We help you make the most out of your Switzerland holidays

Why and how we started MySwissAlps

We have knowledge to share

Annika had spent many summers in Switzerland in her childhood. Arno had always been a train enthusiast and couldn’t stop visiting Switzerland after his first Swiss train trip. And since 1999, we spent many holidays in Switzerland together. It felt like a waste not to share what we had learned.

We’re aware of planning challenges

We also realized that Switzerland’s pros can actually be challenging for tourists. How to navigate such an incredible public transport network? How to pick the right Swiss rail pass out of the many options? And how to put together a plan for just few days or weeks, in a country with so many highlights?

That’s how MySwissAlps came into being

To help out fellow-tourists and share our passion for Switzerland, we created MySwissAlps in 2002. Arno’s technical skills allowed him to build the website, Annika enjoyed writing the articles. We’ve been working on MySwissAlps ever since.

MySwissAlps timeline

What we did so far

10 May 2002: launched MySwissAlps.com.
3 April 2010: introduced the forum and started growing the community.
28 January 2014: launched the second significant rebuild of the website.
February 2020 to February 2022: challenging times during the Covid-19 pandemic. We continued supporting travelers planning future trips, and we started working on a new version of our website.
28 November 2023: launched the third significant rebuild of the website.
13 March 2024: relaunched the MySwissAlps YouTube channel.
8 February 2025: started the MySwissAlps Plan + Package service.

What’s up next

10 years from now, we still want to help you save planning time based on up-to-date Switzerland travel experience, while we adapt to:

needs of Switzerland tourists;
new internet and AI options;
changes in Swiss scenery and activities due to global warming.

How our Switzerland experience helps you plan your trips

We’re tourists and locals

The MySwissAlps team knows Switzerland inside out. We, Arno and Annika, do so as tourists. Our knowledgeable team members are Swiss locals. Together, we use our experience to address your questions through our guides, photos, practical videos, forum, and Plan + Package service.

We provide time-saving, practical planning tips

We focus on detailed, up-to-date, and practical planning tips to help you save time. Our main goal is not to convince you how beautiful Switzerland is. Instead, we inform you through practical planning guides, in which you have all the relevant info at hand. This way, you don’t have to gather it yourself from several sources.

Let’s take our activity pages as an example. Each gives you a quick overview of what to expect; information about ticket prices, reservations, and rail pass discounts; reliable vendors to buy your tickets from; a description of the route(s) with a map; details on how to find the right connections in the Swiss timetable; this year’s operation dates; season and weather info. In addition, you’ll find further background info and insider tips.

We’re planning and itinerary experts

We plan all of our holidays ourselves. And by running our Switzerland holiday forum since 2010, we know the main questions you and other travelers have when creating an itinerary.

We provide a step-by-step guide to help you make a travel plan that matches your preferences. But we also realize that you may not have the time to do this yourself. So why not let us help you? We’ll make you a tailor-made travel plan based on your wishes. And for ultimate time saving, you can then book this entire Switzerland trip as one easy package.

We’ve also created a series of sample itineraries that you can adjust to your needs, with easy booking lists.

In addition, you can request a personalized itinerary or book ready-made travel packages from our partners.

We know a lot about train travel

Switzerland has an amazing rail network. Train travel there is pleasant, safe, often spectacular, and it helps to protect the Alps from climate change. We travel by Swiss rail a lot and we’ve covered about 90% of the Swiss railway network.

We provide all info to help you prepare for your train journeys: we explain how Swiss public transport works, how to travel by train, how to plan your trips with the Swiss timetable, if you need seat reservations, which passes or tickets to use, where to buy them, and so on.

We’re rail pass experts

We have used lots of rail passes and tickets ourselves. The many options may seem overwhelming at first glance, but we’re here to help you choose:

We list all rail passes and tickets that matter, and not just the few well-known ones such as the Swiss Travel Pass.
We carefully explain how each rail pass works, what it covers, and what it costs, with up-to-date information.
For each pass, we list relevant and trustworthy points of sale.
We pay attention to discounts and promotions.
We provide free tools, downloads, and a step-by-step plan to help you to choose the right pass.
Still not sure? You’ll get assistance in our free forum.

We’ve experienced the towns and excursions we tell you about

The info we provide on the many places and activities in Switzerland is based on our own experience. We traveled by Glacier Express, made the Jungfraujoch trip, strolled around in Zurich, and experienced all of the other destinations we explain about. And in many cases, we’ve done so much more often than just once.

We love hiking

Switzerland’s natural beauty, but also its towns, can best be explored on foot. Numerous well-marked trails across the Alps are just waiting to be discovered. We enjoy it a lot, so we’ve walked quite some kilometers by now.

