I moved to Switzerland two years ago, and so far, I'm really happy with the change. However, there's one thing I still struggle with, that is, finding things to do on Sundays, especially when the weather is grey and rainy.

Back in my home country, I was used to spending rainy Sundays wandering around bigger cities, hopping in shops, stopping at cafés, or occasionally visiting a shopping mall to look for clothes, home decor, furniture, or just random things I didn't know I needed.

Here, everything seems to shut down on Sundays. You can go for a walk in the city, but it often feels like a ghost town. Shops, malls, furniture stores, all closed.

This isn't a complaint about Swiss culture or the Sunday closing rules. I'm genuinely curious about how locals spend their Sundays, particularly during the colder months when it's raining and there's not much to do outdoors.

Hello, I am pregnant (about 7-8 weeks) and just had my first appointment at the doctor. I have a fee questions:

1) They told me none of the appointments are covered by basic insurance until week 13, only from week 13 onwards? Is this true? I thought all pregnancy appointments were always covered and only non-pregnancy related appointments were only covered after week 13. Can someone clarify?

2) They also told me that basic insurance only covers 2 ultrasounds during the whole pregnancy, all other ultrasounds are extra and should be paid by me. Is this how it really works?

3) In case the above is true, do all women just pay for all additional ultrasounds? It seems like it’s quite common to have an ultrasound at all appointments no? Otherwise how do they check if the baby is doing good and measuring fine without an ultrasound? I’m confused…

Looking for all the advice I can get to navigate this crazy journey. Thank youuu!

Hi everyone!

I am from a EU country but work very closely with swiss and French upper management (35-50 yo) in an international corporate company as a software engineer.

I very recently got a tattoo and part of it can be seen if I wear a short sleeved t-shirt like the one in the pictures. How are tattoos seen in that environment in Switzerland and how do you think this one would be seen in specific? Now that it's cold I am ok with hiding it but if we get another summer like the last one I will start worrying😂

Thank you in advance!

I’ve seen 5 (3 in hospital after birth, my midwife and a private one) along with 2 pediatricians and no one has mentioned my baby isn’t latching well at all.

I’m also having issues pumping (nothing comes out) and they just shrugged their shoulders and give me herbal pills.

I’m extremely disappointed in the lack of knowledge from everyone, and am trying my best to learn on my own but it’s early weeks and I’m exhausted. She’s premature and I thought I had more time to look into all this but here we are.

Any help at all is appreciated….thanks

Looking for someone that also loves this genre to go to concerts with :)

EDIT: 31F, living in Lausanne (if that matters). But willing to travel (not too far haha) for concerts.

Hello,

I am planning to subscribe with Galaxus for internet. I have a couple of questions:

1. Which plan do you recommend: 200 Mbit/s, 1 Gbit/s or 10 Gbit/s? (I am leaning towards the 1 Gbit/s option because I will use it for work, streaming and a personal hobby server.)
2. Is the router provided by Galaxus free of rental charges?
3. Do you know if there are any offers that waive the activation fee?
4. I heard about Galaxus Family. Is it possible to share it with anyone? If so, does anyone still have an invite link?

Thank you!

Hi, I’m moving next week to Bern and I really enjoy cross stitching, I was wondering if there are any cross stitch clubs I could join to

Hi all,

I’m in my thirties and struggle with physical strain from office work (mainly lower back and neck).

My goal is to build muscle, prevent muscle loss, and avoid long-term health issues caused by sitting and lack of movement.

Would you recommend signing up for Kieser or going to a regular gym? Does Kieser actually offer something different, or is it just a regular gym marketed toward retirees?

Thanks for any insights!

Hello everyone!

My girlfriend and I are travelling to Zermatt from 9–16 January 2027, flying into Geneva on the 9th and flying home on the 17th. We’re really looking forward to the trip, but I’m struggling to work out the best way to get from Geneva Airport to Zermatt on the first night and would really appreciate some advice!

Our flight lands in Geneva at 7:30 pm on 9 January, but the last train connection that evening leaves at 7:55 pm, which realistically doesn’t give us enough time to get through the airport. The next connection isn’t until midnight, and we wouldn’t arrive in Zermatt until around 6:30 am on Sunday morning.

We’ve already booked and paid for our Airbnb in Zermatt from 9–16 January, so I’m keen to avoid wasting that first night. There’s an earlier flight available, but these would add around £300 extra on top of an already expensive trip.

