We have been going back and forth about whether to get the Swiss Travel Pass or the Half-Fare Card for our upcoming trip. I love the convenience of not having to purchase each ticket, getting on boat rides whenever and not paying each time for a museum. I am just not sure if $826 (6 days) or $895 (8 days) is worth the money. Our itinerary is below. Any help or thoughts is greatly appreciated.
1 night in Zurich,
2 nights in Lucerne,
2 nights in Murren,
3 nights in Lausanne
Financially, one can't really make this decision based solely upon the number of destinations and nights at locations. You need to write down the cost of every transportation, cable car, funicular, museum, etc. that you will visit and then compare the cost with or without the possible types of passes. Otherwise, it's a bit of a guess.
Or you can can not do that and just buy a pass so that it will be convenient. Or you can pay full price or leverage super-saver type discounts on trains when they are available.
Purchasing a ticket is not a big deal. And with the STP you still will have to buy tickets for mountain railways etc... And for local travel you can often just buy a day pass, eg. for getting around Lausanne. You will not have to constantly buy tickets.
I was just in Switzerland for 13 nights and spent a little over $400 including the half-fare card. The $400 includes a gondola ride and funicular ride. I did day passes for within the city and did point to point to tickets from city to city. I booked a few super saver tickets which saved a lot, but you have to know what time you need to take the train, bus, etc. and you have to go on only those. For example, I bought a super saver ticket from Zurich to Geneva 5 days in advance for 19.60 CHF. If I would have bought it on the day we were leaving, it would have been over 80 CHF.
Like others have said, you would need to add up your excursions and add them up to see if the Swiss Travel Pass is worth it. You will have to buy tickets for each day but not constantly throughout the day. I would buy day passes for the city in the morning and use throughout the day. For example, I bought a day pass for Zurich in the morning for 13 CHF and went all over Zurich including boats.
You can buy city to city tickets ahead of time to get a better supersaver rate or sometimes there are supersaver rates (not as discounted as in advance) with some routes on the day of. The SBB app is great for seeing how much trips are and I highly recommend downloading it and trying out some routes to see the prices.
Transporation in Switzerland is so great and the SBB app is so helpful! Good luck with your travel.
