16 Things to Do in Interlaken: Jungfrau Region Guide

Interlaken is a base, not a destination, and understanding that is the whole trick to visiting it. The town of about 5,900 people sits on a flat strip between Lake Thun and Lake Brienz, and almost everything people come for is a train ride away: the Jungfraujoch, Grindelwald, Schynige Platte, Lauterbrunnen. Give it three days, budget more than you think for the railways, and skip Interlaken if you want a Swiss old town, because there is barely any of one.

What the town itself has is the departure board. Two stations, Interlaken Ost and Interlaken West, put the whole Jungfrau region inside an hour, the boats on both lakes leave from beside them, and the paragliders land in a meadow in the middle of town. It is also the adventure-sports capital of Switzerland, so canyoning, rafting, skydiving and ropes courses are all sold from shopfronts along the Höheweg.

The 16 things to do in Interlaken are listed below.

1. Tandem paragliding, for landing in the middle of town.
2. Jungfraujoch, for Europe’s highest railway station.
3. Canyoning, for the gorges around the town.
4. Grindelwald, for the Eiger north face and First.
5. Höhematte, for the meadow the paragliders land in.
6. Interlaken Monastery and Castle, for the town’s only old building.
7. Tourismuseum, for 500 years of Alpine tourism.
8. Kunsthaus Interlaken, for regional art and the open-air stage.
9. Niederhorn, for the ridge above Lake Thun.
10. Trail running, for the four ridges around the Bödeli.
11. Boat cruises, for Lake Thun and Lake Brienz.
12. Summer Stage Interlaken, for free open-air concerts.
13. International Trucker and Country Festival, for Switzerland’s oddest festival.
14. Ropes Park Interlaken, for treetop courses in the forest.
15. Harder Kulm, for the view that is 10 minutes from the station.
16. Schynige Platte, for the old cogwheel railway and the alpine garden.

1. Tandem Paragliding

Tandem paragliding is the thing Interlaken is best known for, and the reason is the landing: flights come down on the Höhematte meadow in the middle of town, in front of the hotels. Take-off is from Beatenberg, about 20 minutes away by minibus, and the pilot carries you, so no experience or training is needed.

Airtime is usually 10 to 20 minutes depending on conditions and the package, with the Jungfrau massif ahead and Lake Thun below. Pilots will add spirals and wing-overs if you ask and will leave them out if you do not. Photo and video packages are shot from a boom camera on the wing and sold separately.

Several operators run flights from the same site and they price their own packages, so compare before booking; none publishes a fixed public rate that survives a season. Flights are weather-dependent and cancelled in wind or low cloud, so book it for your first full day and keep the last day as the fallback.

2. Jungfraujoch

The Jungfraujoch is the highest railway station in Europe, at 3,454 m (11,332 ft), and it is the most expensive day out in Switzerland. The journey from Interlaken Ost runs through Grindelwald on the Eiger Express gondola and then the Jungfrau Railway tunnel through the Eiger and Mönch, which takes about 45 minutes from Grindelwald Terminal to the top.

At the station there is the Sphinx observation terrace at 3,571 m, the Ice Palace cut into the glacier, the Alpine Sensation walkway, a snow field open in summer and the view down the Aletsch Glacier, the longest in the Alps and part of the Swiss Alps Jungfrau-Aletsch UNESCO site. A marked route on the snow leads to the Mönchsjoch Hut in about an hour each way.

The Jungfrau Railways price the trip from CHF 129.60 (about €138, $160, £118), and a seat reservation costing CHF 10 is compulsory from 1 May to 31 October. A discounted Good Morning ticket applies to the first two departures of the day and requires you to start down by early afternoon. A Jungfrau Travel Pass, from CHF 165 (about €175, $204, £151) for 3 to 8 days, covers the region’s trains, buses, boats and mountain railways and gets a special Jungfraujoch fare on top. Altitude affects people: anyone pregnant, in poor health or travelling with a child under two should take advice before going above 2,500 m.

3. Canyoning

Canyoning is the wet version of Interlaken’s adventure industry: you abseil, slide and jump down a gorge with a guide, in a wetsuit and a helmet. The Lütschine and Saxeten gorges close to town are the beginner routes, and the Grimsel trip, with a long abseil and a zip line, is the hard one.

Operators run half-day and full-day trips from bases in Interlaken and Wilderswil, with transport from the town centre included, and they supply everything except a swimming costume and a towel. Being able to swim helps but is not usually required; being in reasonable health is.

