Hiking in Switzerland
As I said many times before, you can hike almost anywhere in Switzerland. You will find routes even in big cities, just follow the yellow signs on city light poles, walls or anywhere else. It will lead you to some kind of hiking route eventually when you get out of the city. That is very cool.
I live now in Basel and you can find those signs right in the city centre, follow it and eventually you can get out to villages, forests, meadows and so on. Later on those signs give more information about possible destinations and needed time to reach them. And later on you will get more and more destinations.
So actually you could start in any city and walk like this trough all Switzerland… and go even further to Italy, Austria, Germany, France 🙂
But, for sure, you do not have all the time in your life and it’s better to be prepared and visit best places for your fitness level, see some mountains, valleys and many other things 🙂
I will discuss here websites which I like the best and use all the time before I go on my hiking tour.
- Wanderland.ch
For me it’s the best website, because it has so much information: height profiles of every route, distances, starting points, some pictures and text information about the route.
You can choose from many possible routes and at first here are your choices:
National routes – there are 7 routes which go through all Switzerland, just different directions, different places, different starting and ending points. These are long ones, up to 500 km and more. But, there’s no need to walk it all. You can simply choose the section you like and walk just that 🙂
Regional routes – these routes can be pretty long as well, up to 300km, but as I told before, there’s no need to make it all. I mostly use these routes. It is good, because you can choose the region/canton you would like to go and look for hiking routes there.
You can choose hiking conditions, the region and they will give you all the possible routes.
As well, you will get the height profile which shows the altitude of different points along the route. That is very good to know before you go. As I mostly like to go to higher places, I choose a point/city/village before bigger mountain and start there. Hike up to that mountain/mountain pass and go bike 🙂 It’s not very easy to find a circle route, unless you are willing to walk longer. If you have limited time, the best way is to go up and down same route.
Or you can simply go to the other city and come back by train, but you must check that information before as not all the villages have connections.
Local routes – these are much shorter routes and they are the best option for one day hike. There are so many that it’s even hard to pick one 🙂 So just better choose the region you like the most and pick the one you like the most.
Obstacle free routes – these routes are good for disabled people as well. So there should be no big mountains, slopes and other stuff. Most of the route should be on the paved path, so it’s easy and smooth.
This website have little less options, but still is very good source to investigate before planning your trip.
What I like about it is that they give much more information about starting point, how to reach it, what will be your ascent/descent, hiking time, what is the best time to go there. As well they have much more nice pictures for you to check if you like the place or not. They give a tour map and even today’s weather.
What is pretty cool, that in some routes you can even find webcams, so you can look how it really looks that day: sunny, cloudy, snow, mist and so on 🙂
If you need, by every route you can even find information about hotels, restaurants and other services near that route.
This website as well have quite many hiking routes to choose and what is pretty cool about this specific website is that they have much more sophisticated search engine 🙂
You can choose your routes by duration, region, subregion, difficulty and what I like the most – terrain type. Here you can choose routes which are by the lake, vineyard, along railway, rocky and some other possibilities 🙂 This is very cool, because most people want to see some lakes or vineyards along the route (such routes are stunning, especially by the lakes), so that gives you a very easy way to find such hiking trails in the most efficient way 🙂
Conclusion
Switzerland is one big hiking paradise. It would take you years to hike all the routes, visit all valleys, all mountains, all mountain passes and many other things that this country has to offer.
The variety is huge: you can hike by marvelous hills near Basel, big mountains near Zermatt, amazing lakes close to Luzern and many other stunning options.
Sometimes even not top popular destinations can offer you amazing views as I found out in Isenfluh, Unter Stafel and Mount Rigi.
So if you do not have too much time to reach Zermatt or Andermatt, just look through those website and you are going to find something special for you. I guarantee it 🙂
I hope this article will help you to choose your hiking route and if you have any questions, please let me know 🙂
And do not forget to follow me on Instagram: @golookexplore
