4 Must-Have Apps When You Visit Switzerland

Wondering what are the most popular apps in Switzerland for tourists? In this episode, I share four handy Switzerland apps that you’ll want to download before you travel to Switzerland.

I discuss why the SBB Mobile app is essential for every visitor - even those who are renting a car, and why the MeteoSwiss app is my preferred Switzerland weather app.

You’ll also learn about two other apps that will be useful for your Swiss travels.

These apps will be your perfect travel companions, helping you navigate and plan effortlessly during your stay.

Tune in now for all the details!

Safe travels,

Carolyn

👉 Show notes - Episode 117

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Transcript

Are you dreaming of visiting Switzerland? Planning a trip to Switzerland is very exciting, but it can also be overwhelming. How do you choose? Which of the many scenic cities, towns and villages to visit? Which mountain top excursions should you take? And what's the best way to get around Switzerland? And of course, how much of the country can you realistically see within your time frame? If you've asked yourself any of these questions, this is the podcast for you. This is the Holidays to Switzerland travel podcast, and in each episode, your host, Carolyn Schönafinger, chats with Swiss travel experts to answer your most commonly asked questions, provide practical tips and take you on a virtual visit to the most popular destinations. And, of course, some hidden gems to help you plan your dream trip to Switzerland. And you'll hear plenty of conversations about Swiss cheese and chocolate too. Are you ready to plan your trip to Switzerland? Well, let's get started,

Carolyn Schönafinger

Grüezi.Welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. Most of us are pretty reliant on our mobile phones these days. We use them for everything from cameras to sending text messages and phone calls, and looking up social media and everything else in between. So in today's episode, I thought I'd share with you what I think are the best apps to download to your mobile device that are going to come in super handy when you're in Switzerland. Of course, there are many, many apps that are really useful when you're travelling, like Google Maps and Google Translate and even your banking app. But I thought I'd talk about four today, three of which are specific to Switzerland and that I know you're going to find super useful. The first one, of course, is the SBB Mobile app. This is the app from the Swiss Federal Railways and it's just full of really, really helpful information. Probably the main thing that I love about it is being able to check the timetables for all the different services. So, as you may already know, the Swiss train network is really extensive and in fact, the whole public trans, which includes buses, boats, trams and trains, is very extensive.

Carolyn Schönafinger

But you can find the timetables for just about every single service on the SBB Mobile app. And it also has the timetables for many of the mountain railways as well. So it's just really useful for looking up timetables. Of course, you can buy tickets from the app as well if you're not travelling with a Swiss Travel Pass, so that can be handy as well. I don't tend to use it for that so much because I always have a travel pass like the Swiss Travel Pass or the Berner Oberland Pass that I'm using, so most of my travel is already covered and I don't need to buy individual tickets. But being able to look up the timetables is super, super handy. And the other thing that you can do is when you're actually travelling on a train or on a bus, you can open up the journey that you're on by putting in your departure and arrival points, and then you can sort of zero in on the map that's included, and it'll even show you exactly which stop you're at or which is the next approaching stop. So if you're not sure how many stops there are until you need to get off, that's a great way to check your journey in real time as well.

Carolyn Schönafinger

So you're always making sure that you're getting off at the correct stop. Now, this is one app that I just use continually when I'm in Switzerland, and I think it's very, very handy and I know you'll benefit from using it as well. Even if you're renting a car, you'll find that using the SBB Mobile app is handy, because as I mentioned before, all those timetables for cable cars, mountain railways and boats and buses can all be found on the app. So make sure you download that one before you get to Switzerland.

Carolyn Schönafinger

The next app that I constantly use when I'm in Switzerland is the MeteoSwiss app and in my experience, it's the most accurate app when it comes to weather forecasting for Switzerland. If you're like me and you have an iPhone, it came with a weather app on it. But to be honest, the weather app that came with it can be pretty inaccurate at times. So downloading the MeteoSwiss app is very, very useful. It is my go-to weather app for Switzerland, but there are a few tips that you should know before you start using it. So, first up, you might look at the forecast for the week ahead and see that rain is predicted on every day.

Carolyn Schönafinger

And of course, you're going to start panicking that your vacation is going to be ruined because of wet weather. But the first thing I'd say is, don't stress. The app is updated very frequently, so the forecasted conditions can change throughout the day. If you check tomorrow's weather forecast at 9:00 today, 9:00 in the morning, it may well have changed when you check again at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. So keep in mind that what you see can change very frequently. Secondly, if you see that rain is forecast, with the MeteoSwiss app, you can actually click on a particular day and drill down further to see exactly what time of day the rain is expected and how much rain is likely to fall. So the app might say, for instance, that it's going to rain on Monday. But when you actually click on Monday and drill down, there's a graph showing you the 24 hour period and it might indicate that it's going to rain at 3am and that there might be less than 1 millimetre expected. So even though you've seen rain forecast for every day, it may be just a tiny amount of rain and it may be during the night, which is not really going to affect you at all. So don't panic.

Carolyn Schönafinger

Another very useful app for Switzerland is the Alertswiss app. Now, hopefully you won't need this, but it's great to have because the app will indicate to you any location specific events or disasters that you may need to know about. So if there are any warnings in place relating to the destination you're in at the time, then having the Alertswiss app on your phone allows you to be be notified of any potential dangers. So this could be if there's severe storms expected or the possibility of flooding. Through the GPS system, the Alertswiss app will notify you of any situations that you need to be aware of. As I said, hopefully you won't receive any notifications, but that's a great app to have on your phone as a backup.

Carolyn Schönafinger

The fourth app that I wanted to mention today is called EasyPark. So if you're renting a car and driving in Switzerland, this is a great app to have. It's used across Europe and in many other countries around the world and I use it regularly at home here in Australia so I had already created an account and added my credit card details before I used it for the first time in Switzerland.

Carolyn Schönafinger

If you are going to use it in Switzerland, you simply need to add a new vehicle to your account and add in the registration or licence plate number of the rental car. So if you have an account at home already, you will have your the vehicle that you own at home registered to the account so you just need to add in the rental car to your account as well. Then, when you park in any of the metered parking spaces that accept payment by EasyPark, a GPS signal shows your location on a map within the app. When you confirm that that's the correct location where you have actually parked, you can then select the length of time that you'd like to park there and confirm which vehicle you are parking. All the parking fees are then charged to your registered credit card, so there's no need to worry about carrying around loose change for parking metres, and you can even extend the length of your stay from within the app if you wish to, and that's providing, of course, that you're not exceeding the parking time limit. You do need to be connected to Wi Fi to use all of these apps, but they are all free and they are all available for both Apple and Android devices.

Carolyn Schönafinger

One app that you might see mentioned in Switzerland is Twint, spelt T W I N T. It's used to pay for parking, shopping, admission fees and lots more, but unfortunately it's not an app that visitors to Switzerland can use, as it is only available to use if you have it linked to a Swiss bank account. So there you have four of the best apps to download for your Swiss travels. I constantly use the SBB Mobile app and the MeteoSwiss app when I'm in Switzerland and I think you'll find them very useful too. There are lots of other apps that are also handy to have and you can read about them in my article on holidaystoswitzerland.com. You'll find a link to that article in the Show Notes, so head on over and take a look and decide which apps you're going to download before your trip to Switzerland. Also in the Show Notes you'll find a link to get your free copy of my guide 21 useful things to know before you visit Switzerland. It includes plenty of handy tips to help with your Swiss vacation planning, so make sure you download your copy today.

Carolyn Schönafinger

Thanks for joining me today. Until next week, tschüss.