I'm considering a Swiss home exchange this summer. Just received an offer that seems ideal, but now I'm wondering what restaurants, museums, etc will cost me. We found Germany last summer to be fairly reasonable, so how would Switzerland compare price-wise? How does it compare to California? Thanks.

annetti - good post. I want to know, too. People say that it is more expensive, but I see the exchange rate as favorable. Anyone out there care to post their knowledge? I need some :-"

You'll find day-to-day living cost in Switzerland higher than in Germany. Food in supermarket etc costs more, maybe up to 50%, as is the cost of eating out. That's why in border areas you'll see lots of Swiss cars outside German supermarkets, which are very competitive. Museum entrance seems reasonable, averaging around 3-4 CHF. Just about the only thing cheaper in Switzerland is unleaded gas (about 27% - 0.89 euro/litre vs 1.22 euro in Germany). Diesel is around 17% cheaper.

it's certainly more expensive than germany. i'm from london so i find it cheaper than home for most things. mountain tramways are very expensive...i think that is the only expense that really shocks me in CH.

I suspect you will also find it more expensive than california but not shockingly so.

the good news is that wine (in the store) is very cheap and swiss wine is quite good.

if you have a good offer for the house and want to go to europe, i would not let the slightly higher costs steer you away from ch.

I find nice restaurants fairly expensive, even more than Calif, but you can look for local style cafes with fix-price workmen's lunches for example which are very reasonable.

At the Migro (grocery store) I thought prices were comparable to the States (Seattle) with the exception of meat, poultry, fish, seafood which were quite expensive. Liquor and wine from the Pak & Pay stores was very reasonably priced. And the regional Swiss whites are *excellent* in all price ranges.

I think shopping at the town's weekly open air farmers markets is a very good value for wonderful products: fresh vegetables, cheese, meats/salami, eggs, bread, baked goods, flowers.

Thanks everyone. Your answers give me a good picture about prices in CH. I think we'll go. We're told that there are several farmers' mkts close to our exchangers' place. So that will help with food costs. We love eating out, so I guess we'll stick mostly to the cheaper places. Are there cheap donner kabob places in Switzerland to buy fallafel like there were in Germany? That would help with the mid day lunch on a run. It's hard to resist the temptation of such a beautiful country even if it costs more!Thanks again.

Only in larger places. I found several in the back streets of Geneva this summer, but hardly any in villages. Pricewise, they were quite a bit more than in UK, where a donar kebab can be had from around £2.50 to £3 (about 4 euro - similar to Germany). It was around 10 CHF or 7 euro. But in the order of things, the differences won't come to much for a short holiday stay.
A tip for eating out - the tab price always includes tax and service, so no need to tip in addition, and none expected. Day's special (Tagesgericht or plat du jour), usually only offered at lunch, is good value, much cheaper than eating the same thing for dinner. Imported everyday wine is cheaper than locally-produced wine.

thanks, Alec, for the update on doner kebabs. We will be in a big city, so maybe we'll find a few.
The lunch idea sounds like a good compromise and we'll only be there a short time as you say. Vacations seem to fly by so quickly. Thanks again.

By the way, do the Swiss have set hours for serving food like the French? What are the hrs for lunch and when is dinner generally served? Hopefully, someone is still reading this post and I don't have to start a new one!

Typical hours: 11.30 - 14.00
18.00 - 22.00

Thanks,Schuler.

I lived in Zurich for 4 years until last June. For a short stay, I think the prices will shock you but not significantly affect your lifestyle. Things to keep in mind:

Get a half fare card as public transport, while excellent, is relatively expensive. This will give you half fare on all trains, trams, buses, ferries and most cable cars and mountain trains.

Dry cleaning is very expensive, so try to avoid bringing items which have to be dry cleaned.

Will the house have its own laundry facilities? If they are shared with others, note that many apartment buildings have set times for residents to use the laundry facilities, you may be assigned 10 am on Wednesdays, which means you have to arrange your life around doing your laundry at that time. If you have laundry facilities in your own flat or have shared facilities in an apartment block, many apartments have a rule that laundry is not to be done on Sundays. (Not always enforced, depends on your neighbours.)

Does the rental price include utilities?

It is unlikely that the house/flat has air conditioning. That may or may not be an issue, it will be up to the Gods as to how hot the summer will be. If there is no air conditioning, ask if there are foom fans, if not you should buy some when you get there. If the house has a roof terrace, that is a great place to sleep.

While its hard to find bad food, its also hard to find inexpensive food, even fast food. Go into McDonalds and look at the prices, they will shock you.

Prescription medications are generally more expensive, bring enough for your stay. English speaking doctors can be hard to locate, you might take a look at the US embassy website and see if they have a list so you have somewhere to start now if you need to locate one at short notice.

Thanks, Cicerone. We will be in Basel for aproximately 7 wks. We're thinking of buying the twin saver Eurail pass for France/Switerland, allowing us 10 trips for a 2 month period. We will be using public transport a lot locally. Do you think the half fare card in addition to the Eurail pass is a good idea or is it cheaper for us to use the half fare pass and skip the Eurail pass entirely? I think the Eurail pass is aprox. $900 US for both of us. I hope my question is clear. It's so confusing figuring out all the options.

Cicerone,

You have given us a lot of good info. Do you think on the average we will be paying 10%, 20%, 25% 50% more for what we pay here in California for a moderately priced meal, fast food, or the local supermarket? What would you esimate the average per cent to be? Thanks.

