Swiss travel questions.

With a Swiss Travel Pass you can take any public transit at will, on the days it is valid. If you are thinking on buying a Swiss Flex Pass, then yes, the stuff this is "included" is only included on travel days. That makes the Flex Pass not very useful in my opinion. A normal Swiss Travel Pass is valid for a number of consecutive days, and on those days you do have unlimited travel.

You are probably best off with either the Swiss Travel Pass which is convenient as you then do not have to worry about any tickets anymore. Or just buy the Half Fare Card and buy discounted tickets as you go.

If you look at the prices, a continuous pass is only a little more than a flex pass with half the number of days.
Example: a 15-day continuous 2nd class pass is 459 CHF, while an 8-day Flex pass is 439 CHF.
If the pass is active, it is valid on Zurich public transport.

Any day you use the pass activates that as a counted day. So if you have a flexible pass, and show it for a discount, it's considered a day of use.
I find the convenience of the STP worth the money. I also find more uses for it once I'm in country. Enjoy this beautiful area! Safe travels!

I went back and looked at my plans and the Consecutive Pass cost per day and I see what you are saying. When I consider the convenience, I really see the advantage.

Thank you all very much. You will very likely see more questions from me before this trip.

Blessings,
Sharon

I have used the STP for one trip then half fare card and single tickets for the next trip that were similar to your itinerary. The STP is nice that you don't have to buy transportation tickets, you still need to find the train/bus/boat to take. The one minor downside of the half fare card was the pain of showing it every time they checked my ticket. All in all. transportation was never stressful using either method. The SBB app makes the ticket purchase very easy. I used the transportation mode filter in the app that helped for boat tickets.

I liked Schaffhausen and Rhine Falls (+boat ride). Last month I was at Pilatus and Titlus. Pilatus was busy with long lines for the cable car and train. The toboggan ride had a 2 wait time. I enjoyed both but if I only could see one it would be Titlus and Trubsee. The train to Engleberg was nice too.

Sharon,

We always purchase the 15 day consecutive pass to travel in Switzerland. We appreciate that we do not need to keep purchasing tickets and it allows us to "serendipitize" (a word I made up). For example coming down from the Rigi to Vitznau we can decide to take a boat to go back to Lucerne. The boat on Lake Lucerne is included in the pass. Or maybe we aren't ready to go back to Lucerne. So we take the boat all the way to the end of the lake, stopping in Brunnen for a bite to eat. On one trip we got to the top of the Rigi, walked around and decided to take cog train down the other side, back up to Rigi again and down the other side to Vitznau where we got on a boat back to Gersau where we hopped on a bus to get to our lodging. All this included in the Swiss pass. Another time we took the train from Brienz to Luzern and back again, stopping at Brunig Pass to shop at the antique store located there. Got back on the train to Brienz. When we got to Brienz we saw a boat at the dock and decided to take the boat to Interlaken where we ate dinner after which we took the train back to Brienz where we were staying. This is the way we travel when traveling independently. YMMV.

Have fun planning your trip! You're going to have a great time!

Traveler Girl

There are two ways to approach this...

1) Make a list of all the trips you want to do, price them, and figure out the best combination of passes.
2) Get a pass, treat it as a sunk cost, and just get the most out of your pass.

HFC + Regional pass fits very well in the 2nd strategy btw. My parents visit me every year here in Wengen, and they just get the Berner Oberland pass, and then spend days just joyriding all the different railways and cable cars...

Thank all of you very much!

Blessings,
Sharon