Zurich to Lake Como Drive

The best thing I can suggest is to let the navigation in the car show you the way. My husband and I drove between Como and Luzern (very near Zurich) a few months back. The drive is lovely, takes only 2-3 hours.

Peter: The ViaMichelin website (click below) is used by many experienced Europe road warriors to help plan and customize Europe driving routes:ViaMichelin road trip planningThe ViaMichelin site can be a bit confusing to first time users (for example, when you input To and From destinations the site often comes back at you with a pop-up making you choose between 15 towns with similar names)--so, if you prefer, here's another online map website that's a bit more user-friendly:GoogleMapHeads Up: If your final destination is any mid-lake Lake Como towns of Varenna, Bellagio, etc (that Rick recommends over the town of Como), then I strongly recommend that you avoid the section of SS340 going east from Lugano to Menaggio, it is the shortest route to Lake Como mid-lake destinations but that section of road, once it gets east of Lugano, is considered stressful even by Italian standards (even the locals admit it!), due to its extreme narrowness at many points, esp. when passing the buses that regularly transport locals (and tourists in the know) between Lugano and Menaggio. To use Google Map for your route planning, input Zurich in the main search box, then enter Como, Italy in the To Here pop up, that will route you around the scary part. It's a 3 hour drive, straight driving time, not including pit stops or other stops.I agree with Erin: many travelers have been glad they made the extra effort to have a GPS for driving/navigating in Italy.