Zermatt
Switzerland
A car-free village under the most photographed mountain in the world, with skiing in every month
Photo by Victor He on Unsplash
Photos by Gabriel Garcia Marengo, Angelo Burgener, Michael Hamments and Angelo Burgener on Unsplash
Best time to visit all of Switzerland
December to April for snow, and July to September for the walking
Climate month by month
The next sixteen daysOpen-Meteo
Average high and low · °C
Rainfall · mm per month
Best months to visit This month · wettest 80mm in Aug
Where it is
46.02°N, 7.75°E Open in Google Maps
Things to do
Weeks of it- Take the first Gornergrat train and watch the Matterhorn catch the light
- Walk the Five Lakes trail in summer
- Ski over the ridge to Cervinia and have lunch in Italy
- Eat raclette scraped from the wheel
- Ride to 3,883m and give yourself time to breathe
Zermatt travel tipsthe general rules
Currency budget Switzerland
Very expensiveCards are taken everywhere and euros are accepted in many places at a poor rate — pay in francs. Switzerland is expensive in a way that surprises people every single time; a mountain restaurant lunch is CHF 30 and up.
ATMs & cards
UBS, Raiffeisen and PostFinance machines on the Bahnhofstrasse. Always take the franc price, never the converted one. Machines here dispense CHF 100 notes by default, which small cafés dislike — ask for smaller.
Avoid these
- the exchange desks on the Bahnhofstrasse
Use these instead
- UBS
- Raiffeisen
- PostFinance
Always take the franc price. Machines here default to CHF 100 notes, which small cafés dislike — ask for smaller.
Wherever you are: if the machine offers to charge you in your home currency, decline. That is dynamic currency conversion and the rate is set by the ATM's operator, not your bank.
Safety all of Switzerland
Very safeExtremely safe as a village and a serious mountain environment outside it. Altitude is the thing visitors underestimate: the Klein Matterhorn station is at 3,883m and people come off the cable car and feel it within minutes. Off-piste avalanche risk is real and the bulletins are published daily. Glacier travel needs a guide, always. Weather can close every lift at short notice.
Where to walk, and where to pay attention (7 areas)
Comfortable, including after dark
Worth more attention
- off-piste snow at any time — the avalanche risk here is real and people who know the mountain still die in it; go with a guide or stay on the marked runs
- the glacier without a rope and someone who knows it — crevasses are covered and the cover is not load-bearing
- altitude on the first day — the Klein Matterhorn is 3,883m and you can be there within an hour of arriving
The village is car-free and about as safe as inhabited places get. Everything above it is a high mountain..
Our own assessment, not a sourced index.
Entry & visa Switzerland visa rules
No visa needed
Freedom of movement — no time limit, and no visa. Bring a passport or national ID card.
Other passports
No visa neededup to 90 days
90 days within any 180-day period, counted across the whole Schengen area, not per country. ETIAS, a paid online authorisation, is being introduced for these passports — check the official link for whether it applies to your travel dates.
Visa required in advance€90 (Schengen short-stay visa)
A Schengen short-stay visa is applied for before travel, at the consulate of your main destination.
How to get it: Apply at the consulate or visa centre of the country you will spend most time in, typically 15 working days ahead and no more than six months before travel.
Entry rules change often and depend on your passport, not where you live — the official page above is the authority, and the airline checks before you board.
Health & emergencies all of Switzerland
Excellent and cheapRequired to enter
No vaccinations are required for entry from Europe or North America.
Jabs worth having, and what happens if you need a doctor
Worth having
- Tetanus up to date
- Tick-borne encephalitis for a summer in forest below 1,500m
Getting treated
Among the best in the world, and among the most expensive. Treatment is billed and there is no free emergency care for visitors — the EHIC covers EU citizens, everybody else needs insurance. Rega, the air rescue service, will fly you off a mountain and will invoice for it.
Nothing infectious. Altitude sickness above 3,000m, which the Jungfraujoch train reaches in two hours from 570m, and which catches people out. Ticks in summer woodland. And the sun at altitude, which burns through cloud.
Orientation, not medical advice — entry rules change and what you need depends on your own history. Check with a travel clinic four to six weeks before you go.
Food tip
Very goodValais is raclette country and the real version is scraped off a half wheel at the table, not poured from a machine. Cholera is a Valais pie of potato, apple and cheese with a strange name and a good filling. Fendant is the white wine, and the mountain huts pour it by the glass.
Nightlife
Après-ski that starts on the mountain at three and comes down the hill with you, which is the whole shape of the evening here.
