My wife and I will be flying to Zurich in September and I am having a difficult time deciding which train passes make the most sense for us. Our itinerary as of now:
Day 1-Arrive Zurich airport, need transportation to Lucerne. We will be staying in Lucerne for 4 nights.
Day 2-Explore Lucerne.
Day 3 and 4-We would like to do some day trips from Lucerne using the rail system. We will be returning to our hotel in Lucerne each night. We would also like some suggestions on which day trips might be doable on each of those 2 days.
Day 5-Lucerne to Basel.
Does the Swiss Travel 4 day flex pass make sense for this type of itinerary? We would only be traveling by train for 4 out of 5 days, but not consecuatively. Or would a regular 3 day pass for the last 3 days work better, and just buy single tickets from Zurich to Lucerne? Would the 4 day flex pass allow us to use buses and get us into museums in Lucerne, even though we would not be traveling by train on our 2nd day?
Thanks for any suggestions or advice anyone can give me.
Posted by
Medford, OR, USA
5835 posts
https://www.sbb.ch/en/travelcards-and-tickets/tickets-for-switzerland/individual-tickets.html
Do the numbers. Point to point tickets at full price vs. cost of the pass plus discounted point to point.
We stayed at a hotel in Luzern and were given a Luzern Visitors Card that included free local transit:
https://www.luzern.com/en/footernavigation/services/visitor-card-lucerne/
The Visitor Card gives you free use of buses and trains within zone 10
of the city network, as well as a range of discounts for cableways,
mountain railways, museums and excursions in the Lucerne-Lake Lucerne
Region.
https://www.inyourpocket.com/lucerne/Getting-around
Lucerne’s public transport network includes buses and local trains.
The ticket system is fairly simple: Lucerne’s regional network is
divided into zones. You don’t buy tickets for a trip, but rather for a
zone. Lucerne city is zone number 10 which includes all of the city
and part of the agglomeration (e.g. municipalities of Kriens,
Emmenbrücke, Meggen, Littau). Tickets are valid in the chosen zones on
buses and local trains. As a visitor, zone 10 is most probably all
you'll need, as all the sights and even the bus ride to the valley
station of the cable car to popular Mount Pilatus is within this zone.
Posted by
Green Bay
20090 posts
If you use one of the benefits of the Swiss Travel Flex Pass, it counts as a day of usage.
A 4-day Flex pass costs 323 CHF per person. You might look at the 3-day Tell Pass which covers anything in the area at 100%, where many lifts the STP only covers at 50%.
https://www.tellpass.ch/en/discover/whats_the_tell-pass_all_about/
So you could buy full price tickets from Zurich airport to Luzern (30 CHF per person) and Luzern to Basel (34 CHF). The 210 CHF for the 3-day Tell Pass and your cost is 274 CHF per person.
Posted by
OP
New Mexico
2 posts
Sam, the Tell Pass plus the full price tickets from Zurich and to Basel sounds pretty good to me price wise. The other question I have is, looking at the map, the Tell Pass would not get us to Interlaken, etc. Am I being a bit too ambitious trying to do longer day trips further than what the Tell Pass allows? I do like the idea of not being restricted to where we can go, but obviously it is at a higher cost. But realistically, It looks like the Tell Pass does cover a lot of area. What are some recommendations for 3 day trips from Lucerne?
Thanks
Posted by
Green Bay
20090 posts
The Tell Pass does get you to Interlaken Ost station, but that is the limit.
https://www.tellpass.ch/__/frontend/handler/document/42/139/Tell_Pass_Prospekt_Sommer_2018_streckennetz.pdf
What are some recommendations for 3 day trips from Lucerne?
Go to Engleberg, and if it is a clear day, up to Titlis.
Pilatus Kulm and Rigi Kulm are 2 other mountain top excursions. A lake boat ride to the far end of the Vierwaldstaettersee (Lake Luzern) to Fluelen.