[Removed user]

24 May 2017 at 18:02:53 #811963

My wife and I will be going to Switzerland this Friday May 27 and are having a tough time deciding which mode of transportation to take.

We will be staying in Wengen from the 27th to the 31st then heading back to Zurich from the 31st to June 4th.

We are not sure whether to take a car and pay for train tickets as we need. The car would cost around 400$ for the whole trip. This would eliminate the expensive train rides from the airport to Wengen and Wengen back to Zurich. However, while reading the threads in the forum (which are great!) most people recommend mostly take the train and rent a car for 2 days when we need it.

We would be going around interlaken for 2 days on our own, the third day would be a group tour to jungfraujoch, so we only need to take a train to the meeting spot in interlaken that day. Day 4 would be a driving day around the swiss alps. Day 5 would be traveling to Zurich. Once in Zurich we will be going to Lucerne for a day the next day (Day 6). And join another group tour on Day 7. Day 8 would be another driving day to Germany. Last day would just be heading back to the airport.

As you can see there aren’t a lot of train rides in our itinerary. We would appreciate any recommendations. It is our first time in Switzerland or in Europe so we are very new to this. Please be gentle with you comments lol!

Thank you in advance!

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[Annika]

25 May 2017 at 14:03:14 #863854

Hi lilotikoski, welcome to MySwissAlps!

You’re right, train traveling is generally advised over car traveling and I fully agree with that. The Swiss public transportation system is excellent and gets you pretty much everywhere. Please compare for yourself through myswissalps.com/carver sustrain. Our Jungfrau region, Lucerne and Zurich pages list activities that can be done by public transportation.

Which pass is best, depends on your finalized travel scheme. Even with some driving days and some group tours, a Swiss Half Fare Card may still help you save money. It certainly will if you don’t use a car and just rely on trains, buses and boats. You’d best decide how you want to organize this first, and then start calculating as explained at myswissalps.com/train/ ticketspasses/practica l/chooserailpass.

Note that it doesn’t really make sense to get down from Wengen to Interlaken to join a group tour to the Jungfraujoch. Wengen already is on the route to the Jungfraujoch so you’ll add extra traveling time by getting to Interlaken first. Maybe you can join your group tour in Wengen (unless the route is via Grindelwald), or just visit Jungfraujoch on your own?