Selecting Swiss Pass for 4 days Interlaken&Lucerne

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    4 May 2016 at 22:13:55 #809104

    Hi

    We are planning to travel from Paris to Interlaken (with TGV Lyria) and stay in Interlaken for 2 days, then travel to Lucern on the 3rd day (with Golden Line Rail Route) and stay there overnight and spend half a day on the 4th day in Lucern before travelling to Zurich on the evening of the 4th day to catch a flight to Venice.

    In Interlaken, we plan to do some adventure sports, sightseeing in the city, maybe a boat ride and a trip up to Murren. In Lucern, we will either do a trip up to Mt Titlis or Mt Pilatus and some sightseeing around the city.

    Given the above itinerary plan, can anyone recommend whether it is better for us to get point-to-point tickets or get one of the Swiss Travel Passes? If the travel passes are recommended, then which one is likely to be best?

    Would appreciate any advice on the above as we need to finalize our travel plans in a few days.

    Thanks in advance.

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    5 May 2016 at 11:53:29 #851583

    A Swiss Travel Pass is recommended since point-to-point tickets are quite expensive. In fact, with a Swiss Travel Pass, you can only book tickets in TGV Lyria from Paris to Genevé or Paris to Basel and thenafter you can board a Swiss regional train to Interlaken for free. With the STP you can travel free to all your destinations, gets 25% to 50% on mountain trains, cable cars etc and a host of other things.

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    6 May 2016 at 15:15:44 #851584

    Thanks sskundu for your response and guidance. Agree a travel pass will work out better, however, just doing a micro level calculation of all our planned itinerary and seems like the Half Fare card works out better than the Travel Pass for us since we will be having a short stay and doing a small number of defined activities / trips. Probably a full pass would work better if we were to look at more activities / trips as part of a longer stay.

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    6 May 2016 at 19:43:23 #851585

    Well Arno is more experienced to tell that… I stayed in Switzerland for 4-days in end April (about 2 weeks ago) and I got the 4-day Swiss Travel Pass although all I went to is Titlis, Pilatus, Rhine Falls and Geneva – Luzern….. So its purely on choice and how much you willing to spend. I felt point-to-point tickets might get costlier plus waiting in queue (if any). And most of the times we reached station at the last moment so ran up to catch the train 🙂

    Annika
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    7 May 2016 at 16:06:27 #851586

    Hi garyboy!

    A 4 day Swiss Travel Pass would be the easiest solution, but a Swiss Half Fare Card may well be cheaper for your itinerary. Thorough calculations as explained here are the only way to find out which option is most economical. All details should be included, like urban transportation, boat rides, etc.

    If you’ve done the math that way, the Swiss Half Fare Card turns out significantly cheaper and you don’t mind getting tickets for each trip, that’s a good choice of course. If the price difference between both options isn’t that big, I’d personally prefer the Swiss Travel Pass for its convenience. But as sskundu mentioned, in the end it’s a personal choice.

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    9 May 2016 at 19:56:29 #851587

    Thanks Annika. As you suggested, I did the comparison of both options and the Half Fare Card works out about CHF 22 per person cheaper than the Full Pass given our planned itinerary and activities. However, as you mention the convenience of the travel pass cannot be overlooked. So we’ll give it another thought and then take a call on either one. Thanks for your suggestions and guidance.

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