IS JUNGFRAUJOCH "TOP" OF EUROPE REALLY WORTH IT? 8 More Affordable, Higher, Less-Touristy Options

hey guys welcome back to the traveling Swiss if you are new here my name is Alexis and I am from the US and I am Louie and I am Swiss and we make all kinds of content about living but more specifically about traveling in Switzerland so if that sounds interesting to you make sure to click that subscribe button to stick around before we get into the video I wanted to thank all of you who have purchased our itineraries or have connected with Louie in a one-on-one consultation we'll give you more details about what those opportunities are at the end of the video we wanted to thank you all for your support at the beginning we love connecting with you yeah I love actually doing all these consultations with everyone so a big thank you to you to all of you guys so let's get right into the video so if you click this video you already know that the top of your pass is not available for the 2023 season and probably foreseeable into the future so with that that means it's going to be more complicated and potentially likely more expensive than ever to visit the young Freya top of Europe we've connected with enough of you we've made enough of these videos and see your guys's comments to know that this is a bucket list item for so many of you and it's a key point on a lot of the itineraries as you're planning them so this might be a little bit of a disappointment that you might now even need to spend a little bit more money to visit the young friak top of Europe so in this video we're going to go through first is it worth it I know so many of you want to do it is it worth it to get another ticket not have the pass pay a little bit more money we'll go through some pros and cons and then we're gonna give you some amazing Alternatives at spoiler alert I think in a lot of cases Lily and I actually prefer so let's get right into the video so we're gonna go through the pros and cons but we don't want this video to feel overly negative there's a lot of great merits to the o'briak top of Europe so I'll let Louis start with the pros so yeah there are lots of nice things about your top of Europe to to talk about for me one of the the best thing is that you have different activities it's not just like a peek with a view and then that's it you have different activities like the ice palace that was pretty fun to to go around you have a pretty well done Museum about lint and chocolate you can try taste some chocolate and learn about chocolate there if you are not going to do it in Zurich this is a nice way to do it you have also the possibility to see snow even in the middle of July you'll you will have snow which is kind of unique I think you will not have this in many places even in the in the outsole if you are coming from a place that doesn't have to know that so that's something I think fun to do there is also in terms of sensation you're at 3400 meters at the Young fire you have that attitude feeling that is also kind of a novelty and is unique for some people so that's something that is uh that is really nice around and about the so we went through the pros which means now it's time for the cons which is sometimes my specialty I think I tell you so the first thing is all in the name it is called the Young froyaktop of Europe which sounds very cool I will give it to them it is excellent marketing but it is not even the tallest peak that you can visit in Switzerland the top of Europe Insignia or designate Nation comes from the fact that it is the tallest accessible train station in Europe which is cool but a little bit Nation meaning it is an actual train takes you to the top there's places within Switzerland a few that a gondola can take you up Higher and Higher by a margin of a few hundred meters in certain instances so top of Europe is a little bit of a misnomer so I just want you to be aware that you're not actually visiting certainly not the top of Europe but not even actually the top of Switzerland so we'll set the stage there there are some other negatives with this one as well this is very very very touristy you will have extremely high crowds here if you visit in the summer you will likely need to make a train reservation which of course is no big deal but when you get up there I think you might be even a little bit shocked with how many other people are doing the same thing that you're doing which can certainly take away from the experience and maybe what I am now is that you will find no Swiss I think I think it's true you can if you have swiss and you you are going off into the dump of Europe let us know in the comments but it will be just you'll feel like a tourist with a bunch of other tourists in a beautiful place that's for sure but you have other beautiful places around and yeah for me you yeah you kind of feel like a sheep that's a activity so because there is such crazy demand to visit the Empire that means that the prices are really really high now the prices are already high for a lot of things in Switzerland I think with the young crayock specifically now the prices get a little bit they get a little bit out of control in my opinion so so I'll go through the prices now depending on the different type of pass whatever that you have their prices are Flex depending on the seasonality so if you're going in March it's cheaper than if you're going in July the prices here I'm discussing are in the summer since that's what most people do if they're traveling I thought it would be relevant to most of you so if you don't have any pass and you're just getting a return ticket to the unfrey off and back it is 214 francs to visit one mountain that's a big ticket that's the cost almost of a Swiss travel pass for a few days if if you have the Swiss travel pass or the your rail pass it is 160 francs so you might notice not much of a discount there if you have the half fare card the price is 107 francs which is still still expensive that now means you're paying for the half fare card and now it's an additional 107 francs to get to the umbrella yuck and if you have the young Frau pass which means you already have to buy the yoga region pass and you don't have access to the young Friday within that anymore used to previously and that is a 75 add-on and then with all of that in the summer you likely need to reserve your seat as well and that's 10 francs in each Direction so these tickets can be super expensive if you are a family with a couple different people traveling it's hard to justify in my opinion 200 plus francs a pop for these tickets that can be a thousand for a day to visit a mountain so I I just say that very plainly because the