Prices are set per operator and per trip and are not published in a form that holds for a season, so get a current quote rather than trusting a figure from a guide. Trips run roughly May to September and are cancelled when the rivers are running high.

4. Grindelwald

Grindelwald is the mountain village 35 minutes from Interlaken Ost by train, at 1,034 m under the north face of the Eiger, and it is the obvious day trip from the town. It has been a climbing base since the golden age of alpinism in the 1850s and it now has around 300 km (186.4 mi) of marked walking trails.

Grindelwald-First is the cable car above the village and the reason most day trippers come. The First Cliff Walk is a walkway bolted to the rock face, the hike along the ridge to Bachalpsee takes about an hour each way and gives the reflection photograph everyone has seen, and the First Flyer, First Glider, mountain carts and trottibike scooters run back down the mountain. Männlichen and Pfingstegg are the two smaller cable cars on the other side of the valley.

Grindelwald-First is priced from CHF 38 (about €40, $47, £35), and the First Adventure Package, from CHF 60, bundles unlimited cable car rides with up to two of the downhill activities and is sold at the valley station. The Grindelwald Terminal station, where the Eiger Express leaves from, is one stop before the village itself, so check which one your ticket says.

5. Hohematte Park

Höhematte is the 14-hectare (35-acre) meadow in the middle of Interlaken, and it exists because 37 local citizens bought it in 1864 to stop it being built on. That decision is why the town has an uninterrupted view of the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau from its main street instead of a wall of hotels.

It is a field rather than a formal park: open grass, a bandstand, benches, flower beds along the Höheweg edge, and the target circle the tandem paragliders aim for, which is free entertainment all afternoon in good weather. An ice rink is set up on part of it in winter.

There is no fee and no gate. Buses stop at Interlaken Kursaal on the north side, and both stations are about 15 minutes’ walk away at either end of the Höheweg.

6. Interlaken Castle

Interlaken Castle is the surviving part of the Augustinian monastery that the town grew around, and it is the oldest thing in Interlaken by several centuries. The monastery was first documented in 1133, Bern took it over after the Reformation in 1528, and the buildings were turned into a hospital and then into offices.

What is left is a national heritage site at Lindenallee 10: a steeple from the early 14th century, a Gothic cloister gallery around the old courtyard and a chapel of 1452. The complex now houses the district administration and the Oberland Ost registry office, so it is a working government building with a medieval core rather than a museum.

Walking through the grounds and the cloister is free and there is no ticket office, but the offices are not open to visitors and parts of the site are closed. It is a few minutes on foot from Höhematte, next to the Japanese Garden.

7. Tourimuseum

The Tourismuseum is the only museum anywhere devoted to the history of tourism itself, and it is in Unterseen, the small old town across the river from Interlaken. It opened in 1980 and fills three floors of a building at Obere Gasse 26 with 500 years of Alpine travel: early hotel registers, vintage skis and sledges, sedan chairs, souvenir carving, mountaineering kit and the machinery of the package tour.

It is a genuinely good counterweight to the rest of the region, because it explains how the Jungfrau became a product, which is what you are buying a ticket to when you go up it. Unterseen itself, with its 17th-century square and covered bridge, is the one piece of old Switzerland within walking distance of Interlaken.

Adults pay CHF 8 (about €9, $10, £7). It opens Wednesday to Sunday from 14:00 to 17:00, from 1 March to 23 November 2026, and closes in winter and on public holidays, so a December visitor will find the door shut. It is about 10 minutes’ walk from Interlaken West.

8. Kunsthaus Interlaken

Kunsthaus Interlaken is the town’s art house, at Jungfraustrasse 55, and it runs four changing exhibitions a year rather than a permanent display. The collection leans on the painters who made this landscape famous in the first place, including Johann Ludwig Aberli and Franz Niklaus König, whose engraved views sold the Bernese Oberland to 18th-century Europe.

Contemporary regional, Swiss and international work fills the rest of the programme, and the building doubles as a cultural centre for music, theatre and film. The exhibition running from 13 September to 15 November 2026 is on contemporary depictions of the human figure.

It opens Wednesday to Saturday from 14:00 to 17:00 and Sunday from 11:00 to 17:00. Buses 21, 102 and 103 stop at Interlaken Jungfraustrasse outside. The open-air stage in its garden is where the free summer concerts happen.

