Tobias Renggli: «I took some very cool bike and mountain tours, many of them starting just right outside the youth hostels»

Young out­door enthu­si­ast Tobias Reng­gli is the act­ing del­e­gate of the Swiss Youth Hos­tels from 2024 to 2027. In 2023, the ath­lete impressed many with his pre­sen­ta­tion at the com­mu­ni­ty event at Zurich Youth Hos­tel and lat­er on on the large stages of Explo­ra Events. We talked to him about his stays at youth hos­tels, his jour­neys into the unknown and excit­ing new projects.

Nina: You are a del­e­gate for the Swiss Youth Hos­tels – what do the youth hos­tels mean to you?

Tobias: For me, the youth hos­tels are a place to switch off. It feels like a hol­i­day, even if you’re not far away. I most enjoy being out and about in the moun­tains with friends – easy-going and low-effort. The youth hos­tels are ide­al for that.

Which is your favourite youth hos­tel?

Def­i­nite­ly Saas Fee – well­ness and moun­tains, the per­fect com­bo. 🙂

What mem­o­ries do you asso­ciate with your stays at the youth hos­tels? 

Unlike many peo­ple, I don’t have child­hood mem­o­ries or school camp mem­o­ries tied to them. I only real­ly dis­cov­ered the Swiss Youth Hos­tels a few years ago. Since then, I’ve been tak­ing some very cool bike and moun­tain tours, which often start just out­side the youth hos­tels. Off in the morn­ing, back in the evening tired. Quite sim­ple, but that’s the beau­ty of it.

Why do you think young peo­ple should stay overnight at the Swiss Youth Hos­tels?

The hos­tels are much more mod­ern and cool­er than you think. Saas-Fee or Laax, for instance, have amaz­ing well­ness facil­i­ties! And the loca­tion is often great. Ide­al if you’re out and about with friends. Plus they’re also afford­able!

You’ve already had some adven­tures far from the country’s bor­der. What inspired you to cycle through 44 coun­tries at the age of 18/19? And why vis­it all the cap­i­tals and climb all the high­est moun­tains?

This was the result of my Matu­ra the­sis. At 16, I cycled to all 250 cities in Switzer­land and climbed the high­est moun­tain in all 26 can­tons. That was cool! A fan­tas­tic sum­mer, right at home – sim­ple and effort­less. Then I had a few months between my mil­i­tary duty and my stud­ies and thought I could do it all over again, this time in Europe. So I trav­elled to all 44 coun­tries and vis­it­ed the cap­i­tals and all the high­est moun­tains. You auto­mat­i­cal­ly see a lot in every coun­try and I like the com­bi­na­tion of cycling and moun­tain climb­ing, cities and nature…

What was your most mem­o­rable expe­ri­ence on your trip?

There were a lot of them: Get­ting bit­ten by a dog in Alba­nia, food poi­son­ing in Turkey, weeks of snow may­hem in Scan­di­navia, get­ting arrest­ed at the bor­der with Belarus, dubi­ous fig­ures and stay­ing the night in lots of places that weren’t exact­ly meant for sleep­ing. But I also had some great encoun­ters. What I found to be par­tic­u­lar­ly intense, but at the same time very enrich­ing, was the time spent with myself and my thoughts. You’ve got all the time in the world to think – not some­thing you usu­al­ly have. When you spend that much time alone, you get to know your­self bet­ter on every lev­el.

Your biggest take­away?

Things will all work out if you just get going and go with the flow.

And the best moment?

The last sum­mit Grand Par­adiso with an alti­tude of 4,061 meters in Italy. And arriv­ing at home.

What advice would you give to oth­er young peo­ple look­ing to embark on a jour­ney like yours?

Just do it. It’s not that com­pli­cat­ed, it just takes a lit­tle courage.

What does trav­el mean to you?

For me, trav­el­ling means see­ing the world with new eyes. It’s a way to escape the rou­tines of every­day life, leave your com­fort zone, broad­en your hori­zons, get to know oth­er cul­tures and under­stand your­self bet­ter. Trav­el brings inspi­ra­tion, encoun­ters with peo­ple and moments that you will remem­ber for a life­time. It’s not just a change of loca­tion, it’s an expe­ri­ence that changes you.

You told us about your adven­ture at the Dis­cov­ery Days in Flims. What did this appear­ance mean for you?

That was a spe­cial moment that set a lot of things into motion! More than 1,000 peo­ple sat in the audi­ence, that alone was quite spe­cial. I was sur­prised how many peo­ple were inter­est­ed in my trip! And I didn’t expect to win the prize for the sec­ond-best pre­sen­ta­tion either. I didn’t plan my trip to make pre­sen­ta­tions out of it… Since then, I’ve done over 40 pre­sen­ta­tions in Switzer­land and abroad, and new enquiries are con­stant­ly com­ing in. The high­light was def­i­nite­ly the very suc­cess­ful and large­ly sold-out tour with Explo­ra in 14 cities through­out Switzer­land. I also met a few film­mak­ers at the Dis­cov­ery Days. With them, I pro­duced an inter­na­tion­al­ly suc­cess­ful film project last sum­mer. And final­ly, by chance, I got a job at Explo­ra.

Your job at Explo­ra gives you a good insight into the world of adven­tur­ers and sto­ry­tellers. What are your per­son­al top three tips for the next sea­son of pre­sen­ta­tions in win­ter 2025/26?

• WILDES LAND – ALASKA (WILD ALASKA)
  Flo­ri­an Schulz is one of the most suc­cess­ful nature pho­tog­ra­phers and film­mak­ers in the world! His pho­tographs and his life sto­ry are impres­sive. They inspire peo­ple to fol­low their own dreams.
• ABGEDREHT (OFF SCRIPT)
  Two women, Johan­na and Tan­ja, set off on a bike jour­ney from Cape Town to Vien­na. But this is no ordi­nary bicy­cle tour pre­sen­ta­tion! It is fun­ny and cre­ative. They tru­ly earned first prize at the Dis­cov­ery Days last year. Absolute­ly worth see­ing!
• AFRIKA EXTREM (AFRICA EXTREME)
  Richard Gress embarks on extreme adven­tures, expe­ri­ences extra­or­di­nary wildlife encoun­ters and under­takes expe­di­tions to the most unspoilt regions on Earth. High­ly rec­om­mend­ed!

Will you be back on stage at some point?

Hope­ful­ly! Soon, I’ll be fin­ish­ing my Bachelor’s degree in Health Sci­ences and Tech­nol­o­gy at ETH and I’m work­ing hard on my next project. Actu­al­ly, the same project I did in Europe three years ago – only on a new con­ti­nent. It will be big­ger, wilder, more expan­sive, more chal­leng­ing and hope­ful­ly even cool­er than the last trip. It also makes me a lit­tle ner­vous – but in the best sense of the word. And if it didn’t, it wouldn’t be a real adven­ture. I’m look­ing for­ward to it!

About Tobias Reng­gli

22-year-old Tobi, a stu­dent at ETH, can more often be found above the tree line than in the lec­ture hall. He prefers to be out and about, on foot, by bike, in the moun­tains, in his mind. He likes it long, far, real, out­doors. At the age of 16, he was Swiss cham­pi­on in moun­tain run­ning. At 18, he trav­elled all over Europe on his own: 44 coun­tries, every cap­i­tal, every high­est peak. Under his own steam, as always. Dri­ven by curios­i­ty, per­se­ver­ance and the firm belief that in the end every­thing would some­how work out. Today, you’ll find him not only hik­ing moun­tains, but also pre­sent­ing on stages.

Here’s some more infor­ma­tion about Tobi!