Zurich
Switzerland
A banking city with a swimmable river through the middle of it, and a lake that turns into a beach in July
Photo by Henrique Ferreira on Unsplash
Photos by Patrick Federi, Aho, Henrique Ferreira and Ruth Georgiev on Unsplash
Best time to visit all of Switzerland
May to September, and December for the Christmas markets
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 140mm in Jul
Where it is
47.37°N, 8.54°E Open in Google Maps
Things to do
Several days- Swim the Limmat on a hot day, going downstream like everyone else
- Sit at a lakeside Badi in the evening with a beer from the kiosk
- See the Chagall windows when the light is behind them
- Walk Zurich West under the railway viaduct
- Take the train to the mountains for a day, which is why people live here
Zurich travel tipsthe general rules
Currency budget Switzerland
Very expensiveCards are universal. Pay in francs rather than euros wherever you are offered the choice. This is among the most expensive cities on earth and a beer is CHF 8 to 12.
ATMs & cards
UBS, Raiffeisen and PostFinance machines are everywhere and straightforward. Always choose francs at the screen. The machines in the station hall are fine; the independent exchange booths beside them are not.
Avoid these
- the exchange booths in the station hall
Use these instead
- UBS
- Raiffeisen
- PostFinance
The machines are straightforward; the booths next to them are not. Always choose francs.
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, very clean, and quiet after nine on weeknights. The one genuine caution is the river: the Limmat looks placid and moves fast, and the Badi swims run with the current for a reason. Langstrasse is the nightlife and red-light street and is noisy rather than threatening.
Where to walk, and where to pay attention (8 areas)
Comfortable, including after dark
Worth more attention
- Langstrasse in the small hours — the city’s one nightlife strip, and where the drinking and the soliciting are
- the Platzspitz and the river paths late — quiet and unlit rather than anything else
- the main station concourse in rush hour — the one reliable place for pickpockets in the city
Trouble is rare enough that the city is remarked on for it. The thing to watch is the exchange rate, not the streets..
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 goodZürcher Geschnetzeltes is veal in cream with rösti, and it is the dish. Luxemburgerli from Sprüngli are small macarons that do not travel. The city has an unexpected number of very good Italian restaurants, and the cheapest decent lunch is the mensa at the ETH, which is open to anyone.
Nightlife
Expensive, well-made, and busier than a banking city has any right to be — the clubs in the old industrial west are serious ones.
- Langstrasse — the one strip that runs late, and everything on it
- Zürich West — the Viadukt arches and the clubs under them
- Niederdorf — old town bars, touristy and pleasant
- the lake shore in summer — the badis turn into bars in the evening
Closing: Bars to 02:00, clubs until 04:00 or later on weekends. Weeknights are quiet.
A beer in a bar: CHF 7–9
A beer costs what a meal costs elsewhere; people drink less and later rather than more.
Getting around
Easy and cheap- UberWorks here
- BoltWorks here
- From the airport
- Zurich airport to the centre CHF 60–75, against CHF 7 on the train
- Against a taxi
- Cheaper than a Swiss taxi, which is among the dearest in the world. Both are dear.
The rules vary by canton and the supply is thinnest away from the biggest cities.
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
What these numbers mean
Home broadband — Fast. Several people on calls at once, large uploads, 4K. Broadband here runs at 2.1× the global median of 130 Mbps.
Mobile data — Fast. Enough to work from a cafe or a beach on a hotspot all day. Mobile runs at 1.5× the global median of 109 Mbps.
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 Zurich
No Holistay rentals in Zurich 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 Zurich 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
10 minfrom the airport· 10 km as the crow flies
10 min by train to the main station.
Google Flights · Rome2Rio for the trains, buses and ferries as well as the flights
