Rodude

Does this 7 day round trip plan starting from Zurich make sense?

Land in Zurich on Saturday at 11 am. Spend 2 full days in the city then pick up a rental car and leave to Lucerne on the morning of the 3rd day. Don't know if we should only take the train and public transport up to this point or more so lmk your thoughts. Leave Lucerne the evening of the 4th day and hopefully it's safe to drive at evening or night to make it to Interlaken.

We heard there are better mountain towns like murren, Lauterbrunnen, grindelwald, etc. To check out but instead we thought to use Interlaken as a base for 2 days then spend 2 days in Thun then finally drive back to Zurich from the other side doing truly a round trip drive on the last day. Does that make sense?

Melnq8

Skip the rental car, Switzerland has the best public transport system in the world.

Interlaken is rather charmless; I'd suggest spending that time in Grindelwald, Wengen or Murren instead. All easy to reach by public transport.

I'd also suggest reducing your time in Zurich, and adding that extra day to Grindelwald, Wengen or Murren. Zurich is okay as cities go, but there are much better ways to spend your time, especially on such a short trip.

neckervd

"Does that make sense?"
IMO: No
Buit if you like to do so: do it!
Driving on Swiss roads after midnight is safe. But there may be black ice in cold winter nights. In the (seldom) case of extremely heavy snowfall (between December and April), you may have to wait a few hrs until the Brunig road will be open again.But you can drive via Bern instead.
If fyou book hotels wiiht a 24/24 reception, check in shouldn't be a problem in the middle of the night.
The performanciies of the Lucerne Festival end all before the departrture of the last train to Interlaken (23.00)

mokka4

Welcome to Fodors!
No car is necessary for your proposed itinerary!
I like Zurich, but agree that one full day and night would be sufficient to see the highlights. Do get a Zurich card from the TI for a reduced-price walking tour and a few other amenities, including a 90 minute roundtrip boat tour on Lake Zurich.
I would then move to either Luzern (inundated with daytime tourists), Unterseen which is a quiet suburb of Interlaken, Thun or Brienz (both with namesake lakes).
All of these areas are rather convenient to each other by train.
I would also suggest the small town of Spiez, on lake Thun.
Enjoy!

twk

As others have suggested, a car for this trip would just be a nuisance. Switzerland is built around train travel. Don't shy away from it.

I would also suggest that you do Zurich at the end of your trip rather than the beginning. Luzern, one of the 3 suggested towns in the Berner-Oberland (Grindewald, Wengen, or Murren), and then back to Zurich (maybe with a stop over in Bern). That would give you a nice little circle.

MyriamC

Here's our itinerary from a few years ago:
Started in Luzern (5 nights) and visited Thunersee, Brienzersee, Interlaken, Lauterbrunnen and toured the Vierwaldstättersee (Luzern - Beckenried - Vitznau - Weggis - Küssnacht - Luzern) - all in Berner Oberland.
On our way to Italy we visited the Rheinfall and Stein am Rhein.
Then we spent 10 days at Lago Maggiore from where we visited Andermatt (we took the old mountain pass, which was a beautful drive)
At the end of our trip, before driving home again, we spent 4 nights in the Saas Valley (Vallais) where we did quite some mountain hiking and from where we also visited Grimentz.

We couldn't have done all this in that short timeframe without a car.

You may find a doable itinerary on the Grand Tour of Switzerland website. This is also where I got the information from.
Grand Tour of Switzerland | Switzerland Tourism (myswitzerland.com)