9. Niederhorn

The Niederhorn is the 1,963 m (6,440 ft) ridge on the north side of Lake Thun, and it is the quiet alternative to the Jungfrau railways. The view is different from the standard Interlaken one: you look back across the lake at the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau from the side, with the Blüemlisalp and the Jura beyond.

Ibex and chamois live on the ridge and are regularly seen from the path, which is unusual this close to a cable car. The ridge walk from the top station towards Burgfeldstand is straightforward, there is a marmot trail for children, and trottibike scooters run down to Beatenberg.

The route from Interlaken is bus or boat to Beatenbucht, funicular up to Beatenberg and then the gondola to the summit. Return fares are sold by Niederhornbahn AG and change by season, so check the operator before you travel. The Interlaken Guest Card discounts the boat leg.

10. Trail-running

Interlaken is one of the better trail-running bases in the Alps because four ridges rise straight out of the valley floor, each with more than 1,000 m of climb, and all four start within walking distance of a station. The Harder Kulm loop from the town centre is the standard local route and the steepest introduction to what that means.

Longer days run out along the Schynige Platte to First ridge, over the Faulhorn, or up the Lauterbrunnen valley towards Mürren. The Jungfrau Marathon, which finishes above Kleine Scheidegg, and the Eiger Ultra Trail are the two races that bring runners here from abroad.

The trails are free and marked with the standard Swiss yellow signs and red-and-white blazes. Some routes only make sense one way, with a mountain railway doing the climb or the descent, so factor a ticket in. Weather turns fast above 2,000 m; check the forecast and carry a shell.

11. Boat Cruises

Boats on Lake Thun and Lake Brienz are the cheapest scenic transport in the region, and they are scheduled services rather than sightseeing cruises, so they take you somewhere. BLS runs both lakes, including two restored paddle steamers, and both fleets leave from beside the Interlaken stations: Lake Brienz from Interlaken Ost, Lake Thun from Interlaken West.

Lake Brienz is the smaller and more dramatic of the two, turquoise from glacial silt, with the Giessbach falls dropping 500 m through 14 stages beside a grand hotel and its own funicular. Lake Thun is bigger and has more on its shore: Oberhofen and Spiez castles, the St. Beatus Caves and Thun itself at the far end.

A BLS day pass covers both lakes and is the way to do it if you plan more than one leg. The Interlaken Guest Card takes 20% off the Lake Thun and Lake Brienz day pass, a Swiss Travel Pass covers the boats outright, and services thin out sharply from November to March.

12. Summer Stage Interlaken

Summer Stage Interlaken is a series of free open-air concerts on the stage in the Kunsthaus garden, running weekly from June to September. The bill is local and regional: brass bands, big bands, folk groups, reggae and ska outfits and Swiss traditional music.

There is no ticket and no booking. Concerts go ahead in dry weather and are called off in rain, and the programme is published by Interlaken Tourism and the Kunsthaus rather than fixed to one weekday, so check the events calendar for the week you are there.

The stage is at Jungfraustrasse 55, five minutes from Höhematte. Bring something to sit on, because seating is limited.

13. Interlaken Trucker & Country Festival

The International Trucker and Country Festival is the strangest thing in the Swiss events calendar and it has been running at Interlaken airfield since 1994. Hundreds of decorated trucks are parked up and polished, a Western village goes up with a saloon and a show stage, there is line dancing, and international country acts play across three days.

It is a genuine subculture event rather than a tourist attraction, which is what makes it worth seeing. Truck owners come from across Europe and sleep in their cabs; the convoy through town is the part locals turn out for.

The 32nd edition runs from 25 to 27 June 2027 at Flugplatz Interlaken. Tickets are sold through the festival and Ticketcorner, and hotel rooms in Interlaken and Matten disappear for that weekend, so book both together. It is one of the odder entries on the list of top festivals to visit in Switzerland.

14. Seilpark Interlaken

Ropes Park Interlaken is a treetop course in the forest above Matten, with nine circuits, more than 160 obstacles and platforms up to 20 m off the ground, linked by bridges, swings and zip lines. Harnesses, helmets and the safety briefing are included and the circuits are graded, so a nervous first-timer and a teenager who wants the high zip lines can go round together.

Regular courses need a minimum height of 110 cm. Below that there is the ground-level Snowli Kids Course, which takes children from age 2. Reckon on 2.5 to 3 hours for the visit, including kitting up and handing the gear back.

Adults pay CHF 45 (about €48, $56, £41), children under 16 CHF 32 and the Snowli Kids Course CHF 19, with reduced rates for groups of 10 or more. The season runs from March to November, the park stays open in light rain and closes in thunderstorms, and it is a 15-minute walk from Interlaken West towards Heimwehfluh.

