Jolly Good Travel · Digital guide
We spent 80 hours planning our trips to Switzerland with our kids so you don't have to
This is the complete planning guide for families taking their kids to Switzerland, built from five trips, three children, and every mistake we made along the way so that you can skip straight to the good part.
Instant download · Works on your phone offline · Includes our interactive map
Why this exists
Switzerland is the easiest country in Europe to travel with kids and the hardest one to plan
Every blog tells you to go to Lauterbrunnen, and almost none of them tell you whether the hike down from Männlichen works with a four-year-old, which village you should actually sleep in, whether the playground at the top has a bathroom, or what you do on the third rainy morning in a row. We answered all of that for ourselves the slow way, and then we wrote it down.
54 pages · 12 sections
Everything we'd tell a friend who asked us to plan their trip
Activities sorted by age
Every activity split into 5 and under, 5 to 9, and 10 and up, so you already know which ones your kids can actually do before you get there.
The playground guide
The famous alpine playgrounds with how to reach each one, best ages, stroller access, toilets, food, shade, and what to combine it with.
Where to eat with kids
Restaurants across Wengen, Lucerne, Mount Rigi and Lugano that we've actually eaten in, with price tiers and a tap-to-navigate button on every one.
Trains, passes and the SBB app
Which pass to buy for your family, how the Swiss Family Card gets kids 6 to 15 travelling free, and how to set the SBB app up before you leave home.
Three itineraries, not one
The full 10-day route we take, plus 7-day and 5-day versions we've rebuilt from scratch so nothing important gets cut when your trip is shorter.
An accommodation page showing 2-3 stays with the price tiers, star ratings and an "our pick" marker visible
Where to base yourself
Which village to sleep in and why, plus every hotel and apartment we've stayed in across the Alps, Lucerne and Ticino with price tier, rating and our pick per region.
Eleven family hikes, each with the youngest age we'd take it on
Almost every hike in this guide starts with a gondola, a funicular, or a cogwheel train, because you ride up and walk down and your kids arrive at the bottom still cheerful. For each trail we tell you which direction to walk it, whether a stroller has any chance, what's waiting at the end, and the age below which we wouldn't attempt it.
We also explain how to read Swiss trail signposts, which is the single most useful thing we learned and something almost nobody tells visitors, because the colour on the sign tells you whether you're about to walk a gentle path or a mountain route that needs proper boots.
The part nobody else gives you
Places pinned, with our notes on each one
Every hotel, restaurant, playground, trailhead, hike, viewpoint and swimming spot in this guide is already dropped into one shared Google Map with our own notes written on the pins. You open it on your phone in Wengen, see what's near you, and get walking directions without opening a second app or retyping a single name.
An honest comparison
You can plan this trip from our free pages, and plenty of people do
Our free itinerary will get you a long way, and we'd rather you knew exactly what the paid guide adds before you buy it.
| What you get | Free blog | The guide |
|---|---|---|
| 10-day route, day by day | ✓ | ✓ |
| 7-day and 5-day versions | — | ✓ |
| Which village to base yourself in and why | — | ✓ |
| Accommodations rated by price and stars, with our pick per region | — | ✓ |
| Eleven family hikes with a minimum age on each | — | ✓ |
| Activities split by your child's age | — | ✓ |
| Restaurant guide by town | — | ✓ |
| Playground guide with stroller, toilet and food details | — | ✓ |
| Rainy day alternatives and safety plan | — | ✓ |
| The 97-pin interactive map | — | ✓ |
| Works offline on your phone in one file | — | ✓ |
Who this is for
This is for you if
- You're taking kids roughly between toddler and teenage to Switzerland in the next year.
- You have somewhere between five and ten days and you want the route already decided.
- You'd rather spend your evenings with your family than with nineteen browser tabs open.
- You want to know before you book whether a hike or an activity suits the age your child actually is.
This probably isn't for you if
- You're travelling without children, since almost every recommendation here is chosen around them.
- You're going in deep winter, because this guide is built around spring, summer and early autumn.
- You want Zermatt, Geneva or the Matterhorn, which we haven't taken our own kids to yet.
- You genuinely enjoy the research part, in which case our free pages will serve you well.
Who we are
Hi, we're Sam and the crew
I've taken my three kids to Switzerland five times now, and the first trip took me the better part of three weeks to plan because the information I needed was scattered across forums, tourism sites, and blog posts written by people travelling without children. Everything in this guide is somewhere we've personally slept, eaten, hiked, or ridden with the kids in tow, which also means we've written down the parts that went badly and what we'd do differently.
If a hotel is in here it's because we'd book it again, and if a playground has no bathroom we say so.
Questions we get asked
What exactly do I get and how do I get it?
A 54-page digital guide delivered to your inbox the moment you buy it, plus the link to our shared interactive map. The guide is built to be read on a phone with tap-to-jump navigation between sections, and you can save it offline before you fly.
Our trip is only five days. Is this still worth it?
Yes, and that's exactly why we built 7-day and 5-day versions rather than telling you to cut days off the 10-day route. The shorter itineraries are rebuilt from scratch so you keep the highlights that matter most.
How old do my kids need to be?
We've done these trips with children from three to eleven. The activity guide is split into three age bands and every hike carries the youngest age we'd take it on, so you can see at a glance what works for yours.
Are the hikes hard?
Six of the eleven suit all walking ages and four of those work with an all-terrain stroller, because almost every one starts with a gondola or a train so you ride up and walk down. The harder ones are clearly marked with a minimum age and a note on what makes them harder.
Is this useful if we're going in winter?
Most of it is built around spring through early autumn, when the playgrounds, hikes and lake swimming are open. The accommodation, transport and packing sections still apply year-round, but we'd tell you honestly that a winter-specific guide is a different product.
Do the booking links earn you a commission?
Some of them do, at no extra cost to you, and it never changes what we recommend. We only include places we've stayed in or activities we've done ourselves.
What if it isn't what I expected?
Email us within 14 days and we'll refund you, no explanation needed.
Stop researching. Start packing.
Eighty hours of planning, five trips, and every recommendation we'd give a friend, in one file you can open on a train platform in Wengen.
Get the guide — $49Instant download · 14-day refund · Includes the interactive map