Itinerary and swiss pass help for a month visit

My husband and I are planning a hiking trip to Switzerland. We are older and plan on doing day hikes, at the most 5 hours/day. We have a month to explore the country and need suggestions for itinerary and in deciding what rail pass to purchase. Here are the areas we would like to explore:

City of Zurich: 2 days

Lucerne area (can we include Appenzell with this area?): 5-7 days

St. Moritz area: 4-5 days

Berner Oberland (Grindelwald, Murren...): 7 days

Zermatt area: 3-4 days

Lausanne area 3-4 days

City of Geneva: 2 days

Is this itinerary possible using only public transportation and if so, which pass would work best? Is the order outlined above the most efficient?

Thank you for your time!

Hello rhynehart,

Your plans are perfectly doable with public transport. It's better than renting a car as there are car free areas on your list and you would not want to have a car in the cities anyway.

There are two passes to consider:

• Swiss Travel Pass Flexi Combi
• Swiss Half Fare Card

Thank you for the quick reply. I will look into your suggestion of taking the Glacier Express all the way to St. Moritz. I was thinking of doing just the section to Brig then heading north.

I guess I need to figure out whether to do the combo or just the half fare pass. It seems as though the combo would be worthwhile, even though it's so expensive, since we will be utilizing lifts and trains for daily hikes.

Any suggestions on accessing Appenzell? Can we do a day trip there from Lucerne?

Thanks again!

Hi rhynehart,

Appenzell takes 3 hours of traveling (one-way) to reach from Lucerne (see the timetable). There's a lot to see and do much closer to Lucerne, but of course it's doable if you really want to.