15. Harder Kulm

Harder Kulm is the fastest view in the Jungfrau region: a funicular from beside Interlaken Ost climbs 700 m to 1,322 m in 10 minutes, and the Two Lakes Bridge viewing platform at the top hangs out over the drop with Lake Thun on one side, Lake Brienz on the other and the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau straight ahead.

There is a restaurant in a wooden chalet from the early 1900s, a panoramic playground for children, and marked paths back down to town that take around two hours. Ibex sometimes come close to the terrace.

Tickets start at CHF 22 (about €23, $27, £20) and the Harderbahn runs from 3 April to 29 November 2026 only, with no winter service. The Interlaken Guest Card takes 15% off the fare, and a Harder Lunchtime Ticket from CHF 39 bundles the funicular with the daily menu at the summit restaurant, with the ascent starting by 13:10.

16. Schynige Platte

Schynige Platte is the old-fashioned option and the one regulars recommend. A cogwheel railway from Wilderswil, opened in 1893 and still running its original brown carriages, takes about 50 minutes to climb to 1,967 m on a ridge facing the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau across the valley.

The Alpine Botanical Garden at the top holds around 800 mountain plant species in their natural setting, entry is included in the rail fare, and it is one of the oldest alpine gardens in Switzerland. The Panoramaweg loop takes about 1 hour 15 minutes and gives the view in both directions; the long ridge walk to First and Grindelwald takes most of a day. Alphorn concerts run daily in season.

Tickets start at CHF 34 (about €36, $42, £31), the Interlaken Guest Card takes 20% off, and the line runs in summer only. Wilderswil is 6 minutes from Interlaken Ost by train.

Where is Interlaken?

Interlaken is in the Bernese Oberland, in the canton of Bern, on the flat alluvial plain called the Bödeli between Lake Thun and Lake Brienz. The name means “between lakes”, and the town sits at 568 m with mountains on both sides.

Bern is about 55 minutes away by train, Lucerne about 2 hours on the scenic Luzern-Interlaken Express, Zurich Airport about 2 hours 20 minutes and Geneva Airport about 3 hours. Grindelwald is 35 minutes and Lauterbrunnen 20 minutes, both from Interlaken Ost.

What is the history of Interlaken?

Interlaken began as a monastery. Augustinians founded it in 1133, it took over local government, the town got market rights in 1365 and grew rich on bridge tolls and freight, and after a fire in 1528 and the Reformation the monastery was dissolved and its buildings handed to Bern.

The town then went quiet for two centuries and was reinvented by tourism. Travellers came for the mountain scenery from the 1700s, Byron and Mendelssohn among them, and the railways arrived in the 1870s and 1890s. Hotels went up along the Höheweg, the population multiplied more than fivefold, and the Jungfrau Railway opened to the Jungfraujoch in 1912 after 16 years of tunnelling.

Interlaken basics: language, money, plugs and time

Interlaken runs on German, Swiss francs, Type J plugs and Central European Time. Switzerland is not in the EU and does not use the euro. The practical facts about Switzerland are set out below.

How many days do you need in Interlaken?

Three days is the right length for Interlaken and two is the minimum. Day one is the town and a low mountain: Höhematte, Unterseen, the Tourismuseum and Harder Kulm in the late afternoon for the light. Day two is the big one, either the Jungfraujoch or Grindelwald-First. Day three is Schynige Platte, a lake boat, or an adventure activity.

Add a fourth day if you want Lauterbrunnen and Mürren, which is the valley of waterfalls and the car-free village above it, or a fifth for Brienz and the Ballenberg open-air museum. Do not try to fit the Jungfraujoch into a day you are also travelling, because it is a full day on its own and the weather can write it off.

Is Interlaken expensive to visit?

Yes, Interlaken is expensive, and the mountain railways are why. A family of four going up to the Jungfraujoch will spend more on that single day than on two nights of accommodation, because the fare starts at CHF 129.60 (about €138, $160, £118) per adult before the compulsory CHF 10 summer seat reservation. The prices in Switzerland are high generally, but this is a level above.

Four things bring the total down. The Interlaken Guest Card, handed over by your host after one night, makes local buses free and takes 20% off the lake day pass, 20% off Schynige Platte and 15% off Harder Kulm. A Jungfrau Travel Pass from CHF 165 (about €175, $204, £151) pays for itself in about two mountain days. Half the good things here are free: Höhematte, the monastery grounds, Unterseen, the trails and watching the paragliders land. And the supermarkets by both stations are where anyone staying more than two nights buys lunch.

