Everything you need to know about visiting Switzerland with kids

20.11.2024 - 16:35 / lonelyplanet.com / Lake Geneva

Nov 20, 2024 • 7 min read

Taking the kids on an adventure holiday to Switzerland is child’s play.

Curl up on a straw bed in a farmer’s hay barn for a night of sweet dreams. Devour ice-cream cones filled with devilishly thick cream. Craft a chocolate bar made from top quality ingredients. Take adventurous hikes across craggy mountain passes. Don crampons to explore Europe’s longest glacier, flying from peak to peak, or simply head out to track dinosaurs.

Parents, swooning over picture-book farmsteads and villages in old-school-Heidi Switzerland is so last century: Europe’s long-time family favorite plunges you and your kids into a kaleidoscopic storyboard of adventure, exploration and festive celebration no child could dream up.

Irrespective of age, this infamously pristine and orderly country is ironically the place to get your hands dirty, roll up your trouser legs and paddle, have a bash at blowing your own trumpet on an Alphorn and live out at least one of your wildest dreams – on rivers and lakes, in mountains or cities.

It’s actually inconceivable that a country with its own Chocolate Train could be anything other than top-drawer in accommodating families and pandering to their every off-the-charts whim. This is a multi-lingual, highly organized destination: Switzerland Tourism and local tourist offices on the ground stock mountains of information on family-friendly sights, activities, workshops and tours, museums, festivals and accommodation in English. Geneva and Zurich airports sport sizable indoor playgrounds with slides and climbing frames for tots and younger children – as do, rather brilliantly, dedicated family carriages on SBB’s intercity Swiss trains and practically every ski resort once the snow melts.

Seamless, easy-to-navigate public transport is reason alone to bring the kids along. An integrated ticketing system (download the SBB Mobile app before arrival) encourages families to juggle city trams, buses, trains and lake boats – creating constant fun, variety and action for quickly-bored children. Watching the gigantic, highly polished wheels and cogs turn aboard one of Lake Geneva’s historic paddlewheel steamers from the belle époque-glam 1920s is a mesmerizing attraction in itself for all ages, parents included – the entire fleet sails in unison each May during CGN’s spectacular Naval Parade.

Nappy-changing facilities, playgrounds and stroller rental are reasonably widespread. In mountain towns and ski resorts, sports shops rent sledges and "off-road" pushchairs with big fat tires and sledge runners to make light work of snowy streets. Bring a baby carrier to navigate cobbled streets winding through old towns in historic cities like Geneva, Zürich, Bern and Lucerne and steep climbs in