the answer.

Camp fire instead of hotel bar, board games instead of après-ski, home cooking instead of haute cuisine. Tirol's many self-catering mountain huts are the ideal place to get back to basics and enjoy the simple life. Here are some top tips for stays at these DIY hotels in the Alps.

Things didn’t always used to be better, but a lot was certainly very different than today – especially in the mountains. There was less talk of sustainability, yet its core principles were lived. Sometimes this was a conscious decision, sometimes not – and sometimes it was simply because natural materials were the only things available to make clothing, equipment and packaging. What can we learn from earlier generations? We set off on a journey to find out what it means to live in harmony with nature, accompanied on our travels by a mountain guide who has spent more than half a century out and about in the mountains.

“You get nice round knees from eating soup,” is the somewhat peculiar Tirolean saying. It probably refers to the fact that soup was a staple food product until only a few decades ago. Not a starter like today, but a main course. One that was frequently eaten early in the morning. And again in the evening. The Tiroleans went to great effort in preparing their soups, because they had to eat them so very often. Fabulous recipes were the result. And many of them. The mountains were high, with little contact between the various villages. Everyone, however, cooked their own variation of soup: The people of Zillertal are rightly proud of their “Grey Cheese Soup” and the residents of Oberland (Tirolean Highlands) wax lyrical about their “Krapfl Soup”. Those who take the current trends in regional cuisine seriously, will have to sample many a soup in Tirol. And cook a lot: The recipes we have put together take you on a culinary, cultural and historical voyage of discovery. But you don’t have to go so far in your appreciation of local tradition to eat soup in the same way as the Tiroleans of yesteryear: they, namely, all ate from the same large pot, as they didn’t have any plates.

The wedding industry is changing and more couples are choosing to go against traditions and get married overseas. This year I have already accompanied 10 couples from Germany to Australia, to Tirol for their weddings in the Alps.

The Tirol offers a wide range of sledding runs and lot's of tobogganing fun. Paul, originally from Greece but now living in Innsbruck, shows us some of his favorite sledding terrains: