10 Must Have Travel Apps for Switzerland (Including Demos)

Today we'll be demonstrating 10 practical apps to help make your Swiss vacation as smooth and simple as possible. We'll walk you through some of the key features that we have used to either save money, save time, stay organized or to just get the absolute most out of every day of your vacation. Let's jump straight in. The first app on our list is the Swiss travel app. The structure of this app allows you to use it as a central hub to plan out your vacation and keep yourself organized along the way. As a brief example you can find just about any destination all over Switzerland in the travel highlights section. There's information on each destination, it's linked to where it is on a map, plus you can add it to a list of things to do so you've got a central record of all the places of interest. The map feature is especially handy because it tells you all the different methods of transportation you can use to get to that destination. Various timetable information is also integrated with the app for convenience, plus if you're traveling by train you've also got detailed maps of every major train station in the country. You can also toggle the map to show what other highlights are on the map around where you're looking. This is great if there's something that's on your must-see list and you're not sure what's nearby that you could build into the same trip, or if you've got no idea what you want to see but you know what cities you'll be in. If you also have general questions about traveling Switzerland you'll find an FAQ section that has lots of common questions that travelers would ask when traveling around Switzerland. You can save questions of interest that you know you'll need to refer to later so that they appear on that home screen right underneath your saved destinations. There is also a whole section on the app with various coupons and savings that you can apply to your travels in Switzerland. No doubt you're aware that it's one of the most expensive countries to travel to anywhere in the world, so those small savings can really add up. And once again you have that convenience of being able to save those coupons to be displayed on your home page so you can find them quickly and easily later on. This was first on our list because it's the most broadly useful app that you can use when traveling through Switzerland. I guess you could say it's the Swiss army knife of travel apps, or do they just call them army knives? I don't know. Moving on. Next we'll take a look at something that's a bit more streamlined for those who are traveling the country by rail. The SBB app has everything you need to organize your itinerary, book tickets, and navigate your way around this beautiful country. In this quick demonstration we enter a starting and finishing destination, put in the dates and preferred time of travel, and the app will present us with all of our timetable options to reach that destination. Once we select the travel time that we want we can add that to our save list for easy reference later on if we're not ready to book our tickets right there and then. But if you are ready you can reserve your ticket right there in the app and do so through a number of different ticketing options. And finally you can set up notifications so that you're aware of any changes to your itinerary, service disruptions, or anything else that could affect your journey. If you're enjoying the video so far please hit that like button and subscribe to the channel so you don't miss out on future practical traveling tips. The third app on our list is especially useful for those who are going to be driving around Switzerland. And no, it is not Google Maps or Apple Maps. You don't need a YouTube video to tell you that those exist. And I would still use them for navigation, but for route planning the ViaMichelin app is very very useful. Especially in a country as beautiful as Switzerland where the quickest way is not necessarily the best way to be road tripping across the country. And to demonstrate this, one of our most memorable drives was between the town of Unterschatzen and Zermatt. And on the way you can take a big detour to drive down the Furka Pass. This is the road you see in the background image on screen now. The road is most famous because it features in the James Bond movie Goldmember. But on either side of that road you also drive through this incredible valley with beautiful mountains everywhere, plus a glacier that you can stop to view as well. But if you are only using Google Maps to determine your route, you could quite easily drive around this and never know it's there. And strangely on Google Maps, no matter what I tried to try and incorporate it into our route, the navigation just wouldn't recognize it as a viable route. However, we did actually do the drive using Google Maps, but all we did was turn off the freeway towards the Furka Pass and the automatic rerouting seemed to get the picture eventually. The Via Michelin app allows you to set different criteria for how your route planning takes place. There's Michelin recommended, a discovery route, or if you're in a hurry you can just go for the fastest route possible. You also have the added convenience of being able to show gas stations, accommodation options, and food options at your destination or anywhere along your chosen route. Next we're looking at an app that will help you monitor probably the most important thing that will determine the quality of your Swiss vacation, and that is the weather. It rains all the time in Switzerland through the summer, and in winter you're going to have the snow to contend with, so it's very volatile. And to make this even more complicated, the weather at ground level is not necessarily going to be the weather on top of a mountain, considering so many of the activities that you can do in the Swiss Alps involve getting a cable car to the top of a mountain, the quality of the weather you'll meet when you arrive can really be make or break as to whether that trip is worthwhile in the first place. In comes the Mateo Swiss weather app, where you can get your weather forecast at ground level, but also at various points of elevation, so you know what to expect no matter where you are. Now I don't want to spend too much time on a weather app, because it's a weather app, but it is very handy to be able to use the draggable map to hone in on anywhere in the country and instantly be able to get an idea of the rain forecast, the wind, the cloud and the temperature, all through these different layers you can toggle between at the top of the screen. At the bottom of the screen, you can drag the time of that forecast across so you can see how conditions will