Cheap holidays in Switzerland: choose the right resort

Popular tourist towns such as St. Moritz, Zermatt and Wengen can be very expensive for the following reasons:

• hotels and chalets are expensive;
• the cheap supermarkets are often not available;
• the tourist tax ("Kurtax"), which varies in Switzerland from CHF 1 to CHF 3 p.p.p.d., is high. You have to pay Kurtax on top of the price of your accommodation.

If you do like these towns, you may want to choose a less popular town nearby. Some examples are:

• Täsch, Randa and St. Niklaus near Zermatt;
• Saas Grund and Saas Balen near Saas Fee;
• Lauterbrunnen, Bönigen and Wilderswil near Interlaken, Grindelwald, Wengen and Mürren;
• Bever, Celerina, La Punt-Chamues-ch and Samedan near St. Moritz and Pontresina.

Make sure your resort is located centrally, so that you don’t have to travel large distances every time you want to go out for a day trip. If, however, you use a rail pass, you can limit the costs of travelling.