12 days Switzerland itinerary for family

Good day everyone, we are a family of 4 (couple age 42 + 2 boys 17 & 15 years old) planning to visit Switzerland from 17 - 28 Aug 14. It's our first time visiting Switzerland. We will be entering Switzerland from Lake Como, Italy and exit from Switzerland to Venice and flying back to Canada.

We planned to purchase a Swiss Pass + Peak Pass and have outlined our itinerary as follows,

Day 1 - Transfer from Lake Como to Locarno / Ascona, overnight Locarno/ Ascona

Day 2 - Sightseeing / excursion Locarno / Ticino region: overnight Locarno / Ascona

Day 3 - Scenic train Centovalli Valley via Domodossola (Italy) to Brig and with Glacier Express to Zermatt: overnight Zermatt

Day 4 - Morning sightseeing Zermatt; afternoon transfer to Montreux, overnight Montreux

Day 5 - Sightseeing / excursion Geneva, overnight Montreux

Day 6 - Scenic train Golden Pass to Interlaken, overnight Interlaken

Day 7 - Morning sightseeing Interlaken / Jungfrau region; afternoon Golden Pass scenic train to Lucerne, overnight Lucerne

Day 8 - Sightseeing / excursion Zurich and Basel, overnight Lucerne

Day 9 - Scenic train William Tell Express to Lugano; overnight Lugano

Day 10 - Going back to Lake Como, Italy

We have left 2 spare days so that we can insert any suggested tourist spot, event and other option.

We would like to know if the above itinerary doable and any extra transportation cost involved beside the Swiss pass + Peak Pass.

Any comments and suggestion are welcomed and we thank you very much in advance for your input. Cheers!

Hello YJON, thanks for your post!

You have worked out a pretty busy itinerary. Which is fine of course, but I do want to note that excursions into the mountains are weather dependent. For example, if the one evening and morning in Zermatt are cloudy, you may not see any of the mountains. Also, all of the destinations offer plenty to do for a week or more. Having said that, I would recommend to add the spare days to the selected towns, and not add more towns. Another suggestion is to move the day 9 activities to day 10 and continue to Lake Como immediately after the William Tell Express. That gives you another day to add to the other towns.

Whether extra costs are involved depends on which exact day trips you will make from the various towns. The Swiss Pass page and Swiss Peak Pass page provide all information about what's included, how to use the passes, points of sale, etc. From what I can see, this is what would not be included:

• The Glacier Express seat reservation. However, I would advice not to take the Glacier Express for the one hour leg from Brig to Zermatt only. You will need to pay a CHF 33 per person reservation fee, which is worth it if you take the full Glacier Express route, but not for this short section only. You can just take a regional train covering the exact same route to Zermatt.
• The William Tell Express reservation.

Since you live in Canada, you can get the Swiss Pass, Swiss Peak Pass and reservations all from www.raileurope.ca.

As for what to see and do: hiking is a great way to see the Alps up close. Also, make good use of your Swiss Peak Pass. See here for what's included. It depends on your interests which of these mountains is worth it the most. The Rigi is free with your Swiss Pass as well: very nice typical Swiss scenery and easy to combine with a short hike. Further suggestions can be found on the various pages we have for all the towns. This is a good place to start. There are hotel suggestions there as well.

Hi Arno, thank you very much for the valuable input, we will certainly take your advice to stay more days in one location especially Zermatt.