change over time. If you're after something a little less specific, then you can pull up long-range forecasts for broader regions and get an idea for how the weather will change over the course of the next week in the north, west and south of the country. This can be very handy for making any last minute changes to your itinerary so that you can prioritize activities in an area where you know the weather will be good. There's a section of the app where you can track major hazards, this can be especially important in winter where there's a lot of snow and the avalanche risk is very real in certain parts of the country. They have an air quality monitor, I don't know what for because the air in Switzerland is probably the nicest you will find anywhere on the planet, but there is one thing which I do want to point out that will be an absolute lifesaver for anyone who suffers from hay fever and that is a pollen forecast. So if you're traveling in the warmer months and you're susceptible to getting a bit sneezy, then you at least have the option to drive around these clouds of pollen chasing or you might know what days you need to medicate for. If all this weather talk didn't get you excited then number five definitely will, Wi-Fi. You can use the Wi-Fi finder app to locate the best connections in any town all over Switzerland. Unfortunately it is by no means a complete resource but it does give you some sure things if you're in desperate need of a connection or you just want some certainty that you can In the demonstration we're going to use the global map feature to zoom in on Switzerland until we get to the popular town of Interlaken. Here you can see all the listed Wi-Fi spots in the main village. As you can see hotels are the most prominent and you can select any one of these to get a reading on the connection speed you'll encounter on that Wi-Fi network. There is a menu that will allow you to narrow down your search to different types of venues. So if you are looking for a restaurant where you can eat lunch with a good Wi-Fi connection you can filter your results like this. You will also have a map so you can navigate your way from your current location to your intended Wi-Fi spot. But possibly the most important feature is that you can save the maps to be used offline because if you already have access to the internet chances are you're not looking for a Wi-Fi connection and you can easily save these maps for every town that you plan on visiting For app number six we'll be looking at a currency converter. This is especially important in Switzerland because it's the only country that uses Swiss francs as their currency and if you're doing a broader European trip you might be used to converting euros. So unless you're particularly good at maths having an app like this handy just saves you the hassle. There are two main features that you'll use frequently. The first is your basic calculator where you can set your home currency to be converted into Swiss francs or vice versa which is great for one-off transactions or while you're planning your itinerary so you know the true cost of any activity you're planning to do. The second feature is a version of a calculator that allows you to split your bills when you've made a partial payment in the past. This is especially useful for hotel or vehicle rental bookings where you have paid a deposit up front and you've got the remainder of the This way you know exactly how much money you need to have set aside. App number seven is great for those who want to secure restaurant bookings well in advance. Now I wouldn't use this one personally because I think the best way of finding a great restaurant is by turning up and just asking the people at the front desk of your hotel accommodation. However if you prefer to have plans locked in ahead of time or you have a specific restaurant in mind the Fork app makes it really easy to access a restaurant's booking system menus and check out some of their ratings as well. There are some difficulties that are worth mentioning though a lot of the menus are in German or French and I was unable to locate an option to convert it to English which leads me to the second difficulty. The app did not let me use the copy and paste function so that I could take the contents of the menu and copy and paste it easily into a We'll come back to that part in a moment but aside from that the map feature is easy to use and you're able to find a good number of restaurant options in most cities and you can secure your reservation at a specific time slot quickly and easily by just pressing a few buttons. Now coming back to the translation issue if you're really going to decode what some of these menus say you're going to need a translation app which leads us to app number eight Google Translate. Again you don't need a YouTube video to tell you that this app exists but when you're dealing with something as complex as language I would always go for the option that is the industry powerhouse that has the most resources behind them. The interface is easy to use and the auto detect function can save you a lot of time if you combine that with the did you mean function then that can overcome some of the difficulties that you'll have when trying to enter words with characters that don't exist in the English language. This U with two dots above it is a perfect example of that. The built-in voice sample can help you with tricky pronunciation plus you have the option to download certain languages so you can use the app offline. Our next app is one of the most important tools you can have for tired travelers food delivery. Yes Uber Eats does operate in Switzerland but something that's also popular amongst locals is Just Eat. Unfortunately due to regional restrictions I'm unable to access this app on the app store so I can't give you a demonstration but if you are wondering why that logo looks so familiar just look where I get sent if I change the location to Australia. So Uber Eats, Menulog, I'm sure you know what these are but to make sure you have access to all of the local food options check out the Just Eat app. The next app takes their geo restrictions to a whole new level. I can't even access the website on my phone but I can on my laptop so here is a full screen picture of a parking app that will be really helpful as you drive around Switzerland. So unfortunately I can't demo this one for you but on their website they do have a very brief demonstration video so note this one down for download on arrival because you won't be able to ahead of time. But what you can do before you arrive is check out our full road video which is on screen now. It's an incredibly beautiful country to explore and we're excited to share our journey with you.