It’s been a while since I’ve been to Switzerland. Even though I’ve been to Switzerland several times, the last one was 2013 for a measly one night, and the ones before that in 2006/2007 were actually for work trips to Nestle headquarter (in Vevey) while I was working for them. So I never really had a GOOD tour around the country even though I really wanted to. I just remembered how expensive it was to holiday there! Price alone was probably the reason why I never went back there again, until now in 2025.. a good 12 years after the last trip! A lot happened since 12 years ago, namely I’m married, and now have an 11 year old with me!!
Even though my previous trips there weren’t all that long, it wasn’t the main cities that stuck with me the most. What stuck with me were their grand alps, beautiful lakes, cow bells along with its fondues and chocolates. So for this trip, I thought to myself how wonderful it would be if we explore the country and its outdoors on wheels, specifically, in a campervan!
That’s right, why not see the whole country in a way that maximises our time outdoors to see “nature” at its best. Besides, we went there during July/August, which is basically peak summer in Switzerland when prices are at its highest. A campervan would take care of both accomodation and mode of transport together, which in theory “should” be cheaper than if we rented a car and stayed at hotels during this period. If your family hasn’t stayed in a campervan before, be ready for some unexpected objections. It’s understandable that some families don’t want to think about washing dishes, packing stuff away, or putting up with “not up to standards” showers and toilet, emptying out your family’s “waste” etc.. So, it’s not for everyone. I would however convince them that being slightly uncomfortable is a good thing, as it does take team work, and I mean a LOT of team work. I tend to encourage them to think of it as a ‘team bonding exercise’ and your campervan trip will be that much more enjoyable.
Having said that, I wasn’t at all experienced driving massive 3-tonne / 7 meter long truck/van and can imagine this part putting a lot of people off just thinking about it. We rented a so called “Atlas 5” campervan (now called “Comfort Standard”) through Indie Campers, which is the biggest one we can get with a regular Australian car drivers license which has a maximum weight limit of 3500kg.
It’s big for sure. Much bigger than anything I’ve ever driven! It’s “comfortable” for sure, with two separate beds, and separate shower and toilet, along with dining table. But in hindsight, we probably could have gone one size smaller, which would have been a little easier to drive on some of the narrower roads, and not having to think about height limits (e.g. some tunnels have a height restriction of 3 meters, and Atlas 5 would not be able to go through it as it is 3.1m in height). It’s a tradeoff you’ll need to consider whether to be “comfortable” for your family, or comfortable for YOU as a driver. Anyway, if you are curious what Atlas 5 is like, you can find out more by Indie Camper’s video here.
Unlike the previous trips to Switzerland, I’ve put aside a good 17-days this time round to really give ourselves a relaxed tour around the whole place. Mind you, even after 17 days, I still felt like we didn’t cover the country at all! The trip started at Zurich, and we would then slowly make our way down towards Lucern / Sempach, Grindelwald, Interlaken, Tasch (For Zermatt and Matterhorn), Leukerbad, Vevey, Geneva. In fact we even went beyond the borders of Switzerland, and paid a visit to France as well, specifically the town of Annecy and Mont Blanc.
Being July/August, it was definitely the best time to go there if sightseeing is what you want to do. It was pretty much clear blue skies just about every day, so there shouldn’t be many days where you can’t go up to the top of their tallest mountains, or have trouble doing some of their “air” based adventures like paragliding. This of course, comes at a price.. a VERY heavy price. Campervan rental is at least double if not triple of the price it would normally be. To give you an idea.. the “Atlas 5” campervan I booked cost me about 120 CHF / night. For 9 nights, including full insurance, travel kit etc.. the total was CHF 2560.91. If I did the same holiday in September, the total for the same 9 nights would be closer to CHF2061. A difference of about 500 CHF, which is significant especially if you’re coming from another country where your currency is weaker than Swiss Francs!1280 Keep this in mind. Even if you choose to go hotels or AirBbB, the prices will be a LOT higher than you expect. So would you rather stay in Swiss minimalist AirBnB to keep your budget in check? Or do something totally different? I know which one I would pick!
For campsites, the prices didn’t seem to vary too much between months. But, one thing IS an issue for sure in July/August. AVAILABILITY!!
So, you definitely want to pre-book your campsites months ahead to secure a spot! I heard others recommending downloading an app called “Park4Night” to look for campsites when you are there on the go. That might work every other month, but I probably do not recommend “winging it” in July/August unless you want to spend a lot of time driving around every day looking for a place to stay. With everything pre-booked, it’s one less stress for you and your family as you just need to “rock up” so to speak. For our 9 nights at campsites, we didn’t actually spend any more than 2 nights at each campsites. In total, we moved around 6 different campsites including one in France! Was it a pain to move from site to site? Let’s tallk about that.
The good thing about staying in a campervan is that your “wardrobe” moves with you. That’s probably one of the difference you will notice compared to staying in a hotel. In a hotel, if you were to move hotel to hotel, you would have had to pack up your wardrobe into your luggage, and for ladies, that’s a big deal. In a campervan, your entire accomodation moves with you from site to site.
So, you don’t need to think about packing at all! Just get up, have your breakfast.. drive off with your wardrobe! So technically, you don’t need to worry about packing up your luggage until the day you hand your rental campervan back to your rental company!
