Best rail pass and any suggestions

We will be travelling in Switzerland for 1 week in September and would like to know if the flexi swiss pass is our best option. Should we get a 3 day pass for when we're travelling between towns or should we get a 5 day pass to include the cog railways at Mt Pilatus and Zermatt?

our itinerary is:

Lucerne - 2 days (include Mt. Pilatus round trip)

Lucerne to Montreux (Golden Pass)

Montreux - 2 days

Montreux to Zermatt (Glacier express? Or other scenic train)

Zermatt - 2 days (include Matterhorn cog railway)

Zermatt to Geneva

Geneva - 1 day

Hi Colette,

I would say that either an 8-day Swiss Travel Pass, or a Swiss Half Fare Card is the best choice. The linked pages explain about all the details of these passes. Also check the Price and Discount section of those pages, as the online prices of passes are currently much lower than when purchased in Switzerland.

A Swiss Travel Pass Flex is the most expensive option in many cases. Just a pass for the town to town trips means you have to pay the full price for the relatively expensive cogwheel trains. You can get a Combi variant of the pass in order to get discounts on the other days too, but I would not expect that option to be cheaper than the other two I mentioned above. If you want to calculate in detail, you can do so as explained here.

Does this help?

Very helpful, thankyou.

Would we be able to use the pass from Frieburg, Germany to Lucerne? We will be travelling from Germany to Switzerland.

Do you mean Freiburg? The Swiss leg from Basel to Lucerne is included. You need a ticket for Freiburg - Basel. In your case, being based in Australia, you can get the ticket here, along with either of the passes we discussed.

Does that mean I have to change trains at Basel?

If not, where would I validate my Swiss Travel Pass?

Hi Colette,

Whether you need to change in Basel depends on your travel date and time (see the timetable), not on the tickets/passes you'll be traveling with. But in most cases you indeed need to change there.

You can validate your pass in Basel, but you can also let the train staff of the train from Germany to Switzerland do this for you. That way you don't loose time and can either stay seated in Basel or continue to your next train right away.