My guide to Switzerland with Kids
We spent a glorious week in Switzerland last summer with our 3 kids (aged 5 years old and then 8 year old twins) and had the BEST time. In this blog post, I will be sharing..
Our detailed itinerary
Money saving tricks (bc Switzerland be expensive!)
Why we playground hopped as many Swiss playgrounds as we could!
Links to our airbnb in Interlaken (which had access to a private cove for swimming in the lake!)
Slow family travel advice for all your travels with kiddos
First things first, a little introduction to who I am. Hi - and welcome! I'm Eileen and in summer 2021, my family and I uprooted our lives and moved from Greenville, SC to a small city in central France for an expat assignment with my husband's job. We have three kids, all girls: 8 year old twins and their five year old little sister. My husband and I have always loved travel, and one of the main factors we considered when choosing to move to France was accessibility for trips to the rest of Europe. We were thrilled to be able to expose our children to different cultures, lifestyles, and world travel as well!
We travel a lot within Europe, and let me tell you, enjoyable travel with kids takes planning and intentionality - and I'm not just talking about packing lists! This is where the concept of slow family travel comes into play. So what is it, exactly? I like to define it as: traveling with an intention of savoring family time and the beauty of your surroundings, while moving at the unique pace of your own family in order to minimize stress and preserve the joy of the experience.
So, what does slow family travel look like, in practice? It can look different for every family, but for us it looks like slow sunset picnic dinners in a local park while the kids run around, spending the morning at local swimming holes, moving at a restful pace with plenty of time to recover between excursions, and being okay with not "seeing all the things." One of the benefits of this kind of travel is that you really do get to experience what life might be like in a particular region, instead of feeling like a tourist.
A couple of important notes before we get to the detailed itinerary!
To go along with the blog post, I have created a story highlight for our Switzerland trip on my instagram (@eileenandco_). The story highlight will follow the blog post with more pictures and details for each spot we visited.
I have also created a google map (click the map below to be taken to link) with all our of favorite locations pinned. Hopefully this helps you plan your trip! Almost every place I mention throughout the post is pinned on the map.
Disclaimer! This is what we did in Summer of 2022. I can’t vouch for the state of these places when you go, so I recommend doing some up to date research before your trip.
Ok… Here we go!! We spent most of our time based in Interlaken to access as much of our must do spots in the region as possible. We also spent two nights near Zermatt at the end of the trip.
Switzerland is known for being super expensive and it was, so we focused on leveraging the costs to get as much bang for our buck as possible. We have youngish kids, so we decided to strategize our trip and spend as much time as possible playground hopping in the Alps. Here’s why….
the swiss are FAMOUS for their playgrounds in the alps, and you will see why with the pictures!
Playgrounds are FREE
We could take the funiculars up the mountains to get to the playgrounds, which are a main part of the alp experience and a joy. Our kids were in heaven.
There were little cafe’s near most of the playgrounds, so mom and dad could get a coffee and sit and enjoy the view while the kiddos played.
We packed a lunch every day from grocery store supplies to save on the restaurant costs (a small personal pizza was like $30 in most places we saw!)
Our kids were a little young to enjoy some of the main draw activites in the area, like zip lining and go carting and things. So playgrounds were just our style, also, did i mention FREE.
Day 1-4: Interlaken and surrounding areas
TIP: We went to Switzerland in mid July so it was busy and hot. Our strategy was to get out early to beat the crowds. We were up anyhow with our young kiddos so this was our daily schedule. Up and out the door by 8:30, adventure around, picnic lunch at the playground and back to the Airbnb to rest from like 2-5, the most busy and hottest part of the day. We would swim in the lake later in the afternoon or hit up not as main attraction sites. This works SO WELL for us when traveling. We have rest time built in for the kiddos, we miss a lot of the craziest traffic, and we missed the hottest part of the day too. A lot of parking lots and places were completely full and people were fighting for spots as we were pulling out at 2 pm to head back to rest.
Interlaken rundown:
Nestled between two stunning lakes in the heart of the Alps, Interlaken was a great base for us. We went in mid july so it was HOT and having the lake to cool off in was heaven. We also liked Interlaken because it seemed to be about 30 minutes or so from a lot of our top spots to see (we had our car but the train system is great as well). Good grocery stores and easy to get around. We didn’t spend a ton of time downtown Interlaken, honestly the villages around it were more gorgeous imo and were our main focus. But it has all you need and we LOVED being on the lake for swimming and boating!
Lodging:
We picked this airbnb because of the view (look at that castle out the bathroom window!) and its access to a private cove for the area to swim in lake Brienz (google pin in the map, bc we had a hard time finding it the first day!), which we hit up every day, sometimes multiple times a day. It was clean, cozy and had two nice bedrooms and a well equipped kitchen. Here is the kicker. No AC. Which meant sleeping with the windows open and it was right on a road. I don’t know if this would have been as much of an issue if we didn’t visit Switzerland in the middle of a heat wave when temperatures were soaring up to 95.
We used a great COOP grocery store which is pinned on the map.
Day trips from Interlaken:
Lauterbrunnen, Murren and Allmendhubel playground (INCREDIBLE. DO THIS IF YOU HAVE KIDS!)
