A family’s quest to visit every Swiss Youth Hostel

Dur­ing a vis­it to Locarno Youth Hos­tel, Katha­ri­na and Michael’s three chil­dren dis­cov­er the youth hos­tel direc­to­ry that lists all the hos­tels in Switzer­land and Liecht­en­stein. They imme­di­ate­ly start tick­ing all the hos­tels the three have vis­it­ed since their first trip to Roman­shorn Youth Hos­tel in 2016. Then sud­den­ly, they have a flash of inspi­ra­tion: “Why not try to fill this card com­plete­ly!” The aim is for Math­ias, Samuel and Alexan­dra to vis­it every Swiss Youth Hos­tel – includ­ing some of them with­out their par­ents. 😉

When asked what the fam­i­ly par­tic­u­lar­ly likes about the youth hos­tels, moth­er Katha­ri­na answers: “That they are so uncom­pli­cat­ed. The youth hos­tels are an inex­pen­sive place for a fam­i­ly to stay overnight, includ­ing break­fast, so you don’t have to wor­ry about it.” They also appre­ci­ate the spa­cious grounds and the oppor­tu­ni­ty to meet oth­er kids.

They start the day with a deli­cious break­fast. At the table, they imme­di­ate­ly start plan­ning the day and check­ing out pos­si­ble activ­i­ties in the area. “In addi­tion, there is usu­al­ly some­thing to do in the youth hos­tel itself. In Burgdorf, for exam­ple, we vis­it­ed the muse­um every day,” Katha­ri­na recalls.

On the road by train

Even the jour­ney to the youth hos­tels is an adven­ture for the fam­i­ly. Since they don’t own a car, they always trav­el by pub­lic trans­port. “The jour­ney is already part of the youth hos­tel vis­it,” explains Katha­ri­na.

The first trips this year are already his­to­ry. In spring, they went to Baden — for a swim 😉 And a vis­it to the chil­dren’s muse­um was not to be missed. At Whit­sun, the fam­i­ly went to Lake Gene­va. In Mon­treux, they went to Chateau Chillon and the Queen Muse­um.

Skiing holidays in Saas-Fee

The fam­i­ly is par­tic­u­lar­ly fond of the wellnessHostel4000 in Saas-Fee. “We have been spend­ing our ski hol­i­days there since 2018. You have var­i­ous options at the youth hos­tel: Vis­it the indoor pool, watch TV, play bil­liards, rent games at the recep­tion, well­ness, eat din­ner and break­fast and meet oth­er chil­dren,” Katha­ri­na enthus­es and con­tin­ues, “The place itself is also very great. You can ski, snow­board, ice skate, meet friends, go win­ter hik­ing, have a cof­fee every­where. We’re out­side all day and in the evening we go to the indoor pool and after din­ner there’s a game or we sit in front of the TV.”

And what do the Swiss Youth Hos­tels mean to the fam­i­ly? “The youth hos­tels are a great way for us to get to know Switzer­land and always dis­cov­er some­thing new. Since we’re all curi­ous, it’s always inter­est­ing to dis­cov­er still unknown Yugis. The hos­tels are a very good way to escape from every­day life,” Katha­ri­na con­cludes.