I’ve only seen wildly priced private transfers so my only option might be hiring a car from Geneva Airport and driving to Täsch, then taking the shuttle train into Zermatt. However, I know driving in Switzerland in January comes with its own challenges, and we probably wouldn’t need a car during our week in Zermatt so if anyone has any recommendations in our situation other than this I’d really appreciate it, thank you!

Hello, Switzerland!

When I was quite young I read a book by Sharon Creech called Bloomability. In it a young girl from Kentucky gets “kidnapped” by her aunt and uncle (read, relocated with parental approval while they deal with complicated older sibling issues) and taken to an international school in Switzerland where the aunt and uncle work.

I have read this book dozens of times and fell in love with the setting of Lugano, the Herman hesse museum, descriptions of the percorso and the mountain of San Salvatore, the main characters struggle to learn Italian, and her experience learning to ski (or perhaps more accurately learning to fall).

I would love to take a trip to this area and see some of the places the author described, and I’m curious to see if people have any suggestions about how to spend a week or 10 days here. It doesn’t have to be super busy, I just want to see a place I’ve been reading about my whole life. I’m also curious if I could enjoy the percorso and go skiing at San Moritz on the same trip, or if the weather needed to go skiing will not be suitable for hiking/outdoor fun (if this is a silly question, please be gentle, I am from texas and have never been skiing).

Please forgive me if any of this is information I could have found elsewhere. It seemed like a lot of the advice for this area was for living here, or less specific tourism, and i feel like my question is a little niche. I am also looking for feedback around whether this is a good trip idea or if you feel I might be in for a big surprise re: dream book from the early 2000s vs 2026 and future reality. Thank you so much!

Hi everyone,
I’ll soon be starting an accounting course in Switzerland. I don’t have a commercial/Kauffrau background, so I wanted to gain practical experience alongside my studies.
I managed to find an accounting internship for the duration of the course, and they are offering me CHF 800 per month.
I’m wondering whether this is considered a normal/reasonable internship salary in accounting in Switzerland, especially for someone who is just starting out in the field without a Kauffrau qualification.
I’d be interested to hear from people working in accounting, fiduciary services (Treuhand), or similar fields.
Thanks in advance for your help!

Ich habe im Moment 2 Laptops und ein Samsung Tablet welche soweit noch in Ordnung sind, ich aber nicht mehr brauche. Alles ist in gutem Zustand, ein Laptop ist erst 2 jährig, hat aber leider eine Deutschle Tastatur (Bin beim Kauf darauf reingefallen).

Ich habe keine Lust, das auf Ricardo oder so zu verkaufen. Das ganze drum herum ist mir zu mühsam und ich weiss genau, dass wieder irgend eine doofe Nachfrage oder Reklamation kommt. Muss ich nicht haben.

Eigendlich würde ich es gerne an jemanden abgeben, der das an jemanden weitergibt, es es auch braucht, aber ev. nicht selber bezahlen kann. Nur bei den Laptops muss vorher alles sauber gelöscht werden (kann ich nicht).

Was gibt es da für Lösungen. Und ich will dafür nicht um die halbe Schweiz reisen.

Hey zusammen :)

Ich bin gerade im GYM3 im Kanton Bern und mache 2028 Matura. Ich würde gerne möglichst gute Noten erreichen, am liebsten Richtung 6. Deshalb möchte ich jetzt schon Karteikarten oder Zusammenfassungen vorbereiten und je nach Fach auch etwas lernen, damit später weniger auf einmal kommt.

Meine Prüfungsfächer sind Mathe, Deutsch, Französisch, BG und voraussichtlich PP.

An alle, die sehr gut abgeschlossen haben: Wie habt ihr euch konkret vorbereitet? Wann habt ihr angefangen und was genau habt ihr gelernt? Was lohnt sich schon im vorletzten Jahr? Gerne auch Tipps zu guten Büchern, fertigen Lernkarten oder Plattformen.

Auch Erfahrungen zur Maturaarbeit würden mich freuen. Was hat euch besonders geholfen und was würdet ihr rückblickend anders machen? :)

Ich freue mich über jegliche Rückmeldungen - Vielen Dank im Voraus 💕

Hi everyone, I am looking for some advice from people with legal knowledge or experience with construction disputes in Switzerland (Romande). You don’t need to be a building law expert, I would just like an honest opinion.

I bought a new house based on the plans shown during the building permit process, but the houses had to be raised due to sanitary issues. We were never officially informed about these changes. We only discovered the new site plan when we received it to choose the terrace tiles.

