Swiss rail pass comparison – how many travel days?

Hello Pierre,

The Swiss Travel Pass is valid for a number of consecutive days. So if you don’t use it on a day it is, as you say, “wasted” bearing in mind that you can use it for museums etc. It also cover boats, buses and cable cars so even if you are not travelling from city to city there will no doubt be excursions you will want to take.

The Swiss Travel Pass Flex allows you to spread your nominated travel days over a month period. There is a price premium for the added flexibility.

A clearly mapped out itinerary (including trips on lakes and into mountain areas) will provide you with the basis for deciding which pass (if any) suits.

Using your itinerary you need to do the sums based on the cost of all your planned trips on trains, boats, cable cars etc. You can find the fares for any trip using the SBBTimetable (http://www.myswissalps.com/ti metable). If you are not familiar with the timetable it will pay to first read the instructions on that page.

When you go to buy a ticket the fare you see on the right hand side of the page will normally be the half-fare price. Double it to get full fare. With A Swiss Travel Pass it is free provided it is shown as free on the Area of Validity map ( PDF downloadable from http://www.myswissalps.com/sw isstravelpass/validity).

You should read “How to choose the best travel pass” (http://www.myswissalps.com/tr ain/ticketspasses/prac tical/chooserailpass), download the handy spreadsheet calculator and do the math.