Is it time to involve a travel agent?
 

I've posted our itinerary and current dilemma which remains unsolved. We're planning a two week trip to Switzerland (Luzerne and Lauterbrunnen) and Austria (Salzburg and Vienna). We have our air and our hotels. It's the transportation while we're there that I'm having trouble with.

We usually travel by car, but I know the trains there are efficient. The drop off fees, picking up in Switzerland and dropping off in Austria are high. Then there's the Swiss Pass which I've read LOTS about in the forums and it sounds like I need an advanced degree to figure out whether I need it or not.

SO, should I contact a travel agent to help sort out this part of the trip? And if so, where in the world do I find one that's 1) expert in that part of Europe and 2) good. I've never really used travel agents (other than when we went to China), I've always handled all the arrangements myself.

Any advice? (Or am I going to get inundated with responses FROM travel agents by posting this?).

Thanks as always,
Alice

If you are considering car rentals and concerned about high drop off cost then you can certainly do two rentals in each country with drop off & pick near border towns. Another option is rent on arrival, take a train from last destination in Switzerland to first in Austria & rent again.

Hi Alice9,

No need to involve a travel agent. If you want to do it yourself, you can get all the fares for all of your train trips at the Swiss rail site

www.rail.ch

You don't need an engineering degree, but doing a spreadsheet for all the possible combinations and options does help! I used to have to do a spreadsheet for every trip I took to Switzerland.

Every time I did the spreadsheet, the cheapest option was the Half Fare Card. This card costs 110 chf now, and it gives you half off of practically everything that moves. So, these days, I don't bother with the math or the spreadsheet and just get the HFC.

Your other option is to get the help of the very helpful and very knowledgeable desk agents at the train station. There is a train station in the basement of the airport, and the agents there are very used to giving this advice. I can't tell you the number of times I've stood in line while a traveller outlines the plans and the agent recommends which pass (which btw turns out to be the HFC quite a lot!).

Anyway, I'm sure you'll enjoy the new adventure of travelling by train -- loads of fun!

s

To clarify - once we get to Austria we will ditch the car, I figure we don't need it for the two cities.

So maybe we rent a car in Zurich, buy the half fare card, spend our time in Switzerland using a combination of car and other things, drop off the car (do we have to go back to Zurich or could we drop off in, say Interlaken?), and then take the train to Salzburg. Does that make sense?

Thanks hkto and swandav2000! Since I got our airfare and found and booked our hotels, my husband is tasked with other transportation and he's going NUTS with this!

Alice

I used the Swiss Pass several years ago. While i know it's going to create crys of "outrage" on here I found the folks at Rick Steves to be VERY helpful. I called them, outlined our travel plans in Switzerland and they helped me work out which pass and how to use it. They actually had other options, but we went with the pass due to it's flexiblity for day trips once we got settled.

Went great! (Car was not an option, there were 16 of us!)

The Half Fare Card is ONLY for Switzerland and even without knowing more I will hazard a guess that it does not make sense to both buy an HFC and rent a car in Switzerland. If you are not planning to drive in Austria then I don't think you need a car at all.

Whether certain mode of transportation makes sense or not depends on what you want to accomplish. It would help if you state the sequence of cities, what you want to accomplish in between, the timing of departures and arrivals (insanely early or late hours disfavor train travels) and the number of people in your group.

For example, Zurich to Luzern is connected by frequent trains. It is not clear from your posting whether a car is just a means of transportation or driving in Switzerland is one of your objectives.

Okay, greg, here we go. My husband LIKES driving - and it gives us freedom to get off the beaten path a little. We're flying into Zurich, will drive to Luzerne, spend 3 nights there, drive to Lauterbrunnen and spend 4 nights there. We will do some day trips, hiking etc. I understand that there are some places not accessible by car and we'll obviously use alternate means to get there.

Then we need to get to Salzburg, which is the biggest headache as far as I can tell. We'd be happy to drive, make a day of it, but there's a big drop off fee for dropping off the car in a different country.

Once we're in in cities, we always ditch the car. So I don't think we need a car in Austria at all. But in Switzerland, we thought it would be nice to have one. Our original plan was to pick up a car in Zurich and drop it off in Salzburg but that apparently is NOT a good plan.

So the half fare might help with the non-car things we do in Switzerland, plus then we'd take a train to Salzburg. But I'd have to see if the cost of the card is worth it, I guess.

Thanks,
Alice

I would do the opposite---no car in CH but get one in AU.
But, I would stay outside Salzburg.

Hi again,

What bobthenav said -- no car in Switzerland. It will just sit while you explore the mountaintops and the scenic villages, the best of which are car-free (which you already know). So, you cannot use a car to get off the beaten track!

Having a car in the city of Luzern won't be any fun. Parking will be difficult to find, and it will be expensive; you'll be hunting for parking lots while navigating the narrow and winding medieval streets and dodging pedestrians, trams, busses, and other traffic. As you say, you normally ditch the car while in cities.

If you want to explore from Luzern, the best way is by ferry. Hop on to travel to one of the lakeside villages, walk around a bit, maybe ascend Rigi, then either hop on a bus or another ferry to return to Luzern.

For the Lauterbrunnen area -- really, most things you'll want to see won't allow cars.

Good luck as you think this through.

s

Okay, I can see the possibility of no car in CH, but why a car in AU?

Alice

Not sure how much time you have in AU. I would consider the train to Innsbruck and get the car and drive to near Salzburg---we prefer staying on the Wolfgangsee in St. Gilgen so you can easily day trip in the area. You can also drive or bus into Salzburg from there. One mandatory day trip is to Hallstatt.
Then drive to Vienna via Melk to see the fabulous Abbey. There are more options but it all depends on your time.

We have three nights in Salzburg and three nights in Vienna. So there's some time for a day trip but we'll be in town quite a bit as well.

Alice

If you stay in town then forget the car. I would give Salzburg a day and tour the fantastic Salzkammergut region the other 2 days.

Can we do what we did in Greece? Occasionally rent a car for the day? It was very inexpensive. Maybe that's the way to go. It does seem like the Swiss Rail system gets you just about everywhere, and that the half fare card would be appropriate for us. Maybe we do that for Switzerland and then rent a car as needed in Austria....

Alice

One day rental is often the same as 3 days---your call !

Okay, here is what my husband wants to do. Given that the drop off fee is the same as the actual COST of the rental car, if we drop off in Austria- he'd like to rent a car in Zurich, keep it while we're in Switzerland, and then drive it back to Zurich and then take the train from Zurich to Salzburg. Seems okay to me.

What I need to figure out is whether it's worth it to buy the half pass for while we're in Switzerland - and wouldn't it pay for at least the Switzerland part of our train ride to Salzburg?

Alice

Cars and cities in Europe are a bad mix. There is no place to park and it is hard to find your way around. If you are touring around the country side a lot then it is a different story. From what you have said, you don't need a car at all. My last car was a BMW 3-Series I picked up in Munich. I'm now driving a Mini Cooper S. I will be in Switzerland in June for a week and I wouldn't even think of getting a car.

I agree, MikeS, but my husband really prefers driving, so we'll have a car in Switzerland but not in Austria. We never have cars in big cities, just smaller towns.

Alice