It wasn’t too long ago that I was chatting with Megan about her Switzerland plans this summer, and here I am now! You may recall that we recently booked tickets to Ireland for November somewhat recently, but when the cheap flights call – I answer.
I had been exploring options on Google Flights for possible anniversary trips. Last year, we went to NYC, and I was scoping out some other northern US cities for us; both Chicago, IL, and Boston, MA, were looking appealing with flights in the mid-$200s for this summer. I scrolled over to see what our European options were – you know, just for fun – and I was surprised to find direct flights to Zurich starting in the high-$400s. Um, hello!
Switzerland is a little far for an anniversary trip, but not too far with the kiddos in tow! I abandoned my initial search to see what I could do with the dates. We couldn’t get the price under $500 per seat, but considering we have a lap baby – we did get it under $400 per person! At this price point (I repeat: direct flights!), the flights were too good to pass up.
Tyler and I had a layover in Zurich en route to our honeymoon in 2017, but we didn’t actually get to explore the city. I’m so excited to go back and see Switzerland! We’ve even put together our initial plan for what the trip will look like.
- We arrive at ZRH and immediately get on the train to Lindau, Germany. It’s a town on Lake Constance (Bodensee), which will hopefully show us all there is to love about southern Germany. We weren’t thrilled with Hamburg, but this is Bavaria – it’s supposed to be excellent.
- We’ll take a day trip to Bregenz, Austria, which is also on Lake Constance. It’s a 15-20 minute ferry ride away from Lindau, which makes it even easier to get to than our Estonia day trip! Unfortunately, we’ll miss the annual Bregenz Festival, but I think it will still be fun. Plus, the views!
- From Lindau, we will take the train back to Zurich and wrap up our trip with four days there. It’s definitely more expensive to stay in Switzerland than in Germany or Austria, but they also have a wider selection of activities – especially for kids. It also puts us super close to ZRH for our return home.
- We may or may not make the trip to Vaduz, Liechtenstein. It would take us about an hour and a half to get there from either Lindau or Zurich, and there would definitely be a train transfer to a bus. This could be fun as another day trip, but we’ll play it by ear.
With this now on the books, we’ll need to keep it a little more low-key for our anniversary trip this summer. We’re probably road tripping, a la our 2020 vacation. Any recommendations?