Traveling through Swizterland

All of those cities are connected by train; relax while taking the train

Your list of destinations is rather unusual from the tourist standpoint, though they are all nice enough. Most visitors to Switzerland want to spend time in the mountains.

Is this a business trip or a holiday?

I can't recommend highly enough the value of renting a car in Switzerland. Many people on this site tout how good the Swiss rail system, and it is top notch. But it is also the most expensive system in Europe. If there are two or more of you, renting a car will be less expensive than train, much more convenient (go when you want, stop where you want, go off route if you want), and not at all stressful (they have great highways in Switzerland). Europcar and Sixt are the companies I would recommend and neither has one-way dropoff fees.

For us, it was cheaper to rent a car for a week and leave it parked in Stechelberg for three days while we stayed in Murren, than it would have been to get point-to-point train tickets for our route Basel - Bern - Murren - Luzern - Chur.

So call me a contrarian to Rick Steves orthodoxy, but here's a vote for renting a car.

Darrenblois: The OP is not traveling to the Berner Oberland (Stechelberg). Parking and navigating in Geneva, Zurich, or ANY large city is vastly different both in complexity and cost than sleepy little Stechelberg.

Tim, we had no problem driving to or through Basel, Bern, or Luzern. A GPS is all you need. Very good street systems in Switzerland. If all you want to see is downtowns, by all means stick to train only. I love trains for some places. That is why we went to Chur, to catch the train to Italy. I just think in Switzerland, there is more to see than what is on a rail route.

darrenblois - have you traveled in Switzerland via train? I feel like you can get Anywhere in Switzerland by public transport! We have rented cars in some places - but never in Switzerland, and I can't imagine wanting to.

I have travelled in Switzerland by train, between Basel, Bern and Zurich. But why is this about me? I just offered my opinion that renting a car is cheaper and more flexible. As I said, I appear to have offended orthodoxy because, of course, those people know that theirs is the only way anyone would want to travel.

what orthodoxy? Don't say silly things. Some like one thing, some the other. For the record I have done both, several times. Usually I combine both and am always happy in Switzerland.

I haven't seen an answer to my question as whether this is a business trip, which may be different.

You and I agree, Nigel. Some ways work better for some people at some times, and other ways work better for other people at other times. My comment about "orthodoxy" was certain people here making it seem like the "wrong" choice to rent a car (eg "I can't imagine why anyone would want to do that"; or the personal, "have you ever ridden through Switzerland" by train").

I was merely suggesting it as an option for the original poster. Look at my original response and see if there was anything "wrong" about it. If not, why all the criticism?

This is just the beginning of our trip. No it is not business. We have 2 weeks and plan to land in Geneva, go to Neuschwanstein, Salzburg, Vienna, Prague, and back to Geneva to fly out. Car seems to give freedom to drive and get places at our pace. I know a lot of what we want to see is in the cities. So weigh in on if trains for 4 adults is the better way to go not to worried about the cost, more about convenience and getting to where we need to be in a timely manner.

Well, if the cost is not that important then train wins. Faster, more comfortable, better scenery, no problems with parking, tickets, or potential accident. Car is almost always a burden in European cities. What you want to see are almost all cities. I vote train. If you were more into countryside that would be different.

darrenblois - very odd you preaching about orthodoxy and yet you seem to be the one most offended by people disagreeing with you. If you're gonna give advice you may as well get used to people disagreeing with you...