Switzerland

Sep 08, 2025
travel

It’s our 25th wedding anniversary this year so to celebrate we wanted to go on a big trip that involved an airplane and a passport. Late last year we settled on Switzerland, which seemed to check all the boxes for us. Big mountains, lakes, hiking – basically an amazing place with lots of natural beauty. Another huge bonus was the fact that we could do the entire trip without relying on an automobile, which is something I’m always interested in.

We flew into Zurich and then went right to Lucerne and spent a few days exploring the city, doing some mountain excursions in the area, and taking a boat trip on Lake Lucerne. Lucerne was probably the biggest surprise of the trip. I was expecting a sleepy little town, but instead found a pretty bustling urban center that was very cool. We both really enjoyed both the city and all of the mountains in the surrounding area.

After Lucerne we went to the Bernese Oberland area for a few days, staying at both Grindelwald and Wengen. We did some amazing mountain excursions and hiking as well as a nice boat trip to Brienz. Wengen had a really cool vibe. It’s car-free and nestled at the foot of the Jungfrau. It’s very quiet and peaceful and was something different from the busier, but still amazing, Grindelwald.

We left Wengen and headed south to Zermatt for a couple days. We were lucky enough to have a really great weather where we could explore the mountains and capture some amazing views of the Matterhorn. Zermatt is also car-free, but was quite busy. There were lots of people there hiking and doing mountain adventures so it had a great energy around the city. It seems like the entire town is made up of hotels, restaurants, and shops so it feels like one huge resort.

We took the Glacier Express train from Zermatt to St. Moritz, which was a neat experience. We got to see so many different areas of the country on the eight hour ride. We got off that train at St. Moritz and made our way back to Zurich. We spent a night there and flew out the next day.

I had such an amazing time and think it was one of the top trips we’ve done. I loved every place we visited and had so much fun navigating around the country using the Swiss public transportation system. The places we went and the views we saw were some of the most stunning I’ve ever seen in my life. The Alps are magical. Many of the places we visited literally took my breath away and I was just in awe of how big and grand the views were. Seriously hard to describe how great it is. I was fully expecting most of the hillsides to be brown since it was basically fall, but that wasn’t the case at all. Everything was lush green and the forests we walked through were like rain forests in many places.

I love being in places that feel “international” and Switzerland definitely made that impression on me. I’m guessing that’s mostly due to it being a really popular European tourist destination and is probably something you’d experience in other touristy areas in Europe. Still, I loved seeing all of the different people and hearing all of the different spoken languages as you walked down the street or just paid attention on the bus or train.

I’m really proud that we were able to put together a trip from scratch and it worked out. Better than worked out, I guess. It was amazing. There were a couple points early in the planning where we were overwhelmed and were like, “Let’s just go on a tour.” But we didn’t. We did the research and put together something we thought would be great and it was.

All in all, I’m just so thankful that we were able to take such an awesome trip. We’re celebrating our 50 year birthdays as well as our 25th wedding anniversary this year and I feel like the trip was a special one that matched a big year in our lives. I think it will also give us the confidence to plan more international travel in the years to come.

I’ve got a zillion photos and videos from the trip so it’s difficult to pick just a few. But here’s an attempt to capture some of what we saw.

switzerland_01 View up at the summit of Fronalpstock (accessible via chairlift from Stoos)