Our grand total for traveling Switzerland for one month is…
We’re Jana and Brett. Since our honeymoon 9 years ago, we’ve spent more than 24 months
living and traveling in Europe. So far we’ve ventured to 25 countries but our
goal is to visit every country in Europe and to explore every nook and cranny of the Alps.
Today’s video is going to be a little bit different than normal,
and that’s because instead of taking you on an adventure,
we’re going to share with you exactly what we spent for 1 month in Switzerland!
But before we jump into details, I have a little story to tell you. So when I was a teenager I
came to Switzerland for the very first time on a family vacation, and I fell in love with the
country. And I remember telling my daddy that I was going to honeymoon in Switzerland one day.
And that’s exactly what we did! In 2012, we spent 2 weeks traveling Switzerland for our honeymoon.
We spent about $5000 excluding airfare, which would be around $6000 if you adjust for inflation
today. We were young, naive, and inexperienced, but we had a blast and it was totally worth it!
Since then, we’ve been back to Switzerland 7 or 8 times because we just love this country, but
we’ve never come for more than like a week-or-so at a time because it always seems so expensive.
But this Spring, we starting wondering, is Switzerland as expensive as we think?
What if spend a whole month there and it actually turns out to be more affordable?
So, if you’re wondering how to travel Switzerland on a budget,
we have good news for you. We’re going to share our cost of living expenses for one
month in Switzerland! And then you can decide whether it’s affordable or not.
The two of us spent 30 nights in Interlaken. And we broke down our expenses into 4 categories:
Lodging, Transportation, Food and drinks, and Sightseeing and entertainment
Let’s go through each category and then we’ll share our grand total
for one month. But be sure to stick around to the
very end where we’ll share with you the fact that we actually spent even less than that!
Our first category is lodging. We booked 30 nights in an awesome airbnb in Interlaken
for only $1900. You guys, that’s less than $450 per week, including the tourist tax
which you have to pay no matter where you stay! So here’s how we got such a good deal:
First, we stayed for more than 28 nights, which gave us a massive 39% Airbnb monthly discount.
Second, we messaged our Airbnb host and asked for a greater discount.
Now obviously they didn’t give us one because it was already 39%
off, but we always ask, and I'd say about half of the time they give us one.
And third, we stayed in a more residential area instead of the city center.
We prefer the quiet suburbs better, it’s also cheaper than the city center,
and we were still only a 7 minute walk from the main train station.
Before we jump into the next category, we have an important public service announcement. Our flight
to Switzerland was on SWISS, not Swiss Air, not Swiss Airlines. We flew SWISS. I tried to tell ya that…
Seriously, we really enjoy reading and replying to your comments, and we learn so much from you. But
it was pretty hilarious when Jana was replying to the same comment about SWISS for the 44th time...
Okay, now that we have that cleared up, let’s talk about transportation!
There's just no way to avoid it: public transportation in Switzerland is
fabulously expensive! Fabulously! Probably more so than you'll find anywhere else in Europe.
During our month exploring Interlaken and the Jungfrau Region, we spent $930
on transportation. That’s: $409 for our Swiss Half Fare cards. $138 for train tickets to and from
the airport. $230 for trains, buses, and boats during our stay. And $153 for mountain lifts.
I know, not cheap! But there were some key choices we made
that kept it from being even more out of control…
The first was choosing to stay in Interlaken. During past trips to this area we avoided
Interlaken like the plague, preferring more charming villages such as Murren or Gimmelwald.
But for this month, it just made practical sense.
Interlaken has the most well-connected transport system in the region, making day trips to
multiple valleys, lakes, and nearby towns a breeze. Staying here allowed us to spend less
time and money getting to the most beautiful spots, and more time actually enjoying them.
An added benefit of staying in Interlaken is that we both received the Interlaken
visitor’s card which covered public transportation throughout Interlaken
and nearby villages for our entire stay. And when he says covered, he means completely free!
This card enabled us to reach the Niederhorn lift, the St. Beatus Hohlen Caves, and the super
charming village of Iseltwald for NOTHING! On top of that, we could go halfway around Lake Brienz,
and one stop more toward the Lauterbrunnen valley before we ever had to purchase a train ticket.
