Switzerland, from the four bases that run it.
Which summit day is worth the money, and which one to skip when the cloud is down. Where the real chocolate factory is. What the panoramic trains cost before you board. Reviewed, priced and ranked.
Zurich, Lucerne, Interlaken, Geneva: pick the base first.
Six in every ten tours on this site right now leave from one of these four towns. The mountain days you have heard of are sold from all four at different prices, so the base you sleep in decides most of the itinerary.
Thinner on the ground, and we will say so
Basel, Bern, Zermatt, Lausanne, Lugano, Montreux and St Moritz each have their own page here, but far fewer tours run from them. Davos, Chur and Appenzell barely appear at all. If that is where you are staying, the honest answer is that this catalogue is thin.
The Swiss price ladder, from a museum ticket to a chartered Alpine day.
Every tour on the site sorted by what it charges. Half of them cost more than the median below — that is the country, not the tours. Median price across the site right now: $185.
Museum entry, lake cruises, self-guided city walks and the chocolate factory ticket.
- 1Lindt Home of Chocolate Museum Entry Ticketfrom $22
- 250-Minute Lake Geneva Cruisefrom $24
- 3Rhine Falls Boat Tourfrom $13
Guided chocolate mornings, walks with a local, Rhine Falls, half-day runs out to Gruyères.
The full-day summit runs — coach out, cog railway up, lake steamer home.
Private drivers, chartered Alpine days and the panoramic trains in a small group.
Jungfraujoch, Titlis, Pilatus: the mountain day decides your budget.
All Jungfraujoch trips →
These are the days people fly in for, and they will be the most expensive thing you book. They also run on the weather. The railways keep climbing in thick cloud and the ticket costs the same, so check the summit webcam on the morning and take the flexible fare where one exists.
Top of Europe, and most of the daylight
The Eiger wall from the carriage window, the Aletsch glacier through glass at 3,454 metres, an ice tunnel and a plate of rösti. Getting there and back is the day.
Engelberg, the turning cable car, Lucerne bolted on
The easiest big summit to reach from Zurich inside a day. The Rotair turns as it climbs the glacier, there is an ice cave at the top, and most operators stop in Lucerne on the way through.
Paddle steamer out, cogwheel up, back for dinner
The golden round trip: a steamer across Lake Lucerne, the steepest cogwheel railway in the world up the flank, gondolas down to Kriens. The cogwheel half only runs once the snow clears.
Lindt in Zurich, Cailler at Broc, the dairy at Gruyères.
This is the largest single group of tours on the site. The Lindt Home of Chocolate is a timed museum ticket you walk into in Zurich. Gruyères pairs the cheese dairy with the Cailler factory and usually a train. The tasting walks in Geneva and Lucerne are guided chocolatier rounds rather than factories — worth knowing before you book one expecting a production line.
The tours more travellers take than anything else in Switzerland.
Every review →Ranked by how many people have actually been and left a review afterwards, not by what anyone is pushing.
1
Lindt Home of Chocolate Museum Entry Ticket
Visit the Lindt Home of Chocolate in Zurich for an audio-guided, factory-side museum plus unlimited Swiss chocolate tastings.
From · $22
Read our review →2
City Tour, Cruise, and Lindt Home of Chocolate Visit
from $103
3
50-Minute Lake Geneva Cruise
from $24
4
Mount Titlis with Ice Flyer & Lucerne Day Tour
from $204
5
Award-Winning Geneva Chocolate &Old Town Tour with Boat Ride (3h)
from $131
6
Rhine Falls Boat Tour
from $13
7
Bus Day Trip to Heidiland and Liechtenstein
from $115
8
Mt. Pilatus Cable Car, Cogwheel Train & Lake Cruise
from $212
The panoramic trains: Glacier Express, Bernina, Gornergrat.
Switzerland sells its famous rail runs three ways: as a seat reservation on top of a fare, as a guided day out of Basel or Zurich, or — for the Bernina red train — as a day trip that starts in Milan and comes north over the pass. Read the departure point before you pay, because that one does not begin in Switzerland.
Chamonix, Annecy, Colmar, Milan and Vaduz are days out of Switzerland.
Five of the busiest days on this site leave the country. Take a passport, check what your rail pass covers once you cross, and do not assume the fare includes the foreign entry tickets.
