MyWay Alpine - for "young" seniors

The beauty of the My Way tour is you can do what you want. My husband is visually impaired and was able to do easy hikes. He particularly enjoyed walking along the river on a flat trail along the river in Lauterbrunnen. I had a foot issue at the time and chose hikes within my abilities. The hikes by Castelrotto vary. There are wide open meadows with gradual hills that you could do. Your tour facilitator can advise you on which trails would be best for your abilities. It was a wonderful way to tour the area.

I did this tour as a young senior and will probably do it again 10 years later. This is not a hiking tour per se. Hiking is up to you. I stroll. Salzburg - lots to see that is not remotely oriented to hiking. Dolomites, well, if you do not want to walk, Bolzano is a great town to visit. Fuessen, likewise - not to mention the castles. I especially enjoyed my lakeside lunch in Schwangau. There was a community concert one night we were in Fuessen. Lauterbrunnen - if you do choose the flat valley walk, you can take the lift at Stechelberg to Gimmelwald and enjoy the sites from the Pension patio. Wengen is kinda cool to visit. Nice little train goes there. Enjoy a lake cruise in Interlaken. Chamonix - everyone (or so it seems) heads up the Aiguille du Midi cable car.

I loved this tour - hence thinking about repeating it. It can be very relaxing - note the bus rides between locations. You reach your destination in the afternoons, check-in and get your bearings, stroll around and figure out how to spend the evening. It is the following day (or two in Lauterbrunnen) that you have substantial walking potential, and it really is up to you. One of our forum members has written and published some books on easy hiking in both the Dolomites and the Berner Oberland. Check her out on Amazon. She explains the difficulty of walks along with transportation options and things like where to make pit-stops and refreshment breaks.

If the itinerary and locations appeal to you, I am sure you will find enough to keep you interested. Note, somewhere in my readings, I recall Rick Steves telling us that the swiss use seniors to mark the approximate length of time to get from place to place on trails. Well, I am slower than swiss seniors, it seems - but it is all so beautiful, I did not mind.

You forgot Murren, it's a flat walk from the cable car to the train station which takes you back down to Lauterbrunnen.

The 4 of us were in our early 60s when we did this tour. The best part is you can do as much or as little as you want. For example, on the bus day into the Dolomites, our tour manager talked to each traveling party and asked our plans. She steered us to a more challenging hike, but there was clearly at least one other hike in the area that might match your abilities. Remember, just about every other day is a "bus" day, and on the days we hiked, there seemed to always be other options, including staying in the town and enjoying good food and drink, along with amazing vistas. I highly recommend this tour!

My tour included a couple in their 30's with 3 kids aged 8 to 10, some in 50's-70's with various hiking abilities, and several people who were avid mountain hikers, also a woman who had injured her knee so she couldn't do any strenuous walking, let alone hikes. She went up the t-bar in the Dolomites for the views and went paragliding in Chamonix! There are many levels of activities available and your tour leader should be able to help you determine what is most suitable for you ahead of each day's activities. Visiting the castles on your day in Fussen would include many, many stairs and some uphill walking to get to them. Fussen is a pretty town to just wander in.

I'm doing this tour next summer and I'm not an avid "hiker". I do like to stroll. But aside from strolling, I'm looking forward to visiting castles, tram rides up mountains, walking around Old Towns, seeing waterfalls, boat rides on lake, etc. I think it will be a good balance between walks and other things to do/see.

Thanks for the responses so far. Great insights and suggestions!!