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hello, it’s my first time using this thread. im planing a solo trip from paris to lauterbrunnen August 20-24th. i have few questions to get adviced from you all experts in this thread. it’s gona be my first time in Europe and first time on a train too! im planning to stay two nights in grindelwald area and two nights in lauterbrunnen area. my questions are,
1. what is the economical way to get to lauterbrunnen from paris. Eurail pass or individual tickets?
2. to travel inside the Switzerland should i buy the swiss travel pass?
3. im planning to visit grindelwald first and if i purchase the swiss travel pass, will the train rides to be there free? or any attraction or cable car/train ride cost inlude in the travel pass.
thank you very much in advance!!
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Hi Ceylon, and welcome to MySwissAlps,
- In order to know which pass is most economical for your itinerary you will need to plan out all your specific trips and compare prices of tickets vs. passes. We have a web page on how to choose the best rail pass to help you with the math: http://www.myswissalps.com/tr ain/ticketspasses/prac tical/chooserailpass.
- Swiss Travel Pass could be an option. Or maybe the Jungfrau Travel Pass. If you do the math, you’ll find out.
- Yes, the train rides will be covered. Some cable cars are included, on others you will get a discount. Read more here: http://www.myswissalps.com/sw isstravelpass/validity.
Hi Ceylon,
I would stay in either Lauterbrunnen or Grindelwald. They are very close together and changing hotels will easily cost you half a day. You can reach the whole region on day trips from either place.
thank you very much. i just booked two nights in lauterbrunnen and two nights in grindelwald. did you use a swiss travel pass or did you buy the individual tickets? thanks
thank you! im still figuring out the routes and so far i think swiss pass is economical comparing to the individual tickets. would you recommend the golden pass line trip or glacier express in general? thanks again
I haven’t done the Glacier Express yet. The Golden Pass route is a beautiful one. If you click on the blue links you’ll find more information on our website. You could also search for some YouTube videos to see what the scenery is like.
My fiancee and are traveling from Paris as well, this summer. My goal was to be economical as well, both with the trains and lodging. Our journey will be from Paris to Mulhouse (book online via OuiGo), which is a small French town that look pretty cute for a couple hours/lunch, and then to Basel for a few days (with a day trip to Luzern). We get stir-crazy quickly, so a whole day on a train wasn’t really attractive (even with the beautiful scenery), plus there’s lots to do in Basel and you can easily get a local-transit pass for unlimited riding. We are purchasing the Swiss travel pass, and will use it first for our day-trip to/from Luzern, followed by our trip to the Interlaken area (staying in Unterseen AirBnB). We want to enjoy many of the cable car “rides” and short cog-trains over our two-day stay, so the Travel Pass makes a lot of sense for us (although note that for some of these trains/cable cars (mostly to the mountain-tops) you get half-fare, not a full-fare coverage through the pass–but again, if you plan on visiting many of the villages around Interlaken and the lakes in a few days, the pass is probably the most economical option (in my opinion).
hello, im still kinda confuse with getting to Lauterbrunnen from paris. is this a popular route from
Paris Gare de Lyon–Basel SBB—interlaken Ost–lauterbrunnen ?
for this route should i buy an Eurail multi country pass? once the train reach Basel do i have to buy swiss travel tickets or can i reach until lauterbrunnen with the Eurail pass? thank you
Thank you very much for the informative response. Im travelling solo and i never been to europe or took a train before. Im here from los angeles and I rarely see a train or metro train. Im still building up my itinerary and since there’s many routes and passes i get confused. I appreciate your help
Same for me, it is confusing and hard to tell just how much you can really do in one day. I live in Florida so I’m also pacing myself on reaching higher altitudes, so that I don’t get sick. In the little that I looked on the Eurrail website, I found it to be overly confusing and the ticket prices seemed higher than if you just visit the local transit websites. Sorry the website for the French tickets is en.oui.sncf/en/ — you’ll be surprised how much the prices vary by date/time, so try to be flexible and you can save a lot of $$. For Swiss tickets go to http://www.sbb.ch/en/timetabl e.html … I use Google Maps A LOT to see what stations/stops are available in areas, but note that the name Google uses for us americans might not match exactly what’s on the Swiss site. (might be spelled differenly, or a different order–helps if you know some German I think 🙂 )
Hi Ceylon405,
I’m not sure how popular the routing from Paris to Lauterbrunnen is – are you concerned about trains being busy? You’ll be changing trains along the way and in the summer, in general, it can be busy (especially from Paris to Basel).
I wouldn’t buy a Eurail Pass just for one train trip though. They are designed to help save money when you travel by train frequently. Not just to cover one or two trips (typically). It will cover your trip as far as Interlaken and then you’ll be discounted on the short trip from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen.
To see a map of the coverage area of the Eurail Select Pass click here.
But if you aren’t taking other trains in France I wouldn’t buy a Swiss/France Eurail pass. Just buy a ticket from Paris to Basel and then perhaps a rail pass for Switzerland (like the Swiss Travel Pass) assuming you are traveling around Switzerland by train (and bus and cable car and boat) regularly while you are here.
The only way to know for sure what pass is the most economical is to plan out all your trips for each day and find prices to compare tickets to rail pass costs. We have instructions and a spread sheet here to help you.
Thank you Evan. The website you sent me makes lot more sense to me now. I haven’t seen that website before and it has way more cheaper prices than the website i checked. Now i think i should just get a round trip ticket from paris to lauterbrunnen than buying a Eurail pass. Thanks again for the info
Hello Lucas, thank you very much for infomation. It makes lot more sense now to buy a round trip ticket than Eurail pass. Im still fixing my itinerary and debating on should i get a swiss travel pass or not. Btw can i ask you a quick question from you? im planing to do the grindelwald first( all four activities) i think it costs about 120€. My question is does that price includes the train or gondola fare to get up there or do i have to purchase a separte ticket to get to the “grindelwald first” on top of the €120 im paying for the activities. Thanks again for your kind help!
Yes, you’ll have to get yourself up the mountain first with a ticket, before you can then do any of the activities offered at the top.
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