Lauterbrunnen -
This was an incredible day. Lauterbrunnen was one of my must sees and it did not disappoint! We got there first thing in the morning and the morning light was stunning in the valley. We walked around downtown and then walked to Staubbach Waterfall. You climb up a 5 minute climb from the parking lot and you get to go behind the waterfall! It was super special being there first thing in the morning, we almost had it to ourselves. As we were leaving a huge tour group showed up! There is a playground in front of the waterfall too so we hit that up before heading to Murren.
Murren-
After you explore Lauterbrunnen, head to the Gondola to ride up the valley (INSANE views on the way up!) to Murren, an adorable town perched on the cliffs above Lauterbrunnen. Gondola is pinned on the map. You change gondolas on the way up to continue up to Murren, but its well documented where you switch.
When you get to Murren, its an adorable town but we had big plans to hit up a famous playground even higher up in the mountains! So when you leave the gondola station, head to the Murren Funicular station to head up to Allmendhubel, aka heaven for your kiddos. (Funicular is pinned on the map as well). It’s a 5 or so minute funicular ride up to Allmendhubel.
Allmendhubel playground-
Step off the funicular and sigh. Wowwwww you made it. Your eyeballs cannot take in the beauty of the alps that surround you. Your kids are already heading to the playground at full speed, which includes underground tunnels for them to explore, a water maze, rope courses and so many things to play on.
We hung out at this playground for hours, had a picnic lunch up here as well (of course we packed two bars of Swiss chocolate) and there is a cafe if you fancy a coffee. The views are insane and we just soaked them up. There are clean bathrooms too.
We decided to hike down from the playground to Murren on the « flower trail ». It was an hour hike or so (I think??) from Allmendhubel down to Murren and was great way to hike the alps without tiring little legs. We kept saying, « this view cannot be real!!! » the whole hike down. I will say the trail wasn’t super clearly marked on the way down, so I might do some more research to see if its more up to date this year? But it was so fun.
We hung out in Murren for a little while and then headed back down the mountains to Lauterbrunnen and home for rest time.
DAY TRIP 2: Grindelwald, First Cliff Walk and the Glacier Canyon
Grindelwald was one of our favorite towns, it was charming and full of cute shops and restaurants. We got there early one morning to be some of the first people up to the Cliff Walk. The Cliff Walk is a gondola ride up from Grindelwald. We decided to do the Cliff Walk first because it gets very crowded later in the day and then explore Grindelwald after. The Cliff Walk is so fun, it is a 5 to 10 minute walk which skates the cliffs and has a bridge over a huge drop off. A fun cafe and lots of hiking trails at the top too.
You take the gondola up from the Grindelwald station to the Cliff Walk. We hung around and got snacks at the cafe and enjoyed the gorgeous views. On the way back down, stop at the Bort station for another amazing playground.
Grindelwald has a great (yep you guessed it) playground in the center of town (all of this is pinned on the map!). We had a picnic lunch at the playground and shopped downtown.
It was cool up in the mountains but a steamy 95 degrees down in the valley during the hottest part of the day, so we LOVED seeing the Glacier Canyon Grindelwald after we left downtown.
It was so cool and nice in the shade walking over the river. You walk through the canyon and they even have a rope pit hanging over the river! We loved it.
Day Trip: Lake Brienz
On one of the hottest days of our trip, we rented a boat from Pirate Bay Nautical Center which was in a cute town on the opposite end of the lake from Interlaken. (You can also take a ferry from Interlaken to Brienz, its a great way to see the lake). This was so fun! It was $160 for 2 hours, which was totally worth it to us. We swam off the boat (it was kinda hard to get back in the boat with the little ladder the boat has, so I super gracefully turtle crawled over the edge lol). The lake is so beautiful its hard to take it all in!
ZERMATT-
There is so much to do around Interlaken, we only scratched the surface! But after a few days we headed to Zermatt. We only stayed for a day but we had to see the Matterhorn and we had another epic playground to hit! Zermatt is a pedestrian only town which is charming. We rode the train into Zermatt from the Tasch station, and then took the Funicular up to Sunnega station. Wolli Park at Sunnega has the most epic views of the Matterhorn ever!
This playground is amazing, it has a little lake to swim in and has a little ferry that the kids can pull themselves back and forth across on. My kids were in heaven! It has shaded places to hang out and lot of fun things to do. We spent hours here and yep, you guessed it, had another picnic lunch!
This was our last full day in Switzerland and we were so sad to leave!
Packing help for Switzerland, July edition.
Packing for Switzerland is tricky. When we went it was in a crazy heat wave, but up the mountains it was 60’s in the morning and then 90’s by afternoon. The sun is hot too. But it can snow in June too! So it ranges a lot. We did a lot of layers with light sweaters and leggings, tanks and lots of sunscreen. My kiddos had the zip off hiking short/pants so they wore those almost every day. Good hiking shoes are a must and the vibe is very relaxed, people in hiking clothes all over the towns. I wore a hat everywhere to shield from the sun and was glad I had it. Bring a swimsuit for you and your kiddos if you wanna swim, but keep in mind the lakes are coldddd. It felt so good!!
We carried backpacks around with us to hold layers and lunch and lots of water.
Whew. That was a lot! But hopefully it was helpful! I know we just scratched the surface of what we can do in Switzerland and I’m already dreaming up our next trip!
Make sure to follow on instagram, I’ve made a story highlight of our trip which has even more details and videos than the blog post!
Xoxo
Eileen