Day Trips from Basel

1. There is no best time but for sure book it now. I have been getting a lot of solicitations lately about fall winter sells from all the airlines I fly.
2. I am going to Luzern a month from now. I would consider that an excellent place to go as day trip on train from Basel. You should refer to a guide book to see what Luzern has to offer that you would want to see.

Fly to Zurich nonstop on Swiss International, then get a train from the airport to Basel. It's only about an hour away.
What price are you seeing now? If you like the price, get it. It might go up or down, but more likely up.

Day trip? Colmar, France.

@Sam - Thanks! We are considering flying in to Zurich as flights seem cheaper but we will be flying back from Madrid. Someone told me to download the Hopper app to watch flights. Right now flight from NY to Zurich and Madrid to NY at Swiss Air is around $1550++.

@ Jazz + Travels - I have heard Lucerne is a beautiful city. Would love to hear about your trip.

Try searching the sites for Wow Airlines, Norwegian Air, and SAS directly if you want good prices
You can buy one way flights at reasonable prices on the former 2, these will all be connecting flights

Early November isn't peak season for vacation travel, and I would not panic about buying the ticket now. I have no crystal ball, but I'd monitor fares frequently (daily if I could remember to do so) and be prepared to jump if something really good comes along. I would hope and expect to do much much better than $1500 flying out of NYC. Be flexible about the airline you fly, though. And consider that it's sometimes possible to save hundreds of dollars by changing your departure date by just one or two days. With some luck you may snag a really good deal on non-stop flights.

From my origin Zurich always seems to be the cheapest Swiss destination, but NYC might be different, and it wouldn't hurt to monitor fares to Geneva as well. And in the unlikely event that November fares to Switzerland stay at the current (very high) level, I'd even look at Milan, for which I've sometimes seen really good prices.

Wow, I'm seeing open jaw non stops on the big 3 networks (Delta, United, American) of $639 open jaw NYC to Zurich and return 19 to 23 days later from Madrid.

Now, that's a good deal. I'd grab it and not look back. Gamblers might see that as an indication of even better deals to come, though.

Mahleendel, were you perhaps pricing two separate one-way tickets? You don't want to do that unless you're shopping the bargain carriers like WOW, Icelandair and Norwegian Air Shuttle. As Sam indicated, you need to look at multi-city (open-jaw) flights.

We did Basel as a day trip from Frieburg so I would think you could do the opposite. We really enjoyed Frieburg!

Here's a past thread that will be helpful:
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/switzerland/where-to-go-from-basel

Thank you for all your replies! Took your advice and booked our multi-city flight . We finally decided NY to Basel. Any suggestions on hotels in Basel. So excited!