My 3-Month Explorations of Switzerland in 2025

Overview of my travels around Switzerland

I’m happy to report that I just spent the spring of 2025 exploring the gorgeous country of Switzerland. Yeah! I stayed a total of three months – 89 days – from late March through late May.

‘Exploring’ is probably not quite an accurate description of my travels around Switzerland, as I wasn’t actually spending all my time, nor even most of my time, actually exploring the country. I was primarily in Switzerland doing pet sitting & work exchange gigs and reviewing luxury hotels. So that’s actually how I spent most of my time.

Thankfully those pet sits, work exchange gigs and hotel visits did allow me to experience all sorts of places in that surprisingly diverse country.

I stayed in a tiny village with beautiful historic Swiss houses, cycled around rolling farmland while admiring traditional Swiss farm houses, visited most of Switzerland’s major and minor cities, strolled along many famous lakes, stayed in two amazing historic mountain towns in high Alps’ valleys, hiked around famous vineyards and Alpine cow meadows, gazed at dozens of high jagged Alps mountains, rode a dozen or so trains through all sorts of stunning scenery, visited Medieval castles and churches, toured a Swiss chocolate factory and visited two famous ski resort mountain towns.

I got to sample real Gouda cheeses in the historic town of Gouda, try the world’s first energy drink ‘Releva’, taste-test fresh chocolates, cycle through Ementhal cheese countryside and try a few traditional Swiss foods.

So, although I did not get to visit every famous place in Switzerland, I did get to visit many, many of them and to really experience the great diversity of the country.

Pet Sitting

In 2024 I began exploring the major European countries for the first time. They include all the expensive western European nations like Germany, Austria and Italy as well as the UK.

I had previously explored all the less expensive eastern European countries and a handful of western EU countries, about 14 nations in total. Now it was time to move on to the main, considerably more expensive EU nations.

My main tactic for affording these expensive European countries is to cut out accommodation costs – entirely – by pet sitting and/or doing work exchange gigs. So in early 2024 I began pet sitting in earnest.

In 2024, with the exception of three Belgium locations, I was able to secure back to back pet sits quite easily all over UK and EU. In addition, most of the pet sits were fairly close to my hotel review assignments, making it quite easy and relatively inexpensive to get to/from the hotels and complete my assignments.

But this year, I had a hell of a time securing pet sits in Switzerland for some reason. Dag! Among 30 pet sits I applied for in advance, I only got ONE of them! That was a one-month pet sit in Zurich.

After arriving in Switzerland, I did manage to secure two more pet sits in May, towards the end of my 90-day visit. In total, I had just three pet sitting gigs in Switzerland. I took care of two cats in Zurich for nearly one month, then one senior cat in Sion (mountain town) for one week, then three cats in Chateaux D’Oex for two weeks.

Work Exchange

Since I had trouble getting pet sits, I re-activated my previous ‘volunteer’ work on a platform called HelpX. Thankfully, I quickly secured two long work exchange gigs in Switzerland, which filled in the first half of my 90-day allowed EU visit, from March 27th-April 10th.

More details below, under itinerary.

Luxury Hotel Review Work

Before heading to Switzerland, I was assigned to review over 60 luxury hotels, spread out all around the country. Knowing that Switzerland is a small country, I figured it would be quite easy to visit all the hotels.

I was assigned to review hotels in the following 11 cities and towns:

Basel, Lucerne, Interlaken, Gstaad, Zermatt, Zurich, Montreux, Lausanne, Geneva, St Moritz and Lugano.

While searching for pet sitting and work exchange positions, I was specifically looking for positions in all those locations.

Quite unfortunately, it did not work out that way! Most of my pet sit and work exchange gigs were not located in any of those places! In fact, only my one-month pet sit gig in Zurich coincided with hotel locations, where I was assigned to visit 11 hotels in that city.

That unfortunate outcome made completing my hotel assignments in Switzerland considerably more complicated, time-consuming and ridiculously expensive.

Fortunately, I did at least secure several pet sits & work exchange gigs that were located within a one-hour train trip of various cities with hotels to review. That meant I had to make many expensive all-day train trips to complete my hotel assignments.

Quite unfortunately for me, I had no idea how incredibly expensive train travel is in Switzerland. I literally spend several hundred dollars on train fares, mostly getting to/from hotel visits. At least by doing that I was able to visit all but two locations and seven hotels. But man, I wasted a hell of a lot of money in transportation to complete my assignments. Crap.

The only two places I didn’t reach were St Moritz and Lugano. Both were simply too far from anywhere I was staying.

As I noted above, the only city I actually stayed in with a pet sit was Zurich. I had to visit all the others by train as day trips.

From two pet sits in Sion and Chateaux D’Oex, I was able to take day trips to Montreux, Lausanne, Geneva and Zermatt for hotel visits.

My Switzerland Itinerary and Experiences

Madiswil – tiny Swiss village in rolling farmland in central Switzerland

As I noted above, I arranged two great work exchange gigs in Switzerland. Upon my arrival in late March, I stayed in a tiny Swiss village called Madiswil for one month…. My main job was cooking dinner every day!

