My husband and I are planning to buy Swiss Pass tickets for our 9-day July trip to Switzerland in July (from upstate New York)--it appears to be worth the $375 apiece as we will take trains from Zurich to Basel, Basil to Bern, then Bern to the Bernese Oberland for 6 days of hiking during which we will be on trains, cable cars and trams a lot before returning to Zurich. Any advice about that?
Assuming it does sound like a plan--can you tell me exactly how the 8-day pass works? is a "day" a calendar day? or is it like rental cars, where a day is a 24 hour period starting whenever you first use the Swiss pass? If the former is true, and our arrival day counts as a whole day, then we are probably best off buying our train tickets separately from Zurich to Basel, then starting the Swiss pass the next day and using it for the remaining 8 calendar days of the trip (July 8 through July 15).
Thanks for any advice!