What to eat in Interlaken

Bernese Oberland food is farm food, built around cheese, potatoes and cured meat, and the local dish is the Berner Platte rather than fondue. The list of best food to eat in Switzerland covers the rest of the country; the Oberland ones are below.

1. Berner Platte. A platter of boiled beef, smoked pork, sausages, bacon and tongue over sauerkraut or beans with potatoes, served for two or more and large enough to defeat most people.
2. Älplermagronen. Macaroni, potato, cheese and cream baked together with fried onions on top and apple sauce on the side, which sounds wrong and is not.
3. Rösti. Grated potato fried into a cake, eaten as a side or topped with egg, bacon or cheese as a meal.
4. Fondue and raclette. Melted cheese in a pot or scraped off a wheel, eaten from October to March. Restaurants serve it year-round here because visitors ask for it.
5. Meringue with Gruyère double cream. The meringue was reputedly invented in Meiringen, half an hour up the valley, and this is how the Oberland serves it.
6. Lake fish. Perch, char and whitefish from Thun and Brienz, usually fried in butter; check whether it is local, because much restaurant perch is imported.
7. Alpkäse. Hard cheese made on the high pastures in summer and sold at farm stalls along the walking trails.

Where are the best places to eat in Interlaken?

Interlaken’s restaurant scene is built for a high turnover of visitors, so the Höheweg addresses are convenient rather than good value. Walk over to Unterseen instead, where the restaurants around the old square serve the same Bernese food to a mixed crowd at lower prices.

Two easy wins. Mountain restaurants at the top of the funiculars, including the chalet at Harder Kulm and the Schynige Platte hotel, do a fixed daily menu that is competitive with anything in town and comes with the view; the Harder Lunchtime Ticket bundles the fare and the meal from CHF 39. And the Coop and Migros at both stations have hot counters that fill the gap for a fraction of a restaurant bill.

Where to stay in Interlaken

Stay in Interlaken itself, in Matten and Unterseen next door, or up in Wilderswil, because all three are inside the guest-card area and on the same local bus and train lines. Interlaken between the two stations is the most convenient and the most expensive. Matten and Unterseen are a 10-minute walk out and noticeably cheaper. Wilderswil is 6 minutes by train and sits on the branch to Lauterbrunnen and Grindelwald, which is useful if the mountains are the point.

The grand option: Victoria Jungfrau Grand Hotel & Spa. The Belle Époque hotel that faces Höhematte across the Höheweg, with 216 rooms, a large spa with indoor and outdoor pools, and the Jungfrau framed from the front rooms. The Victoria opened here in 1865 and the hotel has been the address in Interlaken since. Check dates for the Victoria Jungfrau Grand Hotel & Spa.

Mid-range on the Höheweg: Hotel Interlaken. A four-star beside the Japanese Garden and the monastery, on a site that has taken travellers since the 14th century, five minutes from Höhematte and about 10 from Interlaken Ost. Check dates for Hotel Interlaken.

Cheaper, and good with children: Backpackers Villa Sonnenhof. A hostel and guesthouse on the Höhematte side with private and shared rooms, a garden facing the Jungfrau, and the local buses included. It is about 800 m from Interlaken Ost. Check dates for Backpackers Villa Sonnenhof.

Getting to Interlaken and getting around

Arrive by train, and know which of the two stations you want before you do. Interlaken Ost is the one for Grindelwald, Lauterbrunnen, the Jungfraujoch, Lake Brienz and Lucerne. Interlaken West is the one for Bern, Thun and Lake Thun. They are 15 minutes apart on foot along the Höheweg and one stop apart by train, and almost every mainline service calls at both.

From the airports, Zurich is about 2 hours 20 minutes with one change at Bern, Geneva about 3 hours, and Basel about 2 hours. The Luzern-Interlaken Express from Lucerne over the Brünig pass takes about 2 hours and is one of the scenic routes in its own right, and the GoldenPass Express runs through to Montreux in about 3 hours 15 minutes without a change.

Compare train fares on Omio before buying at the counter. Locally, the guest card makes town buses free, and there is no reason to have a car: parking is expensive and most of the mountain villages you will want to reach are car-free or awkward to drive to.

