Bye, bye 2024 – my best experiences with the Swiss Youth Hostels

Hel­lo every­one! For all those who don’t know me yet: My name is Tan­neli, and since the nam­ing cer­e­mo­ny at the big fam­i­ly cel­e­bra­tion at Richter­swil Youth Hos­tel in sum­mer 2023, I have been on a big mis­sion for the Swiss Youth Hos­tels. My goal? Spread lots of joy and put a smile on the faces of young and old alike!

In Feb­ru­ary, I was able to expe­ri­ence the mag­ic of snow for the first time – togeth­er with over 70 chil­dren! To mark the anniver­sary, the Swiss Youth Hos­tels organ­ised the first ever inclu­sive anniver­sary ski camp at Inter­lak­en Youth Hos­tel for social­ly dis­ad­van­taged chil­dren and chil­dren with dis­abil­i­ties. I’m already look­ing for­ward to the 2nd one next year!

Surprise!

Twice a year, the Swiss Youth Hos­tels organ­ise a con­fer­ence for employ­ees from the hos­tels and head­quar­ters – with a focus on inter­ac­tion. I took the oppor­tu­ni­ty to sur­prise my col­leagues. I was real­ly excit­ed to meet them in per­son!

The next high­light was not long in com­ing: On 28 April the Swiss Youth Hos­tels cel­e­brat­ed their 100th anniver­sary with around 500 part­ners at the Bäch­li­hof Jona – even Fed­er­al Coun­cil­lor Guy Parmelin attend­ed, giv­ing a speech. In addi­tion to a deli­cious brunch, con­certs and excit­ing pan­el dis­cus­sions, a table foot­ball tour­na­ment was also on the agen­da. Because what else?! 😉

Holidays at Brienz Youth Hostel

After these stren­u­ous assign­ments, the first thing I did was treat myself to a hol­i­day at Brienz Youth Hos­tel. The lake was just a few steps away from my room – so I hopped straight onto my stand-up pad­dle­board ear­ly in the morn­ing. I spent the rest of the time eat­ing ice cream, play­ing ping-pong or loung­ing in the sun. It was a dream. Since I was away on hol­i­day, I had to turn down the invi­ta­tion to the first ever Nation­al Mas­cot Fes­ti­val in Grächen – who knows, maybe it will work out next year.

Rein­vig­o­rat­ed and moti­vat­ed, I trav­elled to the beau­ti­ful wellnessHostel3000 in Laax in July. I was invit­ed to the fam­i­ly cel­e­bra­tion by the des­ti­na­tion Flims Laax Falera. It was so much fun play­ing and romp­ing around with the chil­dren. Of course, I didn’t miss the oppor­tu­ni­ty to relax in the Aua Gra­va Well­ness facil­i­ties in the evening and treat myself to a nice drink at the hip bar.

Friends forever!

At the 10th anniver­sary cel­e­bra­tion of Saa­nen-Gstaad Youth Hos­tel, I met some­one very spe­cial: Saani! We got on well straight away. It was a lot of fun play­ing table foot­ball and the alphorn togeth­er. After­wards, we chilled out on the big bench at the youth hos­tel and spent tons of time chat­ting. I hope to see them again soon!

I would have liked to spend a lit­tle more time with Saani. But duty called! I didn’t want to miss the big table foot­ball tour­na­ment with 46 par­tic­i­pants at Zurich Youth Hos­tel. Besides the excit­ing match­es, there was plen­ty of time to meet new peo­ple. The win­ners were ecsta­t­ic to receive a trav­el vouch­er worth CHF 1,000 – and a year’s sup­ply of Riv­el­la!

Ready for new adventures

To top it off, I had the priv­i­lege of accom­pa­ny­ing our boss to the Christ­mas mar­ket in Zurich, where she read a touch­ing youth hos­tel sto­ry at Mün­ster­hof. The beam­ing eyes of the chil­dren real­ly bright­ened up my day! And now this excit­ing anniver­sary year is almost over again. I can’t decide which event I liked the most.

But one thing is cer­tain: no mat­ter where I went, I had great encoun­ters with spe­cial peo­ple. I am infi­nite­ly grate­ful for that. I can’t wait to see what sur­pris­es the com­ing year has in store for me. But now I’m sign­ing off for the hol­i­days. I wish you a Mer­ry Christ­mas and a Hap­py New Year 2025.

Stories from the youth hostels

Not only has Tan­neli expe­ri­enced a lot with the youth hos­tels this year, but so have our guests over the past 100 years.

To the guest sto­ries