My Way Alpine Tour suggestions

Hi Susan ! I'm very interested in this topic also since I'm living in the last days of August, so I appreciate if anybody have any comments about this questions. Thank you in advance !!!

It might help to post this question here:
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/tours
instead of the walking shoe category.

Yes, you need to worry about altitude sickness. You will be going from 2000-3000' to 8000-12000' just about every other day. Take a lot of water with you on every ascent. I didn't at Aiguille du Midi - at the peak there's no tap water and bottled water is very expensive. It's cold and windy at those altitudes, pack something warm. UV rays are strong - take sun hats, sun block including lip balm with sun block, and sunglasses with strong UV protection. Everyone on my tour who went to Neuschwanstein had early entry tickets.

Get physically fit if you aren't already.

I guess altitude sickness was not on my radar when I did this tour - also in July. It is the tour when I overcame my fear of high gondolas. Highest peaks were Zugspitze and Aiguille du Midi. Funny things I recall of going up those peaks: crows at the top and the elderly female tourists from India wearing saris and sandals while I was wishing I had my winter cost - well maybe they were too. Seriously, I layered and was not up there too long to get too cold. I remember, on the way down, stopping off at the halfway point at the Aiguille du Midi. There is a snack shop with some benches. I watched the gondolas and people who are more energetic than I am trying to tackle hiking trails.

Getting to Geneva: our tour minder asked who was planning on flying when and recommended we get in groups to arrange for taxis via the hotel. That is what we did. It was stress-free, as I recall. The minder also asked important questions along the way like who does not have tickets for one of the castles? Who would like to go to Aiguille du Midi but does not have a ticket - and then proceeded to communicate the easiest way to proceed and sometimes went with us. I did not pre-book anything though I understand many people do. I did not go up the Schilthorn but loved visiting Mürren. July: beware temps can be really high in some places. Salzburg was warm and Füssen as well on my trip. We also stayed in Bolzano, which is not the case now - it was steaming.

I approached this trip as a real rest break. I love the Alps and Dolomites, but can take my fill of them strolling or even sitting and watching them. I am thinking of taking this tour again. Oh, and I should mention that sometimes folks may think the My Way tours do not lend themselves to group bonding, being geared to independent travel more or less. Not the case in my group. It was the most fun group. I enjoyed it very much.

We did this tour a few years ago in September. We did not worry about altitude sickness, and had no problems other than realizing we should walk more slowly at Aguille du Midi. We did not go up to the Schilthorn, but took a hike about half way up; none of us had problems with the altitude (we live at sea level but are reasonably fit -- walk and cycle). We booked a van service to get to Geneva; I booked it before leaving the US; turned out that another couple from our tour was on the same shuttle van. The tour manager provided some good information to us on which hikes would be good for us; take advantage of their information. She also arranged a wine tasting for us in Chamonix; only about 8 of us took advantage of that, and it was wonderful.

Oops! I didn’t realize I posted in the wrong spot! Thank you everyone for the great suggestions!