100 years of Swiss Youth Hostels: Come as strangers, leave as friends

Lucy, Cori­na and Marie-Therese met for the first time in a dor­mi­to­ry at wellnessHostel3000 in Laax. Although they all come from very dif­fer­ent parts of Switzer­land, do not speak the same lan­guage and are at dif­fer­ent stages of their lives, they under­stand each oth­er imme­di­ate­ly.

Dur­ing the day, Cori­na stud­ies for her exams, Lucy explores the fan­tas­tic nature and Marie-Therese tears up the slopes. In the evening, they meet again over a meal, talk about their expe­ri­ences and relax in the spa. The three of them are imme­di­ate­ly bosom bud­dies and have kept in touch ever since.

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A friendship for eternity

It’s 2008: Both Ser­e­na and Muriel’s fam­i­ly decide to spend their ski­ing hol­i­days at St. Moritz Youth Hos­tel. For a whole week, the two girls do not dare to talk to each oth­er. Short­ly before leav­ing, Ser­e­na musters all her courage and speaks to Muriel.

What fol­lows are numer­ous let­ters, meet-ups and the high­light – annu­al win­ter hol­i­days at the youth hos­tel. Watch the video to see what they still look for­ward to most when they vis­it our hos­tels.

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Finding eternal love

More than half a cen­tu­ry ago, Sil­via and Hanspeter met at Zer­matt Youth Hos­tel dur­ing a school camp. It was the start of a per­fect love sto­ry: The first sparks were felt at the youth hos­tel, fol­lowed by mar­riage and chil­dren short­ly after­wards.

Back then, youth hos­tel life was a lit­tle dif­fer­ent. Watch the video to find out why they had to climb through the kitchen win­dow, for exam­ple. Today, the cou­ple asso­ciate the youth hos­tels above all with fam­i­ly hol­i­days – and they appre­ci­ate the uncom­pli­cat­ed atmos­phere.

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At home in the youth hostels

Heinz Egli was actu­al­ly plan­ning a long-dis­tance hike through the USA: quit his job, gave up his place of res­i­dence. Then came the COVID pan­dem­ic, spoil­ing his plans. So with­out fur­ther ado, Heinz took to the youth hos­tels, mov­ing from place to place.

Despite all odds, he didn’t have to give up his long-dis­tance jour­ney. He decid­ed to hike along the Swiss bor­der. He main­ly spent the night in a tent, or a youth hos­tel if there was one near­by. It was an expe­ri­ence that pushed the bound­aries and that he will be talk­ing about for a long time to come.

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She has been travelling to youth hostels for 67 years

Iris Gauck­ler caught the youth hos­tel bug when she was 17 years old. The adven­tur­ous young woman want­ed to trav­el to Stock­holm on her own. Despite her mother’s reser­va­tions, she was able to quench her thirst for dis­cov­ery on one con­di­tion: Iris had to become a mem­ber of the Swiss Youth Hos­tels and was only allowed to stay overnight in hos­tels that were part of the Hostelling Inter­na­tion­al net­work. Back then, almost 70 years ago, these hos­tels were con­sid­ered to be par­tic­u­lar­ly safe and guests had to be back in their accom­mo­da­tion by 10 p.m. 

From then on, the adven­tur­ous Iris can’t stop trav­el­ling. To this day, she has explored numer­ous coun­tries from India, Aus­tralia and New Zealand to Nepal and Uzbek­istan. Even now, she stays overnight in a mul­ti-bed room in youth hos­tels when­ev­er pos­si­ble, where she con­nects with peo­ple from all over the world.  

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The Vespa Club in search of the Easter bunny 

I meet a diverse group of peo­ple when I vis­it Ves­pa Club Nid­walden at Bern Youth Hos­tel. Twelve of the 33 mem­bers are present. A roar of laugh­ter, lots of jok­ing around, a good mood over­all. No won­der the club has been around for 73 years with such an exu­ber­ant and cheer­ful atmos­phere.

For more than a decade, Ves­pa fans have been drawn to a youth hos­tel for a week­end out­ing at East­er. As some of the mem­bers start fam­i­lies and have chil­dren, most hotels sud­den­ly become too small to accom­mo­date 50+ peo­ple. Ini­tial scep­ti­cism quick­ly turns into enthu­si­asm: The spa­cious recre­ation and games rooms for the chil­dren, the laid-back atmos­phere, the deli­cious food and the friend­ly staff ensure that Ves­pa Club Nid­walden is a reg­u­lar guest in the youth hos­tels from now on. 

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