My husband and I are traveling to Switzerland for our 10 year anniversary in January. We were originally going to rent a car, but now thinking that using trains may be best, but am having a hard time trying to navigate between using the Swiss Travel Pass, Half Fare Card or just buying tickets straight up.
Itinerary:
Day 1: Arrive in Geneva, travel to Montreux (12 CHF pp)
Day 2: Montreux (possible trip to Gruyeres (44 CHF roundtrip pp)
Day 3: Montreux to Murren (35 CHF pp)
Day 4: Murren (travel around BO)
Day 5: Murren to Zermatt (60 CHF pp)
Day 6-8: Zermatt
Day 9: Zermatt to Zurich (70 CHF pp)
Day 10: Depart via Zurich
Any guidance would be appreciated. Just looking at prices on SBB, it appears those journeys end up around 221 pp, which obviously is significantly less than the Travel Pass @ 419CHF pp. Half card ends up being about the same as well 120 for card + 110 for tickets, but would make sense if we add on any other little train jaunts, but I feel like I'm missing something. Is the only downside of the half-fare card that you end up having to buy one-off tickets? If we don't have a super strict itinerary, would there be concern of just showing up when we want to leave/go somewhere and buy ticket?