We share our top scenic hikes in our blog, and we put together varied city walks that allow you to get to know Swiss towns in just a few hours.

We’re independent

We don’t own accommodation or a travel agency. We’re not owned by any other company either. We don’t sell products ourselves. You can expect us to provide objective Switzerland travel information and honest opinions.

We love being in touch with you

One of the best aspects of our job is that we can get in direct touch with you and other Switzerland travelers. We love helping you out, but also learning from you. It’s important for us to personally answer your questions.

That’s why you can easily reach us through our forum, and why you can choose from many options to stay informed.

How we create and update our content

Our texts, photos and videos: hand-made by just the two of us

We create all of our content ourselves. We write about planning, travel tickets, activities, and everything else, based on our own travel experience. The pictures on our website are nearly all our own, made during our Switzerland trips. We also create the videos on our YouTube channel ourselves.

You won’t find guest posts written by others on our website. Nor is anything written by artificial intelligence (AI).

We put a lot of effort into updating our content

You need up-to-date info when planning your Switzerland holidays. We have a solid maintenance schedule. All important posts concerning activities, rail passes, tickets, prices and timetables are updated at least once a year, and in many cases more often than that.

Our recent holiday experience is important too. After every trip, we check which information needs updates, nuances, new photos, et cetera. We also follow tourism-related Swiss news and have a network of Swiss tourism partners.

In case of major developments, such as the covid pandemic or serious disruptions in infrastructure, we’ll keep you up-to-date through our forum, newsletters and/or the relevant pages.

Blog posts are one-time articles

Some posts in our blog, which is just a small portion of our website, are updated less frequently than our main content. That’s because these posts cover topics that were only relevant when published, or proved to be less popular.

Our community and carefully selected partners

Our small team can’t do it all alone. The community helps by answering questions. Our partners provide the things you need for your holidays: accommodation, rail passes, and more.

We carefully select these partners: they need to be trustworthy, knowledgeable, and customer-friendly. If you see us refer to them on our website, you can be sure they’re the right party to turn to.

We care for the planet

It’s important for us to work and travel in an eco-friendly manner, and help travelers to do so too. Climate change is our main concern. It already affects many regions in the world, and the Swiss Alps are no exception. This is what we do to minimize our carbon footprint:

Office space: electricity is generated by our solar panels. We have a hybrid heat pump and use very little gas. We compensate for the remaining gas carbon emission.
Internet: we use various web services and a web server. Calculating energy consumption and knowing how power is generated for all those services is close to impossible. We made an educated guess for power consumption, assumed fossil energy, and compensate annually for the carbon emission.
Bank: we are a client of Triodos Bank, ensuring that funds will have a positive impact on the planet.
Transportation: we use the excellent Swiss public transport for 95% of our day trips. We rarely use our car and we do not fly.
Miscellaneous: 2.5% of our profit is reserved for further green donations or investments.

Get to know Arno

Hi, I’m Arno, born and raised in the Netherlands where I still live. In my youth, I got interested in train travel. Naturally, I had to visit the country with probably the world’s best public transport system: Switzerland. My first two holidays there in 1997 and 1998 were all about rail journeys.

I then met Annika, and ever since, we’ve been visiting the country as a couple. Train travel is still what I enjoy most there, combined with the spectacular scenery of course.

Technique is one of my other interests. I’m an engineer by training and worked on automating factory processes for several years. The rise of internet fascinated me, and once we knew we wanted to share our love for Switzerland, creating a website of our own made perfect sense.

I’ve built the MySwissAlps website myself, and rebuilt it several times since. The last time I did so with the help of team members. I also create posts, photos, and videos. Plus: I co-run our Plan + Package service. The main focus of my content is still everything train-related in Switzerland.

Get to know Annika

Hi, Annika here. I too am from the Netherlands and I was practically raised as a Switzerland-lover. Together with my parents and brother, I spent many summer holidays in Wilderswil near Interlaken. Those are still my best childhood memories.

Arno and I then started visiting Switzerland together, exploring more and more of the country. Although the Bernese Oberland still feels like my “home away from home”, I’ve come to love so many other Swiss regions too: the untouched nature of Graubünden, the rugged peaks of the Valais, the Mediterranean atmosphere of the Ticino, and so on.

I’m happiest when I’m in the Alps, taking pictures. Photography is a hobby of mine, and the Swiss nature still amazes me.

Languages and writing have always interested me. I studied classics and worked as a secondary school teacher in Greek and Latin for a long while. Throughout the years, I got more and more involved with MySwissAlps too.

My main focus is the website’s content. I write and update most of our articles. I’m also responsible for our photos. Besides that, I’m in close touch with our moderators, oversee the forum, and co-run our Plan + Package service.