Tunnels

The best way to avoid tunnels may be flying. Both roads and railways over the Alps have tunnels, from the occasionally short ones or those bored for protection against avalanches, to 10 kms. long and more - up to the new Gotthard rail tunnel, still not used regularly, that is 50 kms. long.

As the other poster noted the best way is to fly. However, as that may not be feasible, the best way is to plan your route accordingly (using maps and research) to avoid them. You may have to give up certain desired destinations that can't be reached without going through a tunnel but that's the price you pay. I assume you are claustrophobic or otherwise fear tunnels, else there would be no reason to avoid them.

I think you have it pretty hard to avoid tunnels on the train. Trains run through short tunnels into most city centres. And also through the hilly uplands in Europe in order to avoid slopes. And this usually isn't noted on maps.

Driving wih a car, you can also stumble accross these: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Goldbach_-_Einhausung.jpg (the autobahn is inside that bunker). Made for keeping the noise inside. Sometimes they are noted as tunnels, sometimes not.

I guess you just need to be familiar with the routes.

The Bernina Express route has no significant tunnels between St Moritz and Tirano. It goes pretty much over the top of the Bernina Pass. But the section between Chur and St Moritz has a lot of them including one about 6 km. But they use spiral tunnels to gain elevation over a short distance. The "merry-go-round" between Bergruen and Preda is especially notable with a 360 followed by a 180 (above ground) followed by a 270. You come out of one tunnel and look down to see the same tracks entering the tunnel a hundred feet below you.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albula_Railway#/media/File:Albulabauwerke.JPG

The Luzern-Interlaken goes over top of the Bruenig Pass without any big tunnels.

The Glacier Express route between Brig and Chur has one big tunnel at the Furka Pass, but goes over-the-top at the Oberalp Pass.

The route between Zurich and Milan has lots of loops and spirals and uses the big Gotthard Tunnel at the top. On December 11, passenger service will begin using the new 57 km Gotthard Base Tunnel and the old route will be relegated to regional service.

Similar situation occurred a few years back when the Loetschberg Base Tunnel opened and superseded the old route with some big loops, the old Loetschberg Tunnel and the "ramp" on the side of the mountain approaching Brig. This is between Spiez and Brig. You can still go this way by specifying via Kandersteg on your ticket search. It will add one hour to the journey.

Where are you going? Tunnels are almost impossible to completely avoid in Switzerland, easier in Germany. And are you OK with relatively short tunnels (a few hundred meters or less)?

You cannot avoid tunnels in Switzerland, either by road or rail. All the main road and rail routes through the Alps have long tunnels. Even going up a valley, and in the lowlands there are tunnels. In many cases a town has been bypassed by a tunnel which goes into the hill-side in order to go round the town.
Trains have tunnels in all countries, not just in Switzerland. On any train journey, expect a short tunnel every 15-30 minutes. And the same applies to modern roads, these often can have short tunnels.

Sorry, but you will have to accept tunnels by road or rail.

If we fly to Zurich, would the train to Interlaken be tunnel-less?

Look i dont like tunnels, i would rather go through one in a train as i can close my eyes( not a good idea if driving a car) .

We spent 2 weeks driving the Alps in 2011. We drove in Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland and France. We drove on lots of twisty roads (my husband's favorite), over high passes and down in valleys. We have also taken the train from Germany through Austria to Italy. There are many tunnels. We loved both the drive and the train.

We've flown by small plane from Florence to Stuttgart. I loved that because the sky was clear and we didn't go very high, so the tops of the mountains seemed very close. Any way you go over or through the Alps is beautiful and amazing, but flying is the only way to avoid tunnels.

Get a Michelin Road Atlas or road maps of the countries if you want to see where most of the tunnels are. I say most because there may be some on smaller roads that aren't marked due to the smaller scale. The marking looks something like this: ====) (=====) (=== where the spaces between the reversed parenthesis represent the tunnel and the strung together equals signs are the open road.