In total, these Interlaken visitor’s cards saved us over $400
during our month in Switzerland, but you could gain even greater cost savings if
you take advantage of the sightseeing discounts available with the cards!
The second decision that saved us money on transportation was choosing to buy
the Swiss Half Fare card. We paid $409 to buy a card for each of us,
and they do exactly what they say: give you a 50% discount on public transportation in Switzerland.
It took some time to recoup the cost of our cards, but after our month in Switzerland,
they had completely paid for themselves, and saved us an additional $115. The best part is that we’re
now entitled to a 50% discount on all public transportation in Switzerland for an entire year!
There are a few other strategies we used to save money on transportation in Switzerland,
but you’ve already been staring at my face for way too long! So let’s move on to food and drinks!
Is Switzerland expensive? Some things are, like transportation and restaurants. Which
is why nearly half of our $900 food and drink budget was spent on groceries.
Buying groceries is way more affordable than eating out in restaurants all the time,
which is why we chose to shop at our favorite high-quality discount grocery store: Aldi. Also,
a pro tip, meat can be super expensive in Switzerland so we just ate less meat than normal.
Other than groceries, we spent $360 on restaurants, markets, and farm food. Now
$200 of that was spent just on a special anniversary dinner and returning to our favorite
restaurant from our honeymoon. But I can’t talk about food without mentioning the self-service
farms! They are super cool and an awesome way to eat local when you’re in Switzerland!
The last category in our food budget is for drinks.
For $145 we had 3 bottles of wine and 4 beers from the grocery store,
9 coffees and 3 juices at cafes, and 5 glasses of wine or beer at mountain huts.
And we can’t forget the sirop! ...if you watched our DIY Swiss Food Tour video,
then you know exactly what I’m talking about.
And I just want you to know that we now enjoy sirop nearly every single day - the right way :)
Before I tell you what we spent on sightseeing and entertainment, I need to tell you a couple things:
In our opinion the best entertainment is going for a hike in the beautiful Swiss Alps!
We typically don’t visit museums or do a lot of the extreme sports activities that
are super popular in the area, so our “entertainment” budget is really low.
Also, we’ve been to this area before. So we’ve already seen the Jungfrau and the Schilthorn,
two of the most iconic mountains in the area, and we also have visited Trummelbach Falls. So this
time we chose to search out some newer experiences that might not be as well know with the tourists.
So that’s why we only spent
$22 on sightseeing and entertainment. And that was for a very relaxing day at Blausee.
Obviously if you come to Switzerland for the first time you’re probably going to spend more
than we did on sightseeing, and that’s totally okay! We work while we travel,
and spend months at a time on the road, so it’s more important to us
to find a sustainable lifestyle pace than to experience everything in a single trip.
And now the moment you’ve been waiting for…
Our grand total for traveling switzerland for 1 month is...
$3742
But hold on, because it’s actually even better than that!
And that’s because we saved an additional $1440 using credit card rewards! Now I won’t go into
all of the details, otherwise this video would be like an hour long, but it’s helpful to know that
we saved up enough points through various programs to completely pay for our half fare cards,
all of our mountain lifts, $600 toward our airbnb, and $110 of our groceries!
If you’re interested in knowing more about the credit card strategies we use,
let us know in the comments below!
After subtracting credit card rewards, our grand total out of pocket cost was only $2300!
For one month in the Swiss Alps!
So if you’re wondering can you afford to travel to Switzerland or how to travel
Switzerland on a budget, you might just need to stay for a whole month!
Remember, every traveler is unique, and you certainly don’t have to travel like we do!
But we hope this helps you even a little bit as you plan your next trip to Switzerland.
Ahh,
I’ll never get this right.
The two of us spent 30 nights in interlaken… We did, yep.
So if you're wondering how to traverse Switzerland. Traverse?
We’re not gonna traverse it. You could traverse it!
There’s a fly right in the middle of that shot. Like right in front of the camera!
Interlaken has the most well-connected transit — I see you laughing back there.
Okay, I can do this. Don’t get the giggles.
But we hope you...hope it helps you…