FIRECracker is a world-travelling early retiree. She used to live in one of the most expensive cities in Canada, but instead of drowning in debt, she rejected home ownership. What resulted was a 7-figure portfolio, which has allowed her and her husband to retire at 31 and travel the world. Their story has been featured on CBC, the Huffington Post, CNBC, BNN, Business Insider, and Yahoo Finance. To date, it is the most shared story in CBC history and their viral video on CBC’s On the Money has garnered 4.5 Million views.
Traveling as a family is a challenge. Not only do you need to manage a tiny energizer bunny, while lugging around mountains of his gear, you’re doing it while jet-lagged and surviving on 2 hours of sleep. But for those who love travelling, all the obstacles are worth it. You get to spend quality family time together in new places, trying new foods, and soaking up the different languages and cultures that will, hopefully, make your kid a global citizen.
But when you return to places as a family that you’ve been to previously as a couple, you get a totally new perspective. You may realize that places you once loved as a couple, can unexpectedly become a place of struggle as a family, and vice versa.
I wrote about our trip to Barcelona last year and how much I hated it as a couple but absolutely loved it as a family. So much so that we decided to return to Spain again this year.
But first, we went to Switzerland, one of our favourite countries that we visited back in 2015. The nature was so beautiful, even the massive pounding of my wallet couldn’t keep me from going back.
It would take us 10 years to return to such a magical place, but this time we had a toddler in tow. Would it be just as magical? Would our son even notice?
Okay, let me start by telling you that if you’re ever getting over jet leg as a familiy, Zurich is NOT the place to do it.
Not only are you paying top dollar, you’re missing all the sites while you’re passed out in your accommodations, trying to stay awake while your toddler bounces off the walls, screaming at the top of his lungs. This continued for 4 days, with us even having to take walks at midnight to put our kid back to sleep. Good thing Zurich is super safe.
Also, having been spoiled by Spain, their ridiculous number of playgrounds (I think Barcelona has as many playgrounds as North America has stop signs), and the warm and friendly Spanish attitudes towards kids, I expected more of the same in Switzerland.
I was wrong. So very very wrong. Turns out the Swiss are super grumpy and not a fan of families.
This attitude started even before we boarded the plane. We had an issue with our plane ticket, and in the Business class priority line, Swiss Air staff blatantly ignored all their customers while having an hour-long business meeting in front of their check-in desks. When we finally got the issue fixed hours later and following multiple stress-related heart attacks, we thought we were finally on easy street. Nope. The attitude continued on the plane, when I was yelled at by the flight attendant for a safety infraction I never committed, rude comments made about my son “being really big for under 2” and suggesting that he didn’t qualify as a lap baby, and being super impatient while we took longer than usual to order from the menu because we were busy trying to settle him down.
If this was their business class, I shudder to think what the service in economy would’ve been like.
When we finally got off the plane, exhausted, sleep-deprived, and looking disheveled at Zurich train station, we were ignored by at least 3 employees when asking for help. When we finally made it on the train, we were pushed and shoved by hordes of locals getting on. Luckily (?), I was experienced in this type of crappy treatment as a mother, because that’s also how Torontonians treat new parents on public transport, so I wasn’t particularly fazed.
Unfortunately, the anti-family sentiment continued at the famous Lindt Chocolate factory where no bags “larger than a piece of paper” were allowed in the museum, which was on the 2nd floor of the building with zero bathrooms. Even Wanderer, who is usually calm and relaxed, got snippy with the employee trying to explain that we needed our diaper bag which held our son’s food and changing supplies. The woman dismissively told him to “just go downstairs because you can’t change your kid here anyway.” Clearly, whoever made this rule has no idea that when there’s a blowout, you don’t have time to just casually “stroll down the stairs” to a bathroom far away.
In North American airports you’re allowed to bring as much milk and formula as you need for the flight, so I was shocked when at the Zurich airport, I was told to pour out 2 thermoses of milk for my son, because it’s “not allowed.” I explained that having the milk would be better for the other passengers on the plane because it would avoid my son getting fussy when he’s thirsty. Eventually they relented, but not before suggesting they take everything out to do a thorough search of all our belongings even though we’d just been through the airport scanner.
I started to wonder, is this type of treatment reserved for tourists, or do local parents also get treated like this? Turns out, Switzerland is one of the western world’s worst when it comes to supporting families. In fact, it’s just 2 spots above the US when it comes to maternity leave and childcare is the most expensive in Europe.
This is not something I noticed when we were just frolicking about, bouncing on Alpine trampolines and drinking from glacial streams as a carefree couple. If you’re reading this and you’re child-free, go to Switzerland because you’ll be treated much better and have a much better time. As a family, set your expectations appropriately.
Luckily, we finally find some reprieve from all the constant yelling and stressed-out locals by escaping into nature, which thankful was a short and easy train ride away. This was also where I noticed the greatest number of strollers during the whole week I was there.
The view was so exceptional that it made up for all stress and obstacles we encountered getting there. I suddenly remember why I wanted to come back in the first place—for the breathtaking nature.
