Austria

Plan Austria trips with rail and road logic, alpine season timing, region-specific routing, and practical local execution.

Setup

If ~/austria/ doesn't exist or is empty, read setup.md and start naturally.

When to Use

User is planning an Austria trip and needs practical guidance beyond generic inspiration: entry rules, region choice, rail vs car tradeoffs, mountain timing, city sequencing, food and culture context, and on-the-ground execution.

Architecture

Memory lives in ~/austria/. See memory-template.md for structure.

~/austria/
└── memory.md     # Trip context and evolving constraints

Quick Reference

Use this map to choose the right decision module before building the route.

Topic	File
Entry, Border, and Money
Tourist entry, visa, Schengen logic, IDs	entry-and-documents.md
Customs, cash, food restrictions, border habits	customs-and-border.md
Budget framing and hidden costs	budget-and-costs.md
Cards, cash, tipping, tax-free basics	tipping-and-payments.md
Planning Backbone
Region selection and route architecture	regions.md
Sample itineraries for 4-14 days	itineraries.md
Accommodation strategy by trip style	accommodation.md
Transport and Outdoors
Rail, buses, airport links, route timing	transport-domestic.md
Driving, vignette, winter equipment, mountain roads	road-trips-and-driving.md
Alpine, lake, hiking, hut, and cable-car logic	alps-lakes-and-outdoors.md
Winter sports, Christmas markets, thermal rhythm	winter-ski-and-christmas.md
Border hops and nearby add-ons	border-hops-and-day-trips.md
Regions and Cities
Vienna playbook	vienna.md
Salzburg and Salzkammergut playbook	salzburg-and-salzburgerland.md
Innsbruck and Tyrol playbook	innsbruck-and-tyrol.md
Graz and Styria playbook	graz-and-styria.md
Carinthia and lake districts playbook	carinthia-and-lakes.md
Danube, Linz, and Wachau playbook	danube-linz-and-wachau.md
Lifestyle and Execution
Food, coffeehouse, Heuriger, and meal rhythm	food-guide.md
Family pacing and mixed-age planning	family-travel.md
Accessibility and low-mobility planning	accessibility.md
Emergencies, mountain risk, and disruption logic	safety-and-emergencies.md
Climate and seasonality planning	weather-and-seasonality.md
Connectivity, apps, roaming, and tickets	telecoms-and-apps.md
Research sources map	sources.md

Core Rules

1. Route by Corridor, Not by Province Count

Austria is compact enough for ambitious plans and mountainous enough to punish them. Anchor each trip around one rail corridor or one driving loop, then add only the contrast region that still preserves easy transfers.

2. Lock Entry and Season Before Reservations

Before itinerary work, confirm the correct entry path in entry-and-documents.md, then validate whether the user's month aligns with lakes, cities, alpine hiking, skiing, or Christmas-market demand.

3. Default to Rail Unless the Route Truly Needs a Car

Vienna, Salzburg, Linz, Graz, and Innsbruck link well by rail. Car value appears when the trip is built around lake districts, small alpine villages, scenic roads, or family gear that makes transfers costly.

4. Treat Mountains as Logistics, Not Background

Use alps-lakes-and-outdoors.md, weather-and-seasonality.md, and winter-ski-and-christmas.md before promising huts, panoramas, or ski days. Storms, snow line, cable-car closures, avalanche risk, and fog inversion can change the entire plan.

5. Austria Rewards Pace

Trip quality improves when users sleep multiple nights per base, book key trains and mountain hotels early, and leave daylight margins for weather, spa time, café rhythm, and scenic detours.

6. Budget With Real Friction

Price with actual Austria trip math: rail reservations, airport transfers, vignettes, tunnel tolls, parking in historic cores, mountain lift costs, ski rental, and higher peak-season hotel pressure in lake and alpine regions.

7. Deliver Operational Plans

Output should include:

• Base-city strategy
• Day-by-day flow with transfer windows
• Reservation deadlines and weather-sensitive items
• Rail-first and car-first variants when relevant
• Safety, payment, and emergency notes

Common Traps

• Treating Austria like a quick checkbox between larger European stops.
• Combining Vienna, Salzburg, Hallstatt, Innsbruck, and multiple ski or lake regions in too few days.
• Using a car inside Vienna or central Salzburg where parking cost and traffic destroy value.
• Assuming alpine routes, lifts, huts, or scenic roads behave the same in June, September, January, and March.
• Planning Hallstatt or Christmas markets without crowd timing and overnight logic.
• Underestimating Sunday closures and early dinner timing outside the biggest tourist zones.

Security & Privacy

Data that stays local: Trip preferences in ~/austria/

This skill does NOT: Access files outside ~/austria/ or make network requests.

Related Skills

Install with clawhub install <slug> if user confirms:

• travel — General trip planning and itinerary structure
• car-rental — Better rental strategy and handoff logistics
• booking — Reservation workflows and confirmation hygiene
• food — Deeper restaurant and cuisine recommendations
• german — Language support for bookings, transport, and service interactions

Feedback

• If useful: clawhub star austria
• Stay updated: clawhub sync