Basel to the Schluchtensteig Trail

Whether you arrive in Switzerland or EU is trivial. They are both in Schengen. To get to Wehr, the best way is through Basel SBB station and there are buses from Basel airport (on the Swiss side) to Basel SBB every 7 1/2 minutes. That is much easier than taking the shuttle bus to St Louis station then taking a train to Basel SBB, which is much less frequent than the buses.

There are AFAIK no direct flights from the US to Basel. So you will be connecting through some other airport. If that other airport is in the Schengen area you will do immigration there, and in BSL you will usually just walk out after picking up your luggage.

If you come from outside the Schengen area you will do immigration at BSL, and you can choose wether you have French or a Swiss border guard process you, but in the end it does not matter, because after immigration everyone ends up in the same luggage hall. That there are both Swiss and French border guards is just to spread the workload. After you pick up your luggage you can choose if you exit in to France or in to Switzerland.

Take the Swiss exit, and then the bus to SBB, and train from there. The whole route can be planned on www.sbb.ch, just select "Basel Euroairport" as origing and "Wehr (D) busbahnhof" as destination.

Note that if you can get a direct flight to either Zurich or Frankfurt that may be a better option. Then just take trains from there.

as said, you are very unlikely to find a US flight to Basel - Frankfurt or Zurich are the obvious airports for US flights, you could check Stuttgart but I wouldn't build your hopes up. You might find a connecting flight to Basel via London Heathrow or Amsterdam which is cheap enough to justify the hassle - and if it was via Amsterdam you would do the Schengen entry process there.

The big question here is the planned date of travel because the german railway which sort of connects the two ends of the walk is closed for a massive rebuild until the middle of 2027, with a batch of replacement buses filling in gaps. This is not a total disaster because with a little bit of sideways thinking you can actually avoid it.

I'm assuming that you can read a map if you intend to do this. Look at Stühlingen, now look 2 miles east, see the Swiss village of Schleitheim? That has a city bus to Schaffhausen railway station every 30 minutes (hourly on Sundays), all have train connections to Zurich Airport, often direct. The journey between Schleitheim and the airport can be less than 90 minutes. Because of the 2 mile gap this gets missed by the usual journey planning sites. And if you intend to walk the trail I take it you can manage this 30-40 minute extension. In the SBB journey planner use locations Schleitheim, Bahnhofstrasse and Zürich Flughafen - ticketing is integrated so you can buy one ticket for the whole journey, even from the bus driver.

For the Wehr end it's almost as easy and in this case the SBB journey planner gets it right (DB get it wrong!). Every hour direct train from Zurich Airport to Basel SBB has connection to Schopfheim with bus to Wehr (the Basel-Wehr section is the same as if coming from Basel airport).

Your profile gives no hint as to your location, but previous posts seem to indicate your location has direct flights to Zurich. If that is the case, that would be the easiest, rather than taking a connecting flight to Basel Europort. If you wish to start the hike in Stuehlingen, it is a combination of trains and buses from Zurich Airport that will get you there in 2 1/4 to 2 3/4 hours. If you want to start in Wehr, it is about 2 3/4 hours from Zurich Airport, simplest via Basel SBB.

I wasn't sure if it was too esoteric of a question to ask but was very pleasantly surprised at the amount of helpful information forum members provided. Because Switzerland is not an EU member, I stupidly assumed it also wasn't a member of the Schengen Area. That makes a ton of difference.

The consensus both here and from the tour company is flying direct to Zurich from the US will be the best best for us. I will have to keep an eye on those rail closures as well.

Thanks everyone for the help!

P.S. "me.crewe" your tip to train to Schleitheim and just walk to Stühlingen was genius. So much simpler. I don't know why the tour company itinerary advised train to Lauchringen and then bus to Stühlingen?

Bus on the Schleitheim section of the journey! It's currently a stretched Mercedes (something to tell the folks at home....:) - this is one on the journey towards Schaffhausen https://api.vbsh.ch/fileadmin/processed/4/a/csmregionalbus-siblinger-hoeheb236e8716d.jpg
heading out of Schaffhausen they depart from the obvious stop across the road from the main exit of the station showing Line 21 and destination either Schleitheim or Beggingen (which is beyond Schleitheim). The stop in Schleitheim is called Bahnhofstrasse and is just of the main road which is signposted Deutschland. From Schaffhausen the bus should announce the stops, when it calls yours press the stop button, it will turn the corner off the main road and then stop - you walk back to the main road. Travelling towards Schaffhausen you walk into the village on the main road until the intersection with Bahnhofstrasse and turn left, the stop is a little way down on the left (so the bus will be running facing you). When they arrive at Schaffhausen Bahnhof again you press the stop button - although it will probably be stopping anyway you should be right by the entrance. The direct trains between Zurich Airport and Schaffhausen of marked as Line S24, from the airport they usually go through to Thayngen, towards the airport they usually go through to Zug (which is also the german word for train!). From the upper deck of the S24 you get a great view of the Rheinfalls just south of Schaffhausen, left side from the airport. This video rather helpfully shows the entire process from Airport arrivals to Schaffhausen station bus stops! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPtLtjesz3E although he's wrong about luggage space, there's a lot under the seats!

The people from the tour company probably don't use public transport, especially Swiss public transport. Just looking at Google maps suggested that a village as large as Schleitheim must have a bus service so I just zoomed in until the bus stops were marked then clicked on one to find out what the route was. Pity it doesn't cross the border but we can't win them all.

Thanks for the video link! Schaffhausen looks interesting. I think we need to plan on spending a day just exploring it.

Schaffhausen is interesting, especially it's past history https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/history/swisshistorypics_when-the-americans-bombed-a-swiss-city/44865520

The Rheinfalls are actually in the suburb of Neuhausen and some local trains stop at the small station of Neuhausen Rheinfall (must have both parts of the name, there are two other stations there). From the end of the platform furthest from Schaffhausen there is a very good view of the falls, if you leave by the exit from that end of the platform and follow the road a short distance there is a small park area with a fantastic view, especially afternoon when the sun has come around. Go even further and drop down to water level and there are the mad boat trips into the falls!

As wellas the train there are Schaffhausen city buses for the centre, Lines 1 and 7 go to Neuhausen Zentrum, which is a block behind Rheinfall railway station - and Line 21 (Schleitheim bus) stops at Kreuzstrasse which is higher up but still only 12 minutes walk to the park with viewing.