Similar to hotels, campsites vary quite a bit ranging from basic to 5-star facitilies like a fancy restaurant or swimming pool etc. For our first trip, in order not to give your loved ones a trip to forget, we did go with campsites that tend to have better facilities that you wouldn’t typically associate with camp sites. For example, all the ones we went to had WiFi (important for 11 year old). They all had electricity socket to plug in to which meant we could keep our fridge running most nights allowing us to keep some cold drinks and groceries for the BBQ. Some have awesome views like this one which had a view of Jungfrau alps so that you can enjoy it like this every day..
There’s one which had killer sunset view (Lake Sempach).
Another came with a private BBQ, which means we don’t have to cook in the van.
Some have fantastic swimming pools. Some have very nice restaurants. It’s very much a different experience at each campsite. Of course, you’ll love some of them, while dread some as well. Take this one for example.
Yeap.. it’s right next to the toilet!! YES.. a PUBLIC TOILET. It didn’t turn out as bad as we thought it would though. Swiss toilets are as clean as those in Japan. I guess some would see it as an advantage, given we didn’t have to go far for a toilet as it’s right outside our campervan door. Regardless, the point is, there will be campsites that you wouldn’t fancy as much as others. So doing some research upfront will help!
And that brings me to another key point – Planning your route! For the average car driver, it will be slightly unnerving roaming around the streets of Switzerland with a 3 tonne truck compared to your usual SUV or sedan back home. One thing I had to accept pretty quickly was the fact that I am never going to be able to zip around small roads as quickly nor agile enough to overtake most cars on the road. Staying safe and use that right lane (basically the “slow” lane) is something I had to get used to! Besides, you’ll most likely be using Google Maps for GPS and concentrate on navigating. Now, you MIGHT be able to blindly trust where Google Maps back home, but you probably want to check those routes that it gives you to make sure you CAN actually get there with a PLUS size campervan. I wished Google Maps had an choice for “campervan” as an option!
See.. that’s usually not a problem for cars. With a campervan, there’s a few things to watch out for. One, the size of the streets can get scarily small for a campervan. So you might want to think about alternative routes. Most of the time, it’s not a big of a deal, given most tour buses also navigate these small roads too! Second, cars don’t have to think about height restrictions. In Switzerland, there are many tunnels through alps, and some are NOT built for the height of campervans! You definitely want to take note of the height of your chosen campervan, and WATCH out for these road signs before entering tunnels.
Why is this important? If you go through a tunnel that isn’t high enough resulting in a damaged roof, it is NOT COVERED by insurance! I did come across one of these tunnel, but was lucky enough to spot the sign in time (and realised that our van isn’t going to fit) and switfly turned around. Otherwise, I can just imagine how much more expensive the holiday COULD have been if we didn’t!
Secondly, Google Maps will sometimes throw in a surprise here and there that I never expected. For example, going from Interlaken towards Tasch (For the famous Matterhorn), you will inevitably come across so called “car train” or “car shuttle train”. It’s a pretty foreign concept to me. Instead of just hopping on a train (as a passenger), your CAR and in my case a campervan hops on the car train for a ride! How unique is that!!
Of course, it’s here that you’ll need to watch out for those side mirrors of your campervan, as it is a TIGHT fit! But aside from that.. just sit back, relax and appreciate just how unique this experience is!
Now, food is another area where you can save quite a bit when going on a campervan trip. To be honest, we considered just dining out every day. You would think fast food options like McDonalds and KFC would be cheap, but it won’t take you long to realise even a Big Mac set meal will set you back at least 15 CHF (about AUD $28 / RM79 / SGD$24 / USD$18.80). It’s a lot more than you would normally spend for the same set meal wherever you’re from! So you can imagine how much more, if we are talking about proper restaurants. Fortunately, our campervan does come with a fridge, so that usually means stocking it up with snacks, drinks, BBQ meats, bread and cheese! I don’t usually do much grocery shopping at home, but in Switzerland, supermarkets like Aldi, Coop, Migos became second nature.
Whilst, it’s not usually my thing, you could of course bring your own favourite snack from back home like our family did. Yes.. even Maggi noodles and Korean ramen..
Otherwise, sausage and rosti seems the way to go.
And it’s really amazing how a simple table and a couple of chairs can bring us all together at the end of a long day. It’s one option you shouldn’t skip as part of your car rental unless you intend to bring your own or buy it when you get there. Yes, you might get a few insect bites here and there, but you realise just how simple life can be if one chooses to live this way.
And the good thing is? The flexibility is there for you to skip the cooking and just go to a local restaurant once in a while. After all, you can’t say you’ve been to Switzerland if you didn’t try Swiss fondue right?
What did we actually see / do? Well, that’s a post for another day. One final note I will say is that IF you’re Asians like us, don’t be surprised that you’ll highly likely be the ONLY Asians at campsites! Not that it was an issue for us. In fact, we had some pretty good conversations at some of the campsites with local Swiss, and travellers from other parts of the world. Yes, most Swiss can speak English it seems (at least the German speaking parts of Switzerland). Having said that, I feel like it’s pretty hard to go anywhere without running into Asians these days. Well, campsites in Switzerland still don’t have too many.. YET!
It was an indication that Asians travelling in campervans is still very VERY rare. There’s a bucket load of them in tour buses in town, so it’s definitely not due to lack of Asian tourists! It’s understandable though. After all, this is OUR first trip overseas in a campervan. I don’t have experience campervaning in any other countries just yet, but I wouldn’t hesitate to try it again some time in the future if it’s like the one we just had in Switzerland!
