Switzerland Adventure Vacations & Hiking Tours

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As an Active Adventures traveller, It’s essential you take out travel insurance to cover the likes of personal injury, medical expenses, trip cancellation for your travel with us. Please head to our Travel Insurance page for more in-depth information and insurance provider options. It’s also important to check your insurance covers all the activities you’ll be partaking in, in case you’re travelling to altitude or looking at extreme sports.

Our preferred Travel Partner Fuzion Travel can assist with you with flights and other travel arrangements. Let them know your preferred travel plans, including any stopovers or extra nights’ accommodation, and they’ll put everything in place for you. They offer a total travel solution and five star service that you’ll want to tell your friends about!

Accommodation
On your Switzerland trip you'll stay in a variety of places depending on the destination and activities. For the most part you'll stay in nice, locally owned, beautiful family run hotels in great locations, with private bathrooms, free wifi, great breakfasts and warm local hospitality.

Transport
Your transport will be a mixture of private vehicle, bike and your very own two feet on our trips in Switzerland. You'll spend most time hiking or biking everywhere though! All your transport is included from the start of your trip and we'll drop you at the airport at the end. The details are all listed in the trip specific itineraries.

Meals
All your meals are included as described in the itinerary except two lunchs and two dinners. We have found that people enjoy checking out what is on offer by themselves sometimes, so you can go and see what's out there! On every other day and especially after any long hikes, we've chosen places to eat that can cater for our hearty appetites, work well with our small groups (they know we are coming) and provide us with an authentic destination specific culinary experience. There are always options for you, so you can either be brave or choose something more familiar. You can be assured that on all our trips we will make sure you are very well fed, and Europe's vast array of cuisine won't disappoint you!

Trip leaders
Our trips are all led by an experienced Trip Leader alongside a local specialist guide. Our Trip Leaders are very proud to work with Active Adventures and often lead our trips for many years, for which we are very lucky and very grateful, as it means we're able to consistently offer a fantastic level of service. They work closely with our local specialist guides to provide you with a seamless, fun, exciting and memorable trip. They will happily share with you as much or as little as you want to know about the history, culture, social aspects and lifestyle of the country you are visiting.

We generally take up to 18 people per trip, although this can vary, and all our trips have at least two of our guides to look after you (apart from the occasions we have a small group). We have found that our trips tend to attract a particular kind of person and many people have commented that the social scene was one of the highlights of their trip!

Once you've booked your trip, you'll have access to a gear list in your portal on exactly what to bring along. The gear list is carefully thought out to provide you with everything you need to be warm and happy, or cool and relaxed, whatever the weather! So it is best to bring everything we recommend along, if you don't bring everything you need, we can't guarantee your comfort.

If you have good ankles that will be able to cope pretty well with varied terrain, then good hiking shoes or sneakers should be fine, but if not then hiking boots will give you better support.

Well-known Swiss dishes include raclette and fondue (molten cheese eaten with bread or potatoes), rösti (fried grated potatoes), muesli (an oatmeal breakfast dish) and Zürcher Geschnetzeltes (veal and mushrooms on a cream sauce). A typical breakfast in Switzerland includes a bowl of cereal with milk, bread rolls with jam or butter, swiss croissant and coffee, muesli and yogurt or tea. Lunch may be as simple as a sandwich or it could be a complete meal, therefore dinner could then be a full main course or simply bread, cheese and meat. Switzerland is also best known for its milk chocolate, with Swiss chocolate containing more milk than most chocolate, offering a distinctly smooth and creamy flavour and texture you won't find elsewhere!

We are accustomed to catering to the following special diets:

• vegan (no meat or animal products)
• vegetarian (no meat products)
• fishatarian (vegetarian, and eat fish)
• no red meat (eat chicken & fish)
• gluten intolerant (no wheat, rye, barley or oats)
• lactose intolerant (no dairy products)

You will get the opportunity to specify your particular requirements when you fill in our pre-trip questionnaire. If you have any other dietary requirements please let us know well in advance, via email or the online questionnaire.

The currency in Switzerland is the Swiss Franc CHF.

Our trips include all transportation, guiding, meals and activities (except where indicated on the itinerary). Most people like to bring a little extra to cover a round of drinks at the pub, take home some souvenirs, book a tour and eat out on their free day, and tip our guides if they've had a great time. 

Usually the easiest thing to do is use your credit or debit card to withdraw money directly from your home account, in local currency. There are plenty of ATM's and banks in larger towns in Europe, and ATM's will accept all major credit cards and many debit cards. Cash advances are the most convenient way to get cash.

For the majority of the summer season Switzerland is in the Central European (CET), which is 1 hour ahead of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).

Switzerland operate on a 220V AC system with Plug Type C which consists of two round parallel pins while the wall plug has two holes where it is connected.

WiFi is available almost everywhere in cities and easy enough to find in most towns/villages so you can rely on having regularly access during your trip. If you have data roaming switched on, then you'll be able to use the internet on your smartphone, but beware of the fees! WiFi is available at most of the accommodations that you'll be staying at, sometimes for a small cost so check this out at each location when you arrive.

Switzerland is characterized by cold winters in mountainous areas, and hot summers in plains, along with a lot of precipitation. The climate is moderate with no excessive heat, cold or humidity. From July to August, the warmest months, the daytime temperature ranges from 18 to 28 °C (65° - 82° F) and in Spring and Autumn, the daytime temperature range is 8 to 15 °C (46° - 59° F). You can have a week of rain as well as a week of cloudless skies almost any time of the year.

You can catch a local train from the airport to the centre of town, and Geneva is right on the shores of Lac Léman (Lake Geneva), so it’s quite lovely to walk around and explore. We recommend a boat cruise of the lake and river, and a walking tour or explore of the Old Town as a starting point. The history of La Vieille Ville, Geneva’s Old Town, can be traced back 2,000 years. It is where you will find many of Geneva’s most interesting attractions and sites like the Barbier-Mueller Museum, the St. Pierre Cathedral (for CHF5 you can go to the top of the cathedral and the views are more than worth it), the International Museum of the Reformation, The Art & History Museum and the Tavel Mansion - it is one of the largest Old Town’s in Europe. The Old Town is built on a hill side south of the Rhone River, and has picturesque narrow meandering cobble stone streets lined with historic grey-stone buildings which now hold boutiques, sidewalk cafes and restaurants. The United Nations is a great place to check out too, and you can get there through the Botanical Gardens, either walking or biking, or catch local buses.

Active Adventures & Austin Adventures family vacations are naturally about spending time with family and as such, most families opt to share rooms on our trips. At time of booking, families consisting of four guests with children aged 17 and under will be automatically assigned one shared room. However, the following alternative rooming allocations are available:

• Families consisting of four guests with all children aged 13 and above are welcome to opt for additional rooms as per advertised double occupancy adult rates.
• Families consisting of four guests with at least one child aged 12 and under are automatically assigned a shared room. However, families can opt to pay the adult rates for all guests in their family to have an additional room.
• The same principles apply for families consisting of more than four guests.

Rooming preferences are subject to availability and must be communicated in writing at time of booking. Automatic assignments as per this policy will be applied in the absence of any specification provided by guests. Any request for additional rooms during trips will be at the guests’ own expense and subject to rates made available by the accommodation provider at the time. All minors (guests aged 17 and under) must be accompanied by at least one adult.