For the cheapest meals, go to the self-service restaurants at the larger Migros or Coop stores. The food is very good and they have a nice variety of food.

Grocery prices as compared to Germany or CA? It depends what you buy. Fruit and Vegetables: O% - 10%. Meat: 10-20% Bread: 0 - 10% for fantastic bread. Cheese: 10-20%.
Cereal: 10-20%.

Many people in that live near the German border go grocery shopping in Germany because the prices are lower.

What grocery items to bring: pancake mix and maple syrup if you enjoy that type of breakfast. Maple syrup is incredibly expensive and the pancake mix as well.

However, this all depends on the exchange rate!

If you need clothes, H&M has the cheapest clothes.

Enjoy Switzerland!

My company gives a 40% cost-of-living adjustment for postings to Switzerland. I always said it was NYC plus about 25-30%, as I thought the company based their calculations on a basket of goods which I don't necessarily need.

If I remember correctly, a Big Mac, large fries and a coke would cost about US$12-14 in Zurich. (I'm really more of a filet o fish gal myself, so trying to go by memory on the hamburger....)

As for Eurail versus half-fare card, is the Eurail pass only good for 10 one way train trips in total? That means you can only take 5 round trip journeys from Basel to someplace else in Switzerland and back during your 7 weeks? That's less than one trip a week. My guess is that you are going to take more than that, so I would definitely buy the half fare card for your Swiss travel. How many train trips are you planning on taking outside Switzerland? If you are only planning on taking a few trips outside Switzerland, my guess is that it would be cheaper to skip the Eurail, and pay full-fare for non-Swiss travel. However, you would have to take a look at all the fares and do some calculating. You can get fares within Switzerland at rail.ch to give you an idea of what local train travel would cost.

With a half-fare card, on an inter-European trip which is partly within Switzerland, you will get a discount for the Swiss portion, so there is some savings there, i.e. going from Basel to Paris with the half-fare card you will only pay full-fare for the French portion of the trip. If you buy your ticket in Paris and have a half-fare card you would show it to them and they would calculate the total fare with the Swiss discount, same if you buy the ticket in Switzerland.

The Eurail pass won't give you any discounts on local transportation like trams and buses in Basel, which if you don't have a car, you will probably use a lot. I don't remember the fares in Basel, but in Zurich a basic one-way tram fare is about US$3.20 and go up for longer trips. This starts to add up if you take a tram once or more a day. However, if you aren't going to be in Basel every day than maybe the Eurail is OK. The Eurail also won't give you any discounts on ferries, of course in Basel this doesn’t affect you, but if you plan on a lot of visits to lake areas this also adds up. If you plan on hiking/walking in the mountain areas, then you will need to use the post buses to access walks as trains don't run to a lot of them, which again your Eurail pass will not get you and discount for, but the half fare card will.

Also, there are other options for travel within Switzerland that can be used in conjunction with the half fare card that can help save even more. For example, for day trips or overnight trips , there is a Day Card which for about US$45 lets you go anywhere in the country within 24 hours. Take a look at rail.ch if you have not already.

you should only care about the cost of mcdonalds if you plan to eat there. this is a poor indicator of food costs as mcd's is often more expensive proportial to other restaurants as compared to the US. If I accept the assumption that md's meal costs $12-14, i would think that the a $20 nicer meal in the US would cost about 2.5 times (or $50) more in CH. this is not true at all.

last time i was in CH (this summer), i remember that two decent meals in average quality family type restaurants cost under SF80 (under $60)...this is for two with house wine or beer, salads, shared desert, tax, and small (locally appropriate) tip. I cannot imagine such meals being that much cheaper in CA. The prices might look considerably higher in CH but don't forget that in CA, between tax and tip, you will pay about 23% more than the menu costs.

i think that schuler paints a realistic picture of prices in supermarkets. if you are doing a home exchange, then your costs will be very minimal as compared to someone setting up a house and living in CH. assuming that you not extravagent, i believe that overall, you will not spend a whole lot more in CH as compared to other countries.

Hi Annetti
The Euro rail pass is great if you do a lot of long range travel. other tha that it will be a waste of money. We recently stayed in the Neuchatel area and traveled to places like Lasuanne, Bern, and several other areas within 2 hrs. We paid $600.00 for our euro pass and it was a lot cheaper to buy day tickets. Example. Neucchatel to Zurich was 26 francs. Again the euro rail pass is nice but do some checking ahead of time. We had a 5 day pass and the only time it was worth it was from Salzburg to Zurich. Also some trains like Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen and other areas do not except euro rail.
Again all passes have their advantages and disadvantages. Yes Switzerland is very expensive but worth every dime.
Fred

I noticed that the closer you get to the swiss border inside of Germany, the more expensive grocerys become. The stores know exactly, how expensive many things over there are an adjust their prices accordingly. From a Munich suburb to the swiss border you can expect another 10-15% of price differential.

I think the main difference is that there is no low end restaurant market in Switzerland. Everytime you eat out you are going to spend at least 35-40 bucks per person. In US, you can usually get decent Thai or Asian food for 10 or 15 bucks. You just don't have that market in CH. Even McDonalds will cost 15 bucks a person.

Secondly, meat is very expensive at the restaurant, chicken which is quite cheap in the US is very expensive in CH. However, in fairness, CH chicken is much healthier, free range, no hormones, so it is probably fairer to compare prices to somewhere like Whole Foods in the US. Then prices become more comparable. However, if you used to Tyson Chickens, you will have sticker shock.