shipping extra clothes home

Can't say for sure but from what I have read, it is very costly. Can you possibly put them in storage locker at an airport you are using or at the train station?

I've done this before (not from Switzerland but from several other European countries). Yes, it's expensive - surprisingly so. Is it worth it? You'll have to be the judge. It's nice to lighten your load - but it's better to not bring so much to begin with. I know that doesn't help you now - but remember it next time you're packing for a trip.

You have two choices. Assuming what you are sending back doesn't have great value, you can use the local post and it could take awhile. The other alternative is a shipping services - IPS, FedEx, Dahl, etc. You can easily obtain the price on line at any of their web sites. So weigh your stuff and plug it into their web site. This will tell you the most expensive way to return your stuff and you can decide if it is worth it.

I haven't done it, but from what I have heard it very expensive. And unless you have very expensive tastes in hiking clothing more expensive than the value of the clothing. Consider if you can go duel use. Socks are socks. Any reason why you need different socks for Italy than hiking? Unless you are mountaineering you might be able to find a good pair of sturdy walking shoes that will work both on the trail and for touring Rome. If duel use doesn't work. For example, cause you don't want to wear hiking short in the cities of Italy, consider taking a pair of hiking shorts that are getting ready to be retired and just throw them out when you are done. (Don't leave them as a tip for the maid as I have read elsewhere.) I am not a big fan in general of bring your grudgy clothes on vacation and throwing them out, but hiking/camping is different than touring.

I agree with Ed on several of his insightful points here. I have taken dual purpose clothes several time and that worked well in Switzerland followed by city touring . If your "hiking" is as tame as walking the alpine mountain trails you won't even need much special clothing or equipment. I have taken one or two key things that I have discarded along the way, leaving a note to not have hotel maids trying to chase us down. And I have shipped things home but only b/c we were traveling for 4 months through very diverse climates (Jerusalem in September and Berlin in December) and I was pretty sure I wouldn't be needing summer tops and hiking shorts by the time we arrived in Berlin. I used the clothing as packing material around some things I had purchased early on. The cost is great, about $40 USD for a fairly small post office purchased box so you should only consider shipping home things that you can't imagine yourself being able to replace or live without.

Last year I shipped 13 lbs of items back to San Diego from Pamplona, yes it is expensive, it cost me about $70.00, I really had to weigh was it worth it, it wouldn't have been except for one item, and I was walking 500 miles across Spain so carrying it wasn't an option (I'd already carried the weight for 3 days from France) Companies such as Fed Ex and UPS and about twice that if not more, a couple of months ago I shipped a 3 lb box to Germany, doing my research they cost around $140.00 compared to the postal service that was around $40.00