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Help! Which Pass to Purchase for 9 Day Trip to Lucerne & Berner Oberland

Posted by (California) on

Like many others, I am struggling to determine which travel pass to purchase for an upcoming trip. I'd appreciate any advice from seasoned travelers to Switzerland to help us cover the most ground at the best price.

Our family is 2 adults & a 5 year old. We're debating whether to purchase an 8-day Swiss Travel Pass or 6-day Berner Oberland Pass plus individual point to point tickets (i.e. from Zurich to Lucerne) as needed.

Our trip will be 8 nights total, flying in and out of Zurich with 5 nights in Lauterbrunnen then 3 nights in Lucern.
Since we'll have a 5 yo in tow, we're trying to cover lots of playgrounds, kid-friendly museums/attractions and easygoing walks/hikes. We are intentionally skipping Jungfraujoch (for now), as it doesn't seem worth the expense or the long train ride with a young child. I'd welcome any feedback or thoughts on this and the proposed itinerary below.

Thank you!

  • Day 1: afternoon flight into Zurich, train to Lauterbrunnen
  • Day 2: Lauterbrunnen river walk, Trummelbach Falls
  • Day 3: Cable car & funicular to Allmendhubel, children's adventure trail down to Murren, explore Gimmelwald
  • Day 4: Thun Castle and/or St. Beatus Caves
  • Day 5: Ballenberg Open Air Museum
  • Day 6: Travel to Lucerne, explore old Lucerne
  • Day 7: Swiss Transportation Museum
  • Day 8: Lindt Chocolate World
  • Day 9: midday flight out of Zurich
Posted by
21140 posts

You are not doing any extraordinarily expensive trips, so i am wondering if just 2 Half Fare Cards and the free Family Card will not be less money over all. Do a spreadsheet with all your trips, full fare, with HFC.

Posted by
17417 posts

The main advantage of the BO Pass over a regular Swiss Travel Pass is that the BO Pass concludes full coverage on many of the gondolas and cablecars in the region. But you are only doing the Allmendhubel funicular, and it is not very expensive, not enough to justify the BO Pass. A Swiss Pass or Half Fare Card will give you 50% off that.

Like Sam I wonder if you have enough total expense there to justify any pass. But the included museums on the Swiss Travel Pass, together with the train travel to and from those museums, might make it worthwhile for at least days 4-7. I think the BO Pass only gives a discount on most (at least the Ballenburg Museum was discounted for us last September).

Not that the Children’s Adventure trail down from Allmendhubel appears to have disappeared during the pandemic. At least we could not find any trace of it last September—-and we knew where to look as the grandkids did it in 2018. But consider taking the North Face trail down instead—-it is a very easy walk, and very scenic. The grandchildren did it easily when they had just turned 6.

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