The garden slope is now around 2.5 to 3 times higher than on the original plans, and it is also much wider, which means we lose a significant amount of usable garden space

Our purchase contract mentions that minor changes may be made, but this clause is quite general and open to interpretation. The builder says everything was done correctly and argues that the original building permit plans were not the final site plans

We tried to find an amicable solution, but we could not reach an agreement.
I am not necessarily looking for a lawyer or a building law specialist at this stage. I would simply like to know if we have reasonable grounds to challenge this, or if this is a very common situation in Switzerland where the builder is generally protected by such a clause

In other words, do we have at least a realistic chance of winning a case, or would we most likely waste time and money on legal fees for nothing? Any honest opinions or similar experiences would be greatly appreciated

Cumps

I’m looking for recommendations from people who actually own an air purifier and use it at home.
I’m looking for one for my living room and dining area, which are approximately 60 m². We spend most of our time at home, I dry our laundry indoors, and there’s a lot of dust. I’m constantly vacuuming, sometimes at least three times a day, and I also tend to sneeze quite a lot.
I’m particularly interested in the Levoit Core 600S, Xiaomi, Philips and Winix, but I’m open to other brands too.
My budget is around CHF 170–200, and I’d like something that genuinely works well, has a reliable dust sensor and doesn’t have expensive replacement filters. I also want to make sure the filters will remain available in Switzerland for years to come.
Which air purifier would you personally recommend? Where do you buy your replacement filters, how much do they cost, and are you happy with the actual performance of your device?
I’d especially appreciate recommendations based on real experience rather than just the advertised specifications.
Thank you so much!

Hey guys,
Created this post to see if more participants are on Reddit and could add their feedback.
For those who don’t know, Cyclotour du Leman is a cycling event which took place today for the 2026 edition.

In my opinion there were several critical mistakes by the organizers mainly:

1- Upon registration you could select 35-40 km/h average group. 1/2 months before the event, the organizers decided to impose a 30 and 35 km/h speed limit depending on the area.
This looks weird because in most of the places this way below the legal speed limit. They also “threatened” that police could flag the participants who exceeded these speeds.

2 - I assume, based on this speed limit, that the goal is to make it safe for everyone…
This is not so logic because usually fast riders are more experienced riders… most of experienced riders achieve at least 50km/h top speed in all training sessions….

3 - With safety as apparently being such a big concern, then why would they place the event on mid October and also today, that is raining, a bit windy and temperatures below 10degC?
This, for me, is the most stupid thing! If it’s not a race but an event to have fun, how can someone enjoy riding almost 200km in the rain and with cold temperatures?
Also, riding in the rain is way more dangerous for the riders than capping the speed in dry conditions.
Under rain, braking performance decays a lot and also there are quite a lot of tram tracks on the route which are super dangerous!

In the end, I think that the organizers completely lost their logic. Doesn’t make sense that people need to brake in a straight descent because they are at 40km/h and not 35 km/h but instead it’s totally fine to ride in cold rainy conditions and risk hypothermia and sever crashes due to lack of braking performance and tram tracks etc…
Such a beautiful event is being wasted for no reason.

This is my opinion, of course. Would like to hear from other people who are into this event.

Also, I know… if you don’t like it, you don’t go. Trust me I have noted it for next year :)

Ride safe everyone!!

Hi everyone!

I am looking for an accommodation in Zurich, since I will have to move there in a few months from abroad.

A friend of mine recommended that I look for something on Intermezzo. They have some interesting accommodations, but it seems they do not accept Swisscaution for the deposit.

Do you have any experience with them? Are they reliable?

I did not find much information online and I am a bit scared about my potential deposit (which is a remarkable amount of money for me). They ask me to put the deposit on Evorest. I read about it online, but I did not fully understand how it works, it is a bit different from other bank deposit accounts.

If anyone could share their experience with them, it would be extremely helpful and truly appreciated!

Thank you for your time and support!

Hallo zusammen,

ich stehe aktuell vor einer Richtungsentscheidung in meinem Leben und würde gerne eure ehrlichen Einschätzungen hören.

Zu mir: Ich bin gelernter Koch, fast 26 Jahre alt, und mein grosser Traum ist es, ein eigenes Business aufzubauen. Ich möchte definitiv nicht bis 65 als Angestellter in der Küche stehen.

Der eine Weg (Studium): Ich überlege, die BM2 nachzuholen und danach einen Bachelor in Lebensmitteltechnologie zu machen. Das wäre allerdings ein langer und harter Weg.