PROTIP: This is labeled as a “stroller-friendly” hike, but I wouldn’t recommend it if you’re not used to pushing strollers up steep hills and over gravel. The amazing thing is that the gondola lift was part of the public transit system, so was free, efficient, immaculately clean (like everything else in Switzerland) and well maintained.
Now, it might seem like I’m complaining about Switzerland a lot, but the truth is there’s a lot to like about the country, even when travelling as a family. Here are the things I loved about Zurich:
Cleanliness
I never had to worry about any of us getting sick because the streets are so clean you could eat off the floor (which is helpful because my rambunctious toddler is in his “let’s lick everything” phase). In fact, everything is so pristine, even a port-a-potty in a random park and an outhouse-style bathroom on the top of a mountain were so spotless I worried I was making it dirty by just being inside it.
Switzerland is, hands down, one of the cleanest places I’ve ever been to in the world, second only to Japan.
Tap Water
I never once bought bottled water in Zurich (which is great because everything is crazy expensive) because the tap water was delicious! And once I saw how clean their streams were, I wasn’t surprised at all. I wouldn’t have hesitated to fill up my bottle directly from the streams since you could see all the way to the bottom even from on top of a bridge.
Swiss Kids
One of the highlights of our trip was meeting this wonderful little Swiss girl at the playground in Felsnegg, at the top of the viewpoint. She acted like LMS’s surrogate big sister and not only taught him how to climb the structure but pulled him up at the top so he wouldn’t fall. Cue cuteness overload level 1000! Swiss children are adorable and so helpful!
Playgrounds
From Playgrounds surrounded by lake views, to ice-capped mountains, even a trampoline in the middle of the alps, Switzerland has some of the most scenic playgrounds in the world. And not only that, the one in the city near our accommodations was incredibly safe and well designed, with a fence all the way around, so parents could relax and not have to worry about their kids running into the lake or traffic.
The density of playgrounds wasn’t as crazy as it was in Spain, but they were well thought out and enclosed to give parents peace of mind.
Safety
Even though we missed out on a lot of sight-seeing due to jet leg, Switzerland is so safe we weren’t worried about being out at night at all. This is super useful when you need to go for a midnight walk because your toddler refuses to sleep. Luckily, we brought a back carrier, so he quickly fell asleep after a 30 minute stroll around the block. We never felt unsafe and never worried about the safety of LMS.
If you’re ever in Zurich, I would highly recommend you do the Felsenegg hike, including the cable car ride. Eat at the Felsenegg restaurant to get the best views and if you have kids, they can run off some energy at the nearby playground while you relax and sip some cider. This was easily the highlight of our trip. You will have to go up some steep hills but it’s all worth it.
Another fun thing to do is ask for free chocolate samples and go chocolate hoping in all the stores in the downtown city center. The staff are much nicer than the ones at the train station and airport.
The ferry is also part of their public transportation, so you can essentially get a free boat ride around the lake for scenic views.
And if you’re sick of free stuff and have money to burn, take a daytrip to Lucerne and/or Engleberg, which are 1.5-2.5 hours away by train respectively. They have the best views of the alps and are more scenic than Zurich. The FÜRENALP hike in Engelberg is the one we did prior to having kids and to this day, it’s still my favourite hike out of any hike I’ve done in 50+ countries. Bonus points if you can find the trampoline in the alps that I bounced on.
Here’s how much we spent in Zurich:
Categories | USD/day/3 people | CAD/day/3 people | Notes |
Accommodations | $53 | $73.57 | Because HomeExchange compensated us $120 USD/day after our host cancelled, we were only out $53 USD/day for a 3 bedroom near downtown Zurich. |
Food | $15 (Groceries $12 ; Eating out: $3) | $21 (Groceries: $17.04 ; Eating out: $4) | Knowing food was going to be expensive, our friends took an entire luggage full of dried foods from Toronto. This meant that we didn’t have to do too much grocery shopping in Zurich. The only time we ate out was at the Felsenegg restaurant at the top of our hike, and it was only for drinks. |
Transportation | $48 | $66 | A day pass can be had for only 7 CHF/person which included a gondala ride and ferry as part their public transportation so it was super good value. We were also able to walk to several attractions since we were near the lake. The taxes for the business class flight was $115 CAD per adult. |
Entertainment | $16 | $22 | Entertainment can be cheap in Switzerland because you’re so close to nature, you can essentially do it for free. A lot of their public transportation also includes gondola rides and ferries. We enjoyed two attractions: The chocolate museum @ 17 CHF ($21 USD/person) and the city pool with sauna at 12 CHF/person + 8/person CHF for sauna. |
Toddler | $3 | $5 | We had to buy our toddler diapers milk, and some pouches over the week. Attractions were free for him since he was under 2. Diapers in Zurich are surprisingly inexpensive at 28 cents each. They were the storebrand and much better absorpotion than Pampers. |
Misc | $4 | $5 |
|
Total | $139 | $192.57 | Even though Zurich is one of the most expensive places to travel to, we spent 50% of the average cost of travelling there because we brought some groceries, relied on public transport, free nature and playgrounds as entertainment and use points to fly there. |
Have you ever been to Switzerland? If so, how much did you spend?
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