tickets um I was a little shocked this year when they got rid of that top of your pass it made it more expensive for families because the option to have cheaper tickets where children was kind of eliminated you have actually for families you used to have the the top of your past four 30 francs for children now you have still the the regular pass but you have to have that add-on this 75 frames per children which makes it 100 bucks uh yeah we're at 200 kind of percent year over year well done so but we are here to guide you it's really expensive so that's of Europe because that eliminates a lot of the possibilities for a lot of people which is you know unfortunate it becomes I think at the price point where it's inaccessible for a lot of Travelers so that's disappointing but I do want to flag it and the reason we're doing this video is it's not all bad news there's a lot of Alternatives yes so we went through the pros and cons we don't want to leave anybody with just a negative video because we're here to help you and not to discourage you we love traveling in Switzerland so if you've gotten this far and the jungfraiak you feel like you've either been priced out or you just can't kind of justify spending that much to visit the top of a mountain we have a lot of other alternatives for you so depending on what reason you were visiting the jungfra young for we have a bunch of different Alternatives so we'll go through them now I will let Louie start because I know he's excited to talk about if you were visiting the young Frau Yak because you thought it was the tallest mountain or you want to visit the tallest mountain we have a bonus for you we have even taller options I have two options for you to get kind of to these altitudes and one is is really amazing because it involves also the Matterhorn a lot of you actually in the consultation are carrying Interlaken and then their map this is the Matterhorn Glacier Paradise this is really quite incredible it's a series of cable cars that go up that go around the Matterhorn that go to the little Matterhorn at 3883 meters so that's 400 meters more than the top of Europe This is the this is the highest cable car station in Europe now yeah uh this is really cool because it has also some elements of multimedia you have a little Cinema you have an ice cave as well you have that feeling and you you can see some glaciers you can see Italy also actually it's uh it's fun and you can even ski from from there in the summer at the price that is much much more affordable in a way I think with a half air card it will be around 50 francs so this is really depends also on the season but it is much more reasonable than the 105 or plus frames for the top of Europe the other option that we did I think recently is in France right next to Geneva but also a really cool activity right so the agreed Unity is in Germany which is about an hour from Geneva it's a really easy day trip the egg whiti is a great great Paradise the reason you wanted to visit the top of Europe was for the altitude because it is over 3 800 meters so you will really get that high altitude feeling you will get that kind of unobstructed Vista of all the mountains it is really really beautiful beautiful you have simple interactive elements as well there's a little Museum and you can ski from there if you're a really professional skier and there's something really nice where there's an elevator that goes up to a point and you have a glass floor where you can kind of feel like you're floating a little bit so there's more to it than just the view but the the view and the altitude I think is the reason that you would be visiting the equity for pricing it costs 73 Euros as a round trip ticket it is not on any of the Swiss passes because it is in France but the equivalent would be the just round trip to view for ayak top of Europe which is 215. so it is much much cheaper I know this isn't technically in Switzerland but we did want to mention it because if you're interested in altitude you get another 400 meters here like the glacier Paradise as well so for the next section if the reason you were so excited about the top of Europe where all these activities they have they have the lint chocolate Museum they have a glacier viewing point they have an ice cave there's lots of stuff to do up there other than just hiking because I know not everyone here that watches the channel myself included as a hiker so if the reason you were going was always cool all of these cool activities we have two really great options for you actually that are really close by the one that I really recommend is the kindergarten Fiesta this is the most well-rounded key connectivity in the region maybe even in Switzerland too for me you have the gold that takes you to your beautiful place and you can just be there on the peak and unseal the mountains you have The Cliff Walk that is one first activity that is cool and distinguish itself from all the Peaks and then you have also a really nice hike and you are a hiker because we've done this it takes I did about pregnant yeah uh now uh to get there um you have that beautiful Lake it's kind of an infinity pool that's a like really really nice so you have also the hiking possibilities and then what makes it really unique and especially on the activity side is that you have four main activities you have two kind of zipline activities that are that you can do from the top of the fiesta from one of the intermedical station then you have the mountain cards that is also a really cool activity for the families or as adults as well and then you have a mountain scooter that you can scoot down the mountain all the way to the to the bottom of the mountain in the valley so for me this is really a fun one that you choose and this is included in the burner Overland pass or the Jung fow travel pass as well so in these passes the nice thing is that you'll pay for a pass for 150 francs or something uh some it depends on the number of days and then you'll have access to this one but also lots of others rather than having to pay a lot for one experience another one in the region that is not in some of these passes will have a pretty steep discount with the Swiss trial pass and half second there's the shield tone this is from Muran you have two gondolas that go up this is where the devil of seven was actually shot and this is also actually very high up this is at 3000 meters or just about it in terms of the activities you have a really cool James Bond Museum uh up there you can go out you can even walk around and have some some other kind of activities to read about and you have a beautiful view actually even on some lakes that you can't see