Tips to make Switzerland budget friendly

Switzerland is of course, up there with the world's most expensive countries. But there's still ways to save money while experiencing all of what Switzerland has to offer. Here's a few things we did to help keep costs down during our 11 night stay in June 2023.

1. Get a Swiss Travel Pass (or similar). If you're planning on doing a lot of travelling around by public transport when you're in Switzerland, a Swiss Travel Pass is a must. We bought an 8 day pass but at the time of purchasing we took advantage of a deal where we got 2 days extra for free. This allowed us to have unlimited transport on all buses, trains and even some boats and scenic trains for 10 days. For us, the pass averaged our transport costs at £30 per person, per day. Taking into account how expensive transport is in Switzerland and how many places we visited we saved hundreds of pounds. Public transport is extremely efficient in Switzerland and we were still able to visit some of the more remote villages too.

If you're only travelling to a handful of towns/villages near by eachother, a Swiss Travel Pass might not be worth it. You can however purchase a regional pass which will allow you to have unlimited travel around an area of your choice such as the Jungfrau region.

With all these passes you also get up to 50% off cable cars too. For example, we went up the Grindelwald First cable car for half the price of everyone else. If you're still not sure wether you'd benefit from these travel passes, you can also buy a half fare pass. This does exactly what it says, it allows you to travel around Switzerland at half price. Perfect if you might only be taking the odd train or bus.

I strongly recommend to do your research into these passes as they're made to help tourists keep their costs down while making the most of their trip to Switzerland. We purchased ours on Klook because we found their website the easiest to use.

2. Look for alternative areas to stay near where you want to visit. Some towns in Switzerland are a lot more expensive than others. We wanted to visit Zermatt but found the accommodation prices there unaffordable. Instead, we stayed in a town outside of Zermatt called Randa. Randa is only a 15 minute train ride from Zermatt and when you have the Swiss Travel Pass you can go back and forth as many times as you want. There's a few other towns/cities where you can also do this. Again, Switzerlands public transport is so efficient it's easy to stay a town or so away from where you want to be and just catch a bus or train in!

3. Make use of the free BBQ stations in some villages. While walking around the Stechelberg area we saw a lot of BBQ areas which are free for anyone to use. They're always stocked up with wood and a lighter and they're usually in a beautiful spot near a river or view point. Perfect if you don't want to eat out at the expensive restaurants every night.

4. Get accommodation in advance so you can choose accommodation with a kitchen. We made the mistake of booking our accommodation only a month in advance. This meant most of the good apartments/accommodations had been booked up. I always try and book accommodation with a kitchen in expensive countries. I know not everyone wants to be cooking while on holiday but even just having the facilities to make a few sandwiches can save you so much money. Especially when a sandwich from the co-op costs over £8, never mind what the cafes charge!

5. Make use of the free water fountains. Switzerland is known for it's fresh water

straight from the mountains. Don't waste money buy bottles of water, just bring a bottle and use the free water stations. You can't miss them, they're literally everywhere. Trying the Swiss mountain water is all part of the experience.

We spent £1,291.77 per person during our 11 night stay in Switzerland. That's everything from the STP to accommodation to all our food. We also visited 11 different areas in Switzerland. It's definitely not the cheapest place in the world but it's probably not as unaffordable as you think if you follow the tips above.

Check our Instagram out here to see how we travelled Switzerland, on a budget!