The best — and most beautiful — places to visit in Switzerland

From Zermatt's car-free village beneath the Matterhorn to Lavaux's UNESCO vineyard terraces above Lake Geneva

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Switzerland is a country whose geographic compression works in the traveler’s favor. Within a country roughly the size of Maryland, the terrain shifts from the glacier-draped peaks of the western Alps to the palm-lined lake shores of Ticino, from French-speaking wine country on Lake Geneva to German-speaking medieval towns in the northeast, from the car-free plateau villages of the central highlands to the urban banking and design culture of Zurich. The four official languages, French, German, Italian, and Romansh, are not merely administrative distinctions but signals of genuinely distinct regional cultures whose food, architecture, and daily rhythms differ enough to make the same country feel like different countries depending on which canton you are in.

The practical case for Switzerland as a travel destination rests on infrastructure. The train network is comprehensive, punctual, and specifically designed to give visitors access to the mountain terrain that defines the country’s identity. The Swiss Travel Pass gives unlimited access to trains, buses, boats, and most mountain railways, which means the logistical planning required for mountain travel in most countries is largely pre-solved before departure. Tour guide Catja-Camilla Straub, who operates Gatya Goes, describes Switzerland as a place where every one of the 26 cantons is unique and offers something different, and the infrastructure makes accessing that variety the central pleasure of a Swiss trip, not its primary challenge.

The 10 destinations below appear in Travel Leisure, drawn from a longer list covering every major region of the country. The destinations span the full range of the Swiss experience, from the high Alpine resorts of the south and east to the lakeside cities of the central plateau, from the wine terraces of the French-speaking west to the pastoral cheese culture of the northeast.

1. Interlaken sits between two lakes and opens the Alps

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Interlaken occupies a flat valley between Lake Thun and Lake Brienz in the Bernese Oberland, and the two lakes that give the town its name also give it its visual setting: the water on both sides of the valley, the Eiger, Mönch, and Jungfrau peaks visible at the valley’s southern end, and the town’s traditional chalets and chocolate shops in between create an environment that functions simultaneously as an adventure sports center and a scenic base. The paragliding from the Männlichen ridge, which launches tandem passengers off the mountain above Wengen and lands them on the Interlaken meadow, gives the activity program its most specifically Alpine expression: the view of the three great peaks from the air, with the lakes below, gives the experience a visual scale that the ground-level equivalent does not produce.

Skydiving over Interlaken, one of the region’s most popular adventure activities, gives the adrenaline-seeking visitor the same landscape from a higher altitude and a faster descent, and the view from 13,000 feet encompasses a wider portion of the Alpine arc than any ground-based viewpoint provides. The skiing in winter and hiking in summer across the Jungfrau region give the activity calendar year-round depth that resort towns without a valley base cannot provide with the same convenience.

The alpine botanical garden at Schynige Platte, reached via a five-minute train from Interlaken to Wilderswil and a 50-minute cogwheel railway ride from there, adds a natural history dimension specific to the subalpine plant communities of the Bernese Alps. The garden sits at 6,454 feet and offers panoramic views of the Thunersee and Brienzersee, alongside its botanical program, making the railway journey as rewarding as the destination it serves. The Trümmelbach Falls, accessible on foot from the Lauterbrunnen valley floor, offer a thunderous indoor waterfall experience specific to the glacial plumbing of this Alpine valley.

2. Zermatt pairs the Matterhorn with Europe’s best skiing

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Zermatt is the mountain resort town at the end of the Nikolaital in southern Valais, and the Matterhorn, the 14,692-foot pyramid of rock and ice that rises directly above the town, gives it the most recognizable single skyline in Alpine tourism. The car-free village policy, maintained since 1947, gives Zermatt a unique quality of silence that car-dependent Alpine resorts cannot match: the electric taxis and horse-drawn carriages that serve as local transport give the pedestrian experience an unhurried atmosphere, whose absence of engine noise amplifies the surrounding mountain soundscape.

The skiing extends across more than 360 kilometers of pisted runs across the Zermatt, Cervinia, and Valtournenche ski areas on both the Swiss and Italian sides of the Matterhorn massif, giving the area one of the most extensive lift-linked ski domains in Europe. The Klein Matterhorn cable car reaches 12,533 feet, giving access to summer skiing on the glacier and to the highest cable car station in the Alps. High altitude, consistent snow, and the Italian border’s proximity give Zermatt a cross-border skiing dimension available from no other Swiss resort.

The summer and autumn seasons offer Zermatt a hiking and mountaineering program whose scale and scenic quality match or exceed that of winter skiing. The Hörnli Ridge, the standard route for Matterhorn ascents, begins above the Hörnligrat hut and gives serious mountaineers a technically demanding day above 10,000 feet. The lower valley’s hiking routes, connecting the town to the surrounding mountain hamlets, give the moderately fit walker access to the same peaks from below in conditions that the skiing season’s snow coverage makes impractical. The Gornergletscher glacier, visible from the paths above Zermatt and accessible by a gondola that descends toward the........

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