How Expensive is Switzerland?

If you have followed our family and our history of traveling and finances, you know we both enjoy amazing experiences but also try to be reasonable with our money. We don’t like the terms “frugal” or “stingy” because they both have connotations of not being able to enjoy money. Intentional. That’s how we describe our spending and budgeting, even when on vacation. It always bums us out to hear people talk about an amazing destination that is ruined due to an expensive meal, having to pay for tap water, or something similar. Therefore, we have found it helpful to have an intentional strategy going into our bigger trips so that we can have uninhibited fun. 

The Food

Switzerland definitely has the reputation of being very expensive, but is it really? For our 10 days in Switzerland, we spent a grand total of $446.72 on all food and drinks for the 4 of us. Had we eaten 2 meals a day in restaurants that number would easily have been over $1,000.

We spent 10 days in Switzerland and ate 4 total meals at restaurants. They were expensive but planned, and we enjoyed them all:

• Restaurant Bergstube, Zermatt. $80 for 2 soups, a cheese fondue, a plate of fries, and a main entrée, with a $4 pitcher of tap water.
• Peking Garden, Zurich. $67 for 1 child and 3 adult chicken dishes with rice/noodles. Even in Switzerland, sometimes you just need some Chinese food. Free tap water.
• James Bond Restaurant, Piz Gloria. $61 for 2 kids meals, a bowl of soup, and a burger with fries, with a $5 pitcher of tap water. 

A few random splurges:

• Starbucks venti Frappuccino upon arrival to the airport while waiting for our train: $10.50
• Hot chocolate from various vendors throughout the week: $4-$7

Switzerland has a grocery store chain called Coop that is everywhere and is awesome. We bought the majority of our food, snacks, and drinks from their numerous locations. Breakfast on average would cost $4. Dinner would be $10 for a large pizza and half a bag of their amazing Paprika chips. Here are some examples of grocery store pricing:

• Jon’s favorite from the week: sugar-free energy drink, “Prix” brand – 45 cents! 8.4-ounce cans.

Family favorites of the week:

• Extra-large cheese pizza, fresh not frozen, $7.50 each. One pizza was a full dinner for 4.
• Parisette 12 inch bread loaf, $.95 each, freshly baked daily and awesome for sandwiches or toasted with jam for breakfast.
• Zweifel Paprika Chips – $5.95 for large bag.

Other staples from the grocery store:

• Large bottles of water with flip top cap: $1. We refilled those plus our re-usable bottles.
• Gruyere cheese slices (10 per pack) was excellent with the bread, $3.95.
• Packaged turkey slices $3.55.
• Small pizza, able to be cooked in microwave sized convection oven: $4.50.
• Cold bottles of various Coke products, Powerade, juice/milk : $1.20 to $2.25.
• Prix brand 1.5 litre bottle of lemon-lime: $.55.
• 5 bananas, $1.50.
• Monster Ultra White energy drink, $1.50 for 12-ounce can.
• Large loaf of fresh-baked bread: $3.40
• Jar of Nutella: $2.30 (good for about 6 sandwiches with amazing bread)
• Bag of tortilla chips: $3.40
• Jar of salsa: $3.60
• Large Swiss chocolate bars ranged from $1.50 to $3.00

The Activities

• 2 sledges, 4 helmets (an absolute must!), rented from the start of the hike in First, Jungfrau Region: $70
• 3-day ski-pass in Zermatt, 2 adults (one including international to Italy) with 2 free kids passes: $451.
• Full price rental for 3 days: 4 helmets, 1 snowboard, adult skis/boots/poles, 2 sets of kids skis/boots: $454.
• Trains: we utilized the Half-Price Fare Card combined with the kids travel free Family / Junior Card (a free card with the purchase of the Half-Price Fare Card, $30 per child otherwise), and our train rides averaged about $10, with the longer rides (e.g. Zermatt to Zurich) costing $90 total. 
• Walking around and local parks: $0
• Thermalbad Zurzach Natural Hot Springs: $76 for all four of us, including locker rental… a relaxing, PERFECT way to end an active trip!

The Accommodations

• We stayed in this 4-star hotel in Zurich for $100/night by doing a last-minute booking
• Hapimag Resorts have many options to stay using their membership program for a very reasonable price per night.
• If you want to stay in an igloo, you need to REALLY want to stay in an igloo. It was the most expensive part of our trip, costing $600 but including a full dinner and breakfast, snowshoe hike, hot-tub and sauna. 
• VRBO / Airbnb: the prices were not much different than what we see typically see in the US, but you do need to watch the fine print to see how the additional people (adding 2 kids in some instances doubled the cost) and cleaning fees (up to $50/night) are calculated. We ended up staying in a wonderful 2 bedroom in Zermatt with a full kitchen for $150/night ( also available on Booking.com here). If you consider how great and cheap grocery store food is, staying in a place with a kitchen as opposed to a hotel was a no brainer for us.