A History That Runs Deeper Than Tourism
Before she was a travel advisor, before Schwan Travel Group, before any of this: Jen spent several summers teaching in Switzerland. That’s not tourism. That’s learning where the grocery store is, what the afternoon light looks like over the lake, which bakery opens earliest. It builds a relationship with a country that no itinerary can replicate.
Switzerland got into her early, and it’s never fully left. Every time we go back, there’s a layer of familiarity that most destinations don’t offer. Not the comfort of predictability: the comfort of actually knowing a place. That’s a different thing entirely, and it shapes everything about how we experience it.
The Door That Stays Open
Brian’s family hosted an exchange student years ago. He lives in Switzerland now, building a life there.
Reuniting in Switzerland on the 2024 AmaVerde trip. Some friendships just wait for you.
On our 2024 AmaVerde Danube river wine cruise, we made a point of stopping in Switzerland on the way. We sat back down together after years apart, caught up properly, and were reminded again of what exchange programs actually do: they don’t just teach kids about other cultures. They create friendships that outlast everything else.
The Bernese Oberland
In 2025 we brought the kids: a full European adventure that covered a lot of ground. Switzerland was the part they’re still talking about.
The Alps deliver exactly what they promise. The Bernese Oberland: Lauterbrunnen valley, Wengen, the Jungfrau region. This is the version of Switzerland that earns every photograph you’ve ever seen of the country. Waterfalls dropping off sheer cliff faces, car-free villages, the kind of mountain scale that recalibrates your sense of what landscape can be. We stayed in Wengen and used it as a base for days that started with train rides and ended with legs that felt it. Worth every step.
The Bernese Oberland rewards the traveler willing to use their legs. Days that start on a train and end on foot are usually the best ones.
Zermatt and the Matterhorn
Zermatt is the other anchor. Car-free, clinging to the valley floor beneath the Matterhorn, it’s one of those places where the landmark actually lives up to the version of it you’ve carried in your head. The Matterhorn looks the way it’s supposed to look. The village around it looks the way Switzerland is supposed to look. The hikes in every direction justify staying longer than you planned.
The Day That Hit Hardest: Appenzell
Appenzell sits in northeastern Switzerland, quieter and less trafficked than the famous Alpine corridors. We’d been moving for nearly two weeks when we arrived: Milan, mountaintops, French villages, German wine towns. We were ready for something slower. Appenzell gave us that and then some.
We took the gondola up to Ebenalp on a morning that started gray and cleared into something extraordinary. Our son, who doesn’t love heights, braved it with the kind of quiet courage that makes a parent proud without saying a word. We hiked past caves and wildflowers toward the Aescher Gasthaus, the cliffside restaurant tucked improbably into a rock face with valley views stretching out in every direction. Cold drinks, food, brownies for the kids, no one checking the time. Most people stop there. We didn’t.
The Aescher Gasthaus, tucked into a cliff above the Appenzell valley. Most people stop here. We kept going.
The trail to Mt. Schafler above the Aescher is steep and narrow and exactly the kind of hiking that earns the view at the top. Switchbacks, cowbells in the distance, sheer drops to one side. At the summit we sat with alpine beers and ice cream and took it all in. That’s the version of Switzerland that stays with you.
Back in the village that evening, the kids joined a pickup soccer game with local kids. No common language needed. Just a ball and a goal and the universal understanding of exactly what to do next.
We watched from a nearby table, beers in hand, and for a while nobody went anywhere. We wrote about that day in Part 15 of our European Adventure.
Getting Around Switzerland
The train system deserves its own mention because it’s genuinely part of the experience, not just logistics. Switzerland’s rail network is among the best in the world, and the scenic routes are the point. The Glacier Express, the Bernina Express, the Golden Pass: these aren’t just ways to get from one place to another. They’re the trip.
A Swiss Travel Pass unlocks most of it at a flat rate, and the mountain railways, gondolas, and cogwheel trains that connect the villages to the peaks are typically included or heavily discounted. Plan your Switzerland trip around the trains and you’ll see more of the country, more comfortably, than any rental car would allow.
Western Switzerland and the Cities
The French-speaking west: Geneva, Lausanne, the Lavaux wine terraces above Lake Geneva. This is a different Switzerland from the Alpine interior. More understated, more European in the broader sense, with a food and wine culture that rewards the traveler who makes the effort. It’s the part of the country that often gets bypassed in favor of the mountains, which is a mistake.
Lucerne is the essential Swiss city stop. The Chapel Bridge, the old town, the lake, the mountains visible in every direction. It’s compact enough to cover properly in a day or two and connects easily to the rest of the country by rail. Rhine Falls, just across the border from Germany, is the kind of natural spectacle that earns its reputation the moment you actually stand next to it.
The Cost Question
Worth saying directly: Switzerland is expensive. Accommodation, food, mountain railways, day passes: it adds up faster than most European destinations. That’s the honest version.
The equally honest version: the density of what you get per day in Switzerland is exceptional. The infrastructure for travelers is flawless, the scenery is genuinely world-class at every turn, and the experience of moving through the country: by train, by gondola, on foot, is worth the price of admission in a way that’s hard to argue with once you’re there. Go in with a realistic budget and you won’t regret it.
Switzerland Opens Tomorrow
Switzerland enters this tournament with genuine ambitions of finally breaking through the quarterfinal barrier that has long eluded them: a team good enough to keep making it deep, not quite good enough yet to break through to the final stages. They open tomorrow in Santa Clara against Qatar. We’ll be watching.
But Switzerland didn’t need the World Cup to earn a post in this series. It earned it years ago: through teaching summers, through exchange students, through gondolas and mountain trails and a grassy field in Appenzell where nobody needed a common language. It’s one of the great destinations on earth. This tournament is just a good reminder to book the flight.
Thinking About Switzerland?
The Bernese Oberland, Zermatt, Appenzell, the cities: Switzerland rewards every level of traveler. If you’re ready to start putting an itinerary together, our itinerary advisor is a good place to start, or reach out to Jennifer directly.