- Hennu Stall — on the piste above the village, and the last stop before you ski down
- the Bahnhofstrasse — hotel bars and the après crowd arriving in ski boots
- the Hotel Post complex — several bars in one building, and the late one
- Elsie’s Bar — oysters and champagne, opposite the church
Closing: Après from 15:00, bars to midnight or one, the two clubs until four. The night is early and it is over early.
A beer in a bar: CHF 7–10
Skiing down from Hennu Stall after several is how a good many injuries happen; the bus runs.
Getting around
Easy- From the airport
- There is no road in. You arrive by train from Täsch, where the car park is.
The village is car-free and has been since the 1960s. What exists is a fleet of small electric taxis and the hotel shuttles that meet the train, and the village is twenty minutes end to end on foot.
Time zone and your working day
Europe/Zurich — 6 hours ahead of you
2 hours of overlap with a 09:00–17:00 day where you are — 09:00–11:00 your time, 15:00–17:00 theirs.
No overlap with a 09:00–17:00 day where you are. Working from here means one of you keeps odd hours — their day starts at 03:00 on your clock.
office hours both at once night
Their 09:00–17:00 is 03:00–11:00 on yours.
The difference from the UK, Europe, the US and ten more
Worked out against America/New York, which is where this request looks like it came from.
Internet speedall of Switzerland
Why these are Switzerland's numbers and not Zermatt's
Home broadband — Fast. Several people on calls at once, large uploads, 4K. Broadband here runs at 2.2× the global median of 130 Mbps.
Mobile data — Good. Maps, calls and streaming, and enough to tether a laptop for an afternoon. Mobile runs at about the global median of 109 Mbps.
Ookla publishes no separate figure for Zermatt, so these are medians for all of Switzerland. Cities usually beat the national number and remote islands and national parks fall well below it — treat this as the country's shape, not as a measurement of the street you will be staying on.
A median is the middle of every connection tested there, old copper and new fibre together — so in a country part-way through laying fibre it sits well below what a fibre line actually delivers, and a rental on one can run several times this number. Half of the connections are slower; a fibre flat is rarely one of them. It says what a place can do, not what your rental does, so every listing on Holistay carries its own measured speed and the date it was tested.
Getting online: Airalo or Holafly — a data eSIM for Switzerland, installed before you fly and working the moment you land.
Source: Ookla Speedtest Global Index · measured June 2026
Must-see
Nearby day trips
Say a few words
Swiss German
- HelloGrüeziGROO-eh-tsee
- Hello (to a group)Grüezi mitenandGROO-eh-tsee MIT-eh-nand
- PleaseBitteBIT-uh
- Thank youMerci vielmalMER-see FEEL-mahl
5 more phrases
- Yes / NoJa / Neiyah / nay
- Excuse meEntschuldigungent-SHOOL-di-gung
- How much is it?Was choschtet das?vas KHOSH-tet dass
- CheersProschtprosht
- GoodbyeUf Wiederluegeoof VEE-der-loo-eh-guh
Written German, spoken Swiss German — and the spoken form is different enough that Germans need subtitles on Swiss television. Everybody in Interlaken speaks English. Grüezi is the one word that changes a room.
Religion
Catholic and Protestant in roughly equal parts, and increasingly neither
Split canton by canton since the Reformation, which is why two neighbouring valleys can look entirely different. Sunday is genuinely quiet everywhere — the shops shut and the noise rules apply.
Do's and don'ts
Do
- Be exactly on time. A dinner at seven means seven, and the trains mean it too
- Greet the room on entering a small shop or a mountain hut — grüezi in the German part, bonjour in the French
- Sort your rubbish, which is taken very seriously and is sometimes checked
- Say grüezi mitenand to a group, which is the plural and is noticed
Don't
- Do not make noise on a Sunday — no mowing, no drilling, and in many buildings no laundry
- Do not assume Switzerland is Germany or France; it is neither and the point matters
- Do not haggle, and do not ask for a discount
- Do not step onto a marked hiking trail in trainers and expect sympathy
Where to stay in Zermatt
No Holistay rentals in Zermatt yet — the platform is just opening up. Every listing here will have a video tour and the option to negotiate the nightly price directly with the host.
In the meantime, here is Zermatt on the sites that do have the inventory — each search is already filled in:
- Booking.com hotels, guesthouses and apartments — the widest coverage almost everywhere
- Airbnb whole homes and apartments, and the better option for a week or more
How to get there
Fly into Zurich ZRH
3h 30mfrom the airport· 171 km as the crow flies
3h30 by train, changing at Visp; the village is car-free.
Also worth pricing: Geneva GVA — a similar journey from the west.
Google Flights · Rome2Rio for the trains, buses and ferries as well as the flights
