Wijhe, Salland — between Zwolle and Deventer
A Staff Outing Nobody Has to Be Talked Into
No activity package, no host with a microphone. A farm of 1.3 hectares, a long table a chef cooks for, a pond you may swim in, and a fire that stays lit until you leave.
In short
The kind of day people talk about in the office afterwards.
Ten to thirty people, one group on the land, one invoice at the end.
What this is not
There is no laser tag, no escape room, no quiz master and no segway clinic. If that is the day you want, several places nearby do it well and we will happily say so.
What we have instead is space and time. Thirty people can spread across 1.3 hectares and more than a thousand trees and not run into each other. That turns out to be what most teams are short of.
Food, and a kitchen you may use
Most groups want to sit down to the meal rather than make it. Give us the group size and the diets in it and we book a chef or caterer from our directory who has cooked here before and knows the kitchen. You see the menu in advance and it goes on the same invoice as the day.
If your group does want to cook, the professional kitchen is theirs. Splitting people into a prep team, a grill team and a dessert team is one of the few team activities with a real result at the end. Tell us which way you want it and we set the day up for it.
Water, heat and fire, in that order
A natural swimming pond for the warm months. An outdoor sauna and a hot tub in the field for the cold ones. A fire circle for every month of the year — it is where the day usually ends and where people say the things they did not say in the meeting.
None of it is scheduled. It is simply there, and groups use it in whatever order the weather allows.
Salland starts at the gate
Wijhe sits between Zwolle and Deventer, with the IJssel floodplains a short walk away. Groups that want to move take the paths through the fields rather than a bus to an activity park.
Wijhe has its own railway station with intercity trains twice an hour: nine minutes from Zwolle, fifteen from Deventer. That matters more than it sounds for a staff outing — nobody has to be the one who does not drink.
Why The Makers Barn
1,3 ha
Of land and 1000+ trees, yours alone for the day
10–30
People per outing — larger groups on request
2x/uur
Intercity trains to Wijhe station — nobody has to drive
An afternoon and evening, sketched
Many outings start after lunch and run into the evening. Times are yours to move.
- 13:00Arrival at the farm, coffee, a walk around the land
- 14:30Spread out — the fields, the fire circle, the tea house
- 16:30Sauna, hot tub, or the pond if the summer allows it
- 18:30Dinner at the long table, cooked by the chef we booked
- 21:00Fire circle until the last train, or later
Questions worth asking
What is there actually to do?
Swim in the natural pond, use the outdoor sauna and hot tub, sit at the fire circle, walk the paths through the land and out towards the IJssel floodplains, and eat a long dinner cooked by a chef we booked for you. Groups that would rather cook their own can use the professional kitchen. If you want a facilitated programme on top of that, we can bring one in.
And if it rains all day?
The Hay House barn is heated and holds the whole group indoors, and the kitchen and the sauna do not care about weather. Dutch rain has not cancelled a day here yet.
Is a staff outing taxed for the employer?
In the Netherlands it usually goes into the free space of the werkkostenregeling, which in 2026 is 2% of the first EUR 400,000 of payroll and 1.18% above that; anything over the free space is taxed at 80%. A day with a demonstrable work purpose — training, strategy, skills — can instead fall under a targeted exemption. We are a venue, not tax advisers, so put the actual case to your own accountant. We will write the invoice so the purpose of the day is clear on it.
Can we stay the night after all?
There are fourteen beds on site across Horizon and Cosmos. Say so when you enquire and we hold them; a group of thirty cannot all sleep here, so we are honest about who goes home.
How far is it from Zwolle, Deventer and Apeldoorn?
By car roughly fifteen minutes from Zwolle, twenty from Deventer and thirty-five from Apeldoorn, with free parking for ten to fifteen cars. By train, Wijhe station is nine minutes from Zwolle and fifteen from Deventer, and we collect the group from the platform.
Send us the group size and a date
Tell us how many people, roughly when, and what the group eats. You get one plan and one price back, catering included.