in other peaks in the in the region or you can't see from uh from The Young file yeah and this doesn't stop here in terms of the activities you have in the intermediary station beer where you have a thrill where this is a little bit like The Cliff Walk you walk along a cliff but then you have some places where you can even actually like walk or it's very secure but yeah to be double seven exactly and you have like just a drop it's a pretty uh pretty fun activity as well so this is another one in the region that could be fun to uh to consider for activities so this next section if the re reason you wanted to visit the young fry Aquas to get an amazing view of the Alps we have two options that might be even better for you the one that for me is underrated that I I think tell everyone in the consultations that I do is the main mission this is part of the burner Oberlin pass and the jungfrao travel pass and this one is really fun because it is basically in the middle of all these beautiful Villages you can see Grindelwald Wenger you can see all of these different Villages even muhan and you still have you you have a little hike and you have a view really of lakes you have a view of everything there even as a just a one-off if you're not going to take a pass but you are going to just take a round trip ticket this is if you have a half air con this is 26 francs so super underrated but beautiful view you have the views on the glaciers also when you take the gondola and you have the views of the of the um file as well for me I I would consider this like a really if you are a little bit more on the budget or if you just like to be away from the crowns of the young this is the one I would recommend then the other one for the views as beautiful as the brienza hoton this is on legrands you take a wheel train from riens and then you are on the top you are going to see the beautiful Lake Brands if it is sunny the color will be amazing you have some Ridge hikes also that you can take this is in the region this is included in the burner Oberlin pass I think this is always my favorite font pass and even more now that you don't have the top of your past and so this is another one that I would consider so our last section for you is particularly if you're just so turned off by the price you want to have the most affordable experience possible you want to maximize these travel passes and you don't want to pay anything extra and you're just getting the Swiss travel pass we have a few options for you that are included just within that yeah so this is not in the Interlaken region this is more around Busan but two amazing mountains actually that are available within the Swiss trail pass so you will not have to pay nothing else but in your Swiss trail pass tickets one is the regiculum this is a beautiful Peak it's the queen of the mountains it's uh it's called and you can get there from new Sun taking um a boat and then a cogwheel train a Funicula that will be both the boat and the cogwheel train will be included you'll have a beautiful view you can walk around and uh and so this is one Peak that is uh that is nice the other one is the stancerhon which is also close to lusan you can do it as a day trip from your son definitely and you have a cool Gondola you can even be outside of the gondola and you have also amazing view on the Alps and different mountains around so these are two peaks that I think I would uh definitely recommend regardless of price or not but it costs nothing else than on the Swiss trail pass and I'll give you a bonus tip about these two if you want to be where Swiss people are and you want to be a little bit away from Taurus star I think these will be yeah definitely two options that are the the best so I hope you found that video helpful if you still really would like to visit the empray off top of Europe but more importantly you can still afford to pay that additional fee to visit the infray off top of Europe you will have an amazing time if the weather is nice there's so much to experience there we've done it personally ourselves and we really did enjoy it but I want to flag this because I think for a lot of different people Switzerland I know is a lot of those once in a lifetime trucks where you're saving so much money and I think keep adding 200 train tickets just to get to one Peak I think in 10 minutes becoming increasingly more difficult to justify and and that's feedback we're getting directly from you so I hope you found some Alternatives that are just as amazing I don't want any of you to think that it's a lesser experience and I think Louis and I actually prefer a lot of these so many amazing things to see in Switzerland and the regions around it you really can't go wrong so if the Young probably off top of Europe is not in the courts for you in this trip really don't be discouraged you will have just as nice of a time in any of these options we've listed so thank you guys so much for watching if you have made it this far as we mentioned in the beginning of the video we offer one-on-one consultations our Louis offers one-on-one consultations you'll get more value from him than I think you've traveled my whole life in Switzerland so yeah so we offer 45 minute one-on-one consultations with Louie at our website which I have linked here additionally we are offering itineraries for all of you bear 20 US Dollars and you can buy one of those six different itineraries we currently have and we keep adding more all of these are about a week along in different places in Switzerland and our goal of this was to be as detailed and literal as possible Louie included in Zach train times platforms you need to go to so all the stress and the anxiety is just on us let us handle it for you so thank you guys so much for watching this video as always if you haven't subscribed yet please hit that button and we'll see you in the next one bye guys bye hey guys thanks for watching thanks for watching if you want to see more videos like this please make sure to like And subscribe we'll see you soon

Channel: The Traveling Swiss – Alexis & Louis

Views: 85,185

Keywords: Jungfraujoch, Top of Europe, Switzerland, travel, affordable alternatives, Glacier Paradise, Zermatt, Brienzer Rothorn, Stanserhorn, Rigi, First, high-altitude destinations, touristy places, budget travel, adventure, mountain views, Swiss Alps, Europe, travel guide, jungfraujoch top of europe, top of europe, how to switzerland, the traveling swiss, traveling swiss, the traveling swiss interlaken, is jungfraujoch worth it, swiss, top of europe pass, swiss rail pass

Id: gZw4ZZ7Kf8M

Length: 17min 35sec (1055 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 12 2023