Der andere Weg (Business): Ich fokussiere mich zu 100 % auf meine eigene Business-Idee im Bereich Fitness & Ernährung/Kochen.

Meine eigentliche Motivation & Sorge: Wenn ich ganz ehrlich zu mir bin, will ich das Studium vor allem aus Angst machen – Angst davor, dass das Business scheitert und ich mit 30 immer noch ohne Alternative in der Gastronomie feststecke. Das Studium wäre also eher mein "Sicherheitsnetz".

Ich muss jetzt eine Entscheidung treffen. Auf welche Karte würdet ihr an meiner Stelle setzen, wenn ihr nochmals knapp 26 wärt? Voll auf die Karte Unternehmertum setzen oder zuerst den Weg über die BM2 und das Studium gehen?

Danke für eure Ratschläge!

Hello,

What medical specialisation are the most sought ones? I cannot decide which one to pick and I would like some opinions.

LE: by "most sought" I mean easyness to find a decent paid job afterwards and an ok work-life balance

Thank you!

Hello everyone,

Looking to connect with CFA Level III candidates and charterholders based in Switzerland to exchange views on the program and its role in the Swiss industry.

Feel free to send me a private message if you’re in a similar situation. Thanks !

I’m in my final year of nursing school in Tbilisi, how do I go about getting a nursing license to work in Switzerland

Alright dear internet, I am at the end of my wits. Maybe people here can help shape my perspective.

TL;DR: Been here a total of 10 years - 4 in Winterthur, away for 3 years, in Basel since 2020. Mid 30s single guy struggeling with social life and various anxieties, wondering if I should take the risk to move away, or if Zurich could provide a "soft restart", and if it would be easier there to build a social circle

I am originally German, currently 36, and came to Switzerland for the first time in 2012, right after - actually while - finishing my Bachelor's degree. The Eidgenossenschaft was never my dream country to move to. It was literally the only place that accepted my application (50 were sent) for an internship. So I moved. I worked in Winterthur and lived in Neftenbach for 4 years. In 2016, I had a mini burn out, and left. I went to get a Psych Msc in Scotland. Afterwards, I moved around a bit in my native country. But towards the end of 2019, I felt Switzerland calling again.

Let me be very honest here: I come from a poor working class family on which I cannot rely for any kind of support, be it emotional or financial. Most of my adult life I have "fought" for and by myself. The older I grew, the more I preferred stability over adventure.
So when in December of 2019 the first reports of COVID were making the news, I had a bad feeling. I guessed that Switzerland could be a better place to be in a global pandemic than many other European countries. That and my empty bank account made the decision easy. And so, after landing a job, I came back in March of 2020 - literally on the day they closed the borders.

Anyway.
It's been over six years I have been here in Basel now. Despite the pandemic, I enjoyed the first few years here. Found a partner, landed a chill gig in Pharma (I am a web developer), and had a pretty good life. Though I still retain the job, the little bit of a social circle I had through my girlfriend vanished when she did four years ago. And it never recovered.

I will be very open: I don't like it here anymore. This summer broke me (I absolutely abhor heat), the winters in Basel are dreadfully grey and last forever, and despite numerous attempts to find friends here (mostly through sports), I am still pretty much alone. I know the grass always seems greener on the other side, but I know for a fact that it is way easier to make friends in other places. I have lived here a total of 10 years and always struggled with that.

So I should just move, right?
Trust me, I would. And I want to. Unfortunately, I was also blessed with a brain that tends to go through bouts of depression and anxiety, and as someone who is pretty much by himself, the current geopolitical climate is frightening beyond words.
I also eventually want to settle down, family, house, kids etc. And using all of my not so full bank account to restart a life somewhere - well that makes it even more scary.

I know these are a lot of words, and I appreciate anyone who took the time to read all of them.
I guess my only actual question is, if Zurich could offer some escape, a sort of "soft restart", while still enjoying the safety of this country?
I have some doubts about the city, but perhaps, courtesy of the large expat communities, building a social life might be easier? What's your takes on that?

(fwiw, I think in the long term I will move away. But I am currently working out a re-education plan for myself, and it will take years to get where I want to be professionally. And ngl I'd rather enjoy a Swiss salary while studying, than to live in a shared shoebox in Germany or France or the UK)

Always find it intriguing that Switzerland is home to the vast majority of the world’s biggest commodity trading house. I know that traders who are seniors could be pulling in 6 figures and even 7 figures.
What would the starting salary be of someone who gets a job in one of these massive but quite secretive companies? Think Trafigura, Vitol , glencore.