"If we fly to Zurich, would the train to Interlaken be tunnel-less?" - No.
Look at the Swiss railway map here: https://www.swisspasses.com/railpass/overviewmap_en.pdf

• Zürich Flughafen (Zurich airport) station is in a tunnel underneath the airport, you emerge about 1 minute after the train starts.
• There is a tunnel under a hill about 5 minutes later. Depending on which train you get, it may use one of the underground platforms at Zürich HB (Zurich central) station.
• There is a tunnel near Baden.
• There is a long tunnel on the approach to Bern.
• There are some short tunnels on the approach to Interlaken, as the rail line (and the road) are squeezed between a lake and a mountain.

And those are just the ones I can remember off the top of my head. No rail line anywhere in Europe is going to be totally tunnel-free.
Even if you go by road (Autobahn A1) there are two tunnels on that route, one 1.4km (click here), plus short tunnels near Interlaken.
Sorry, but wherever you are in Europe you will find rail and road tunnels.

If you can't do the route via Bern because of the tunnels, you could try the Zurich - Luzern - Brunig Pass - Meiringen - Brienz - Interlaken Ost. Except you still have the tunnels out of the airport, through Zurich, possibly something between Zurich and Luzern, definitely into and out of Luzern by the roundhouse, a long one approaching Hergiswil, another one approaching Lungern and one after Brienz.

So, I'm sorry, it cannot be done easily.

Cars have many more tunnels.

It is a mountainous country and the efficient Swiss engineers have made the roads and train lines as straight and level as possible, and that means when they reach a valley the cross it on a bridge. When they reach a mountain they cut through with a tunnel.

Swiss road and train tunnels are some of the safest in the world.

Would you mind sharing the problems you have with tunnels?

You might be able to avoid tunnels, much of the time but not always, by only taking farm roads and local roads, and checking the maps as you go and being prepared to make significant detours.

You will also need to be prepared for single lane roads, often with significant drops on the unprotected side, and you will often have to yield to oncoming traffic or back up to a passing place, and very steep switchbacks. Those are the sort of things that the tunnels bypass.

We pretty much have to be vague here because other than Zurich we don't know any of your travel plans.

If you shared those perhaps one of the more knowledgeable and possibly local helpers could share their local knowledge with you...

As Nigel mentioned, it would help to have some idea on why you want to avoid tunnels, and also which places you'll be travelling to. Switzerland has an excellent rail system and that's usually the quickest and cheapest method to get between cities. Perhaps the easiest solution would be to board the train at Zürich airport and then have a nap, and that way you won't be aware of the tunnels. You'll likely be tired after a long international flight anyway.

It is going to be difficult to avoid all tunnels. Just the nature of traveling in the mountains. So the better question is now to deal with the tunnels. On the trains, they come with no warning so suddenly you are in a tunnel and just as suddenly you are out. Car is a bigger problem because you can see the tunnels coming.

Not knowing where else you might be going, this comparison of rapid transit options in Germany may or may not be useful for you.

Likewise for this info on the Zurich S-Bahn.

The point? These major forms of transportation are mostly in tunnels underground.

As I hinted at the beginning of the thread, the only way to avoid tunnels would be flying, but as soon as you put your feet on the earth and start moving, tunnels will be everywhere. Even routes that have no main tunnel in the pass area, like the Brenner railway that is a mild mountain railway, will have tunnels on the approaches - in the Brenner case, two line sections exposed to avalanches and landslides have been rebuilt as two tunnels, 5 kms and 12 kms long - but this is considered so normal that most people will not even remind there are tunnels up there. - When talking about the Gotthard (standard) railway line, most people will think about the summit tunnel and will forget the many tunnels on both sides - some of them in an helicoidal (corkscrew) shape.

we haven't ever heard back from atenkley so it is difficult to progress further in this discussion.

Two extremely short questions with no detail to build on.

So my guess is that the OP does not have the Eurostar on any future travel bucket list either.