FranceChamonix & Mont BlancAn hour and a quarter from Geneva by coach, under the highest mountain in the Alps. The Aiguille du Midi cable car is usually a separate ticket.16 tours reviewed
FranceAnnecyThe shortest foreign day out here — forty-five minutes from Geneva to a lake town of canals under a fourteenth-century château.9 tours reviewed
FranceColmar & AlsaceHalf-timbered Alsace and its wine route, run mostly out of Basel, and at its busiest and dearest during the Christmas markets.5 tours reviewed
ItalyMilan & Lake ComoThese run the other way: they start in Milan and come north, which is how the Bernina red train and the Como boats are sold here.11 tours reviewedPrincipalityLiechtensteinIts own country, not a Swiss canton. Usually bundled with Heidiland on a coach out of Zurich, sometimes with Austria and Germany in the same run.4 tours reviewed Paragliding and canyoning: what happens, and when they cancel.
A tandem flight off Beatenberg is ten to twenty minutes in the air strapped to a licensed pilot, after a few running steps down a slope. Canyoning in the Grimsel and Chli Schliere gorges means a wetsuit, abseils on a rope and jumps into cold water. Both carry weight and age limits, both want a reasonable level of fitness, and both are called off outright when the wind or the water is wrong. Operators reschedule more often than travellers expect, so leave a spare morning.
- 1Tandem Paragliding Flight with Pilotfrom $233
- 2Paragliding Tandem Flight in Interlakenfrom $233
- 3Tandem Paragliding Flightfrom $245
The Swiss wet-weather plan: go low, go indoors, go on the water.
The summits fail closed in bad weather and the ticket costs the same either way. The days that do not care about cloud sit at lake level — the paddle steamers still sail, the chocolate factories are indoors, Chillon Castle has a roof, and the transport museum in Lucerne can eat a whole afternoon.
Three things you can only book in Switzerland.
Chocolate is sold across Europe. A chalk-marked puzzle trail through a whole city, a Korean drama jetty on Lake Brienz and one ticket that covers the lake steamers are Swiss inventions.
The Foxtrail
Foxtrail is a self-guided treasure hunt laid through a Swiss city, and it now runs in more than a dozen of them. You are handed a first clue and follow chalk marks, hidden envelopes and codes through backstreets, tram stops and station subways for two or three hours. It is the closest thing here to a local game rather than a tour, teams of two to six work best, and it runs in the rain.
- 1Bern Foxtrail granite★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 15 reviews
- 2Basel Foxtrail Cyan★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 11 reviews
- 3Bern Foxtrail slate★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 7 reviews
The Iseltwald jetty
Crash Landing on You, the 2019 Korean series, filmed a scene on a small wooden jetty at Iseltwald on Lake Brienz. So many visitors came that the village put a turnstile and a five-franc fee on it. The tours from Zurich and Interlaken take in the jetty, the Lake Brienz shore and the Sigriswil bridge, and they are mostly private cars rather than coaches.
- 1Crash Landing On You Locations in Interlaken★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 81 reviews
- 2Crash Landing on You Private Switzerland Day Tour from Zurich or Lucerne (CLOY)★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 19 reviews
- 3Crash Landing on You: Switzerland Filming Locations Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 5 reviews
The Swiss Travel Pass
The pass covers the trains, the postbuses, the city trams and the lake steamers on a single ticket, and it lets you into most museums for nothing. What it mostly does not do is cover the mountain railways outright — those are discounted instead. Whether it earns its price comes down to how many long rail days you really do; three summit excursions and a couple of transfers, and usually it does not.
- 1Swiss Travel Pass: Unlimited Travel on Train, Bus & Boat★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 1,631 reviews
- 2Jungfrau: Travel Pass for 3 to 8 Days★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 256 reviews
- 3Berner Oberland: Swiss Half Fare & STS Holder 2nd Class Pass★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 150 reviews
The Swiss bookings that will not wait until you land.
Most of this country can be booked from the hotel the night before. These cannot: they run on compulsory seat reservations, timed factory slots and a summer calendar that fills months out.
- 01Glacier Express, Swiss Alps & Lucerne Tour | From BaselThe panoramic carriages sell out months ahead over summer, and the seat reservation is a separate compulsory charge on top of the fare.
- 02Guided Tour to Jungfraujoch – Top of EuropeTrains to the Top of Europe run on timed slots and the fine-weather windows are taken first. Cloud at the top does not get you a refund.
- 03Lindt Home of Chocolate Museum Entry TicketThe chocolate museum runs on timed entry and the weekend slots go early — it is the single busiest attraction in this catalogue.
- 04Milan to St. Moritz: Scenic Bernina Train Tour with GuideThe red train’s panorama seats are reserved separately from the ticket and go first on summer weekends.
By base — where you are actually sleeping
By day out — what kind of day is it?
The newest Switzerland tour reviews.
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(KTG302) – Day Trip to Montreux & Château de Chillon from Geneva
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Geneva’s Time Capsule: Private tour A Historic Journey
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(STTG04) – Sightseeing Cruise at Geneva with Wine and Aperitif
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