Going to Switzerland this summer?

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Steven

Eurail passes are only available prior to heading over to Europe. The best pass for you will depend on where your travels will take you. If you are only staying in Switzerland, then you want a Swiss Pass or a Swiss Flexi Pass. The Swiss Pass gives you extra benefits such as included travel on some private railroads and even gondolas, or at least larger discounts on extra-cost transportation than you would get with the Eurail pass.

A Eurail pass can be more beneficial if you will be seeing countries outside of Switzerland. For example, if you are travelling through many countries, the Eurail Global Pass may be the best option for you.

Regarding whether or not you want a Flexi pass, the "Flexi" option means that you buy a specified number of travel days to be used within a set period of time. So maybe you have a 5 days within one month pass. That would mean that you can use your pass for unlimited travel on any five days of your chosing, but they must be used up within 30 days of validating your pass.

As you can see, there is no easy answer. The best answer is to try and determine what your itinerary is and price out the various options. If you want to have a very loose itinerary, you probably want a pass as you can hop on and off trains at your leisure. If you want to try and price out individual trips, I recommend you use the Deutsche Bahn link that I have provided in my sources section as they have an excellent route search option and will show you the cost for most routes.

green_frog

As a US citizen, you can only get a Eurail pass *before* you go (I don't know about other nationalities). Which pass you get really depends on how long you're going to be over there, how often you anticipate taking trains and where you plan to go.

Keep in mind that some trains require reservations and (especially in summer) the number of places saved for Eurail pass holders will be limited (in which case you'd have to buy a normal ticket). Also, there are some scenic trains in Switzerland that don't accept the Eurail pass.

So basically, look at what trains you plan to take (or if you are looking for more flexibility), and see which of the passes will cover the most trips.

dlp

try going to the RickSteves.com web site. There is a page with the different types of passes you can purchase.

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