Just recently returned from a two-week trip in Switzerland and had an AMAZING time! I thought I'd put down a few thoughts that I was unsure about during my planning process, and a few things I loved, and a few things I wish I'd done differently. For reference, I had a girls trip with two of my roommates, and we're all in our mid-20s.
- Should I get the Swiss Travel Pass, or Half Fare? I was going back and forth on this because I like to think of myself as a thrifty traveler, and was trying to calculate if it'd be better to just do the Half Fare pass since the STP was so expensive. In the end, we decided to go with the STP, and it was totally worth it. The biggest plus was the flexibility -- we didn't have to buy tickets every time at the train station, and if we ended up missing a connection, it was no big deal. We'd just take a different route to the same location. Plus free admission to museums was amazing!
- Bad weather forecast ahead of the trip... It was slated to be raining the entire time we were in Switzerland when I looked at the travel forecast ahead of time, and I was really stressed. However, even a day before, the weather often cleared up or wasn't the same as the forecast, and it ended up being great weather the whole time we were there. Pack layers and be willing to venture out with a bit of wet!
- French Switzerland homebase: Lausanne or Montreux? We made our homebase in Lausanne for touring French Switzerland, but in retrospect I think it'd be more convenient train-wise if we'd been in Montreux, since we had to train every day to Montreux anyway to visit Chateau de Chillon, do a daytrip to Gruyéres, and finally depart on the GoldenPass to Interlaken. Lausanne was, admittedly, more happening than Montreux, but it just depends on if you're more into bustling city life (or if you're interested at all in visiting Geneva).
- Panorama Loop Trail -- worth it in cloudy weather? One day it was pretty cloudy in the Berner Oberland and we still decided to venture out to do a hike on Panorama Loop Trail, but to be honest it was so cloudy we could hardly see anything. It was still fun, and we had a good time, but if I had to do it again I'd see if there was a hike that was under the cloud layer rather than in it -- especially since there was one point where a man was hiking pretty close behind us who gave off bad vibes, and I had a wary gut feeling (we were a group of three girls). It ended up feeling a tad unsafe given it was so misty and low-visibility, so we felt really isolated.
- A few restaurant recommendations, as a foodie! Tramdepot and Restaurant Mühlirad in Bern were amazing, as was Bellini Locanda Ticinese in Luzern. We also became big fans of the classic bratwurst (or cervelat, or schüblig) plus mustard plus bread combo you can get at casual takeaway restaurants. Perfect, yummy meal on the go!
- Our favorite hotel, hands down! Eiger Guesthouse Mürren was definitely our favorite hotel! The staff was great, the location was amazing, and it was overall a fantastic experience. Since we stayed there for a few days, we got to make friends with some of the staff, which was really sweet. :)
Anyway, I'm sure a lot of this info is on the forum already, but I thought I'd share my thoughts. :) And thank you to the kind folks on this forum who helped with questions I asked during the planning process for this trip! It was so fun, and we had an amazing time exploring a new corner of Europe.