Tours and day trips from Interlaken

Book a guided tour in Interlaken for the adventure sports and for the mountain days where a guide saves you the logistics. Paragliding, canyoning, rafting, skydiving and glacier walks all need an operator, and Jungfraujoch, Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen day trips are sold as packaged tickets with the transfers arranged.

Further out, Bern is 55 minutes and makes an easy half-day, Thun and its castle are 25 minutes, and Brienz with the Ballenberg open-air museum and the Rothorn steam railway is 20 minutes the other way. The rest of the country is set out on the Switzerland hub.

Interlaken FAQ

Is Interlaken worth visiting? Yes, as a base for the Jungfrau region and for the adventure sports. It is not worth a trip for the town itself, which is a 19th-century hotel strip rather than an old Swiss centre. Give it three days and spend most of them on trains.

Is Interlaken safe to visit? Yes. Crime is low. The real risks here are mountain ones: weather above 2,000 m, and adventure operators, so use a licensed one and check that your travel insurance covers paragliding, canyoning and skydiving, because many policies exclude them.

Is Interlaken easy to visit with kids? Yes. Höhematte, the ropes park, the marmot trail on the Niederhorn, the boats and the Harder Kulm playground all work for children, and the guest card covers the family on town buses. The Jungfraujoch is a long, cold, high day for small children; Harder Kulm or First is the better mountain.

What is Interlaken famous for? Being the gateway to the Jungfrau region, the view of the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau from Höhematte, and paragliders landing in the middle of town. The people who made the region famous, including the engineer Adolf Guyer-Zeller who built the Jungfrau Railway, appear on the list of important Swiss people.

Is it worth buying a Swiss Army knife or a watch in Interlaken? Only for convenience. Victorinox knives and the big watch brands are sold at the same manufacturer’s prices across Switzerland, so the Höheweg shops are neither cheaper nor dearer than anywhere else; some add free engraving while you wait, which is the one thing they offer that an airport shop does not. Chocolate is cheaper in the Coop and Migros by the stations than in the boulevard shops, for the same Swiss brands.

When is Interlaken closed? More of it than you would expect. The Harderbahn runs 3 April to 29 November, the Schynige Platte railway in summer only, the Tourismuseum 1 March to 23 November, and the ropes park March to November. April, May and late autumn catch people out.

WonderfulWanderings Pro Tips

The 5 tips below come from reading Interlaken’s railways, museums and guest-card terms off their own sites in September 2026, and each one changes what a day here costs or whether it is possible at all.

1. Add the CHF 10 seat reservation to your Jungfraujoch budget, because it is compulsory in summer. From 1 May to 31 October it is mandatory, not optional, on top of a fare starting at CHF 129.60 (about €138, $160, £118). It also removes the wait when changing trains at Eigergletscher, which on a busy August day is worth having anyway.
2. Get the guest card from your host on the first night and use it on the lake boats. It is issued to anyone staying overnight in Interlaken, Matten, Unterseen, Wilderswil, Gsteigwiler, Saxeten, Bönigen, Iseltwald, Ringgenberg, Goldswil or Niederried, makes local public transport free, and takes 20% off the BLS Lake Thun and Lake Brienz day pass, 20% off Schynige Platte and 15% off the Harder funicular. The digital version is called the Interlaken Pass and works before you arrive.
3. Do the sums on a Jungfrau Travel Pass before you buy single tickets. It starts at CHF 165 (about €175, $204, £151) for 3 to 8 days, covers the region’s trains, buses, boats and mountain railways, and carries a special Jungfraujoch fare on top, so two mountain days and a lake trip is roughly where it starts paying.
4. Check the season, not just the weather. The Harderbahn runs only from 3 April to 29 November 2026, the Tourismuseum only from 1 March to 23 November and only Wednesday to Sunday from 14:00 to 17:00, and the ropes park only from March to November. A December visitor will find all three shut.
5. Book the paragliding for your first full day. Flights are cancelled in wind and low cloud, they are the single most weather-dependent thing sold here, and booking early leaves you days to rebook. Keep the Jungfraujoch flexible for the same reason: a clear day is worth more than a fixed plan.

About the author. This guide is written and maintained by the Wonderful Wanderings editorial team. Wonderful Wanderings was founded in 2012 by Sofie Couwenbergh, and the team covers Interlaken and the rest of Switzerland for independent travellers, including the Jungfrau railways, the paragliding and canyoning operators, the lake boats and the hotels and hostels worth booking in the guest-card area. We update this page when prices, opening hours and seasons change.