Madiswil is so tiny and un-renowned that I only met one Swiss person who had ever even heard of it. It’s located about one hour south of Basel in the district (Canton) of Bern. Luckily for me, Madiswil is an incredibly adorable little village, full of beautiful historic Swiss houses. More specifically, they are of historic Bern style architecture. I just loved strolling through the village admiring the unique traditional homes and barns.

My friendly Dutch host had electric bikes for his helpers to use as they pleased. That was fantastic since I was able to explore the rolling farmlands and other tiny villages in the area. During my one-month stay, I enjoyed easy-breezy cycling one to three times every week.

While there, I also took day trips to Basel and to Lucerne to visit hotels. I lucked out with Basel when one hotel offered me a complimentary one-night stay, complete with dinner and breakfast the following morning. That way I was able to spend two days in Basel, spread out my hotel visits, and enjoy looking at Basel’s historic district and riverside.

Belp – residential suburb of Bern

My second work exchange gig was not so far from the first, situated at a private home in a small residential town just south of Bern. To be honest, Belp doesn’t have so much to recommend it, aside from stunning views of distant jagged mountain peaks. On clear days I could see them from my balcony window.

My friendly & fun Swiss host had me and another helper from Belgium do gardening, take care of chickens and do a thorough spring cleaning of the house. It was a very quiet location with lovely flower and vegetable gardens out back.

Luckily for all her guests, she loves taking them out on explorations of Switzerland on days off. During my 10-day stay, she took us out on two full-day explorations. For me, she worked her day trips around the hotels I needed to visit!

One day she generously drove us to Interlaken for me to visit three hotels, then took us to nearby Thun to visit a lakeside castle-turned-hotel/restaurant situated on Lake Thun. It’s a stunning locations with panoramic views of a long range of snow-capped jagged mountains. She even treated us to champagne cocktails at the bar, while gazing out at the lake and peaks.

Another day, she drove us through a spectacular valley to Gstaad, an upscale ski resort town in the mountains, where I had to visit two hotels. Then she took us to Gouda town for cheese & Rivela in a crazy bar, then on to Chocolate Factory, where she also paid for our tours of the factory. Talk about a generous host!

My host and I became fast friends, so at the end of my travels in Switzerland, I returned to her house for four days to help with more gardening and house projects. During that brief stay, she took me and a Japanese helper on two more day trips!

First we went to Thun’s beautiful historic town and then returned to the castle-turned-hotel for another champagne cocktail overlooking the lake.

Zurich

I looked after two fluffy cats in a spacious modern apartment in a residential area of Zurich. While there I visited 11 hotels on assignment and was invited by one to a gourmet lunch.

I got to see most of central Zurich, its historic district, lakeside & riverside while walking from hotel to hotel. I didn’t do much else in Zurich besides hang out with the cats in their luxurious apartment and visit beautiful hotels. And that was fine by me.

Liechtenstein

While in Zurich, I treated myself to a full-day trip to the tiny country of Liechtenstein, just a 1.5 hour train ride from Zurich. The train passed through stunning scenery all the way to the border of Liechtenstein, where I crossed the border by bus and explored the capital city of Vaduz. I wrote about my Liechtenstein adventures here.

Sion

From Zurich I headed into eastern Switzerland’s high Alpine mountains and valleys for two more cat sits. First I went to Sion, a Medieval town set in the broad valley of the Rhone River in the Valais district of Switzerland.

Valais is famous for its vineyards, while Sion is most famous for its two ancient hilltop fortresses that hover above the beautiful historic streets of the old town. The town is also surrounded by ultra-high jagged mountain peaks, many of which I could see quite clearly from my 6^th floor apartment!

I took long hikes along the mountainsides, passing along vineyards and ancient irrigation canals, while gazing at ever-changing high mountain views. I also explored the very cool Medieval section of town, the old castle ruins and the still-functioning ancient Valerie church, set on a steep rocky peak.

Sion was easily one of my favorite places in Switzerland.

Chateaux D’Oex

From Sion, I took trains down to Lake Geneva and then up into another Alpine valley to Chateaux D’Oex, set in a broad rolling valley surrounded by more soaring mountains.

In Chateaux D’Oex I took care of three wonderful cats and spent days exploring the town, valley and surrounding countryside. This town is completely different from Sion as its full of historic wood chalet homes. That valley is marked by rolling cow pastures, where some of the country’s highest quality milk is created. Surrounded by more jagged mountain ranges, it’s also a very stunning location.

Other major places I visited

As I noted above, I took many day trips around Switzerland, mainly to visit luxury hotels. Due to those assignments, I got to explore many other gorgeous cities, towns and lakes.

I was especially impressed by the architecture and stunning settings of Lucerne, Interlaken, Thun, Bern and Lake Geneva. I also marveled at spectacular scenery on various train journeys, especially those along Lake Geneva and the valleys & mountains between Chateaux D’Oex and Thun. I’ll write more about my favorite places in Switzerland next.

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Meanwhile, you might also enjoy:

6 Crazy Facts about Switzerland

Introduction to Liechtenstein

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