How the desk began
Alpenroute Editorial AG was incorporated in Basel in the spring of 2015 by two travel writers who had spent the previous three years contributing to general European travel publications and found themselves growing frustrated with the structural compromises those publications required. The Swiss market had a particular gap: genuinely independent railway travel journalism. Most of what existed was produced by or under contract to regional tourism boards, by Swiss Travel System licensees or by booking platforms with direct financial interests in the recommendations they published.
The founding premise was simple: if we pay our own fares, keep our costs lean and charge readers directly for itinerary consulting, we can write what we actually find. Basel was a natural base. It sits at Switzerland's northwestern corner where the Rhine bends north toward Germany, within two hours by train of Zurich, Bern, Lucerne and Geneva. The SBB rail network radiates outward from this position in ways that make it practical to reach almost any canton in Switzerland for a day of fieldwork and return the same evening. The cost of operating from Basel is also meaningfully lower than from Zurich, which matters when the business model requires buying a lot of train tickets.
In the first year, the team of two produced assessments of fourteen rail corridors and opened the consulting service to a small list of reader inquiries. Word spread primarily through a newsletter and through a few mentions in independent travel media. By 2017 the consulting client roster had grown to the point where a third editor was necessary, and by 2019 the company had its current structure of four active contributors and one administrative role.
The COVID-19 period from 2020 to 2022 was handled by suspending the consulting service and converting the archive work into a publicly accessible research database — a decision that reduced revenue substantially but expanded the site's readership. When the Swiss tourism sector reopened in mid-2022, the consulting client pipeline recovered faster than we had anticipated, partly because travellers returning to Switzerland after a two-year gap found the landscape of pass prices, timetables and mountain access had changed significantly and wanted current, reliable guidance.
Today, the desk operates with four travelling editors and covers all 26 Swiss cantons. Our annual fieldwork budget runs to approximately CHF 28,000 — tickets, accommodation and ground costs paid out of our own accounts before a single consulting fee is invoiced. That figure is, we think, the most honest statement of editorial independence we can offer.
Mission and editorial values
The mission of Alpenroute Editorial is to produce Switzerland travel writing of the kind a knowledgeable local friend would give you: specific, priced in CHF, honest about inconveniences and free of promotional obligation. That sounds straightforward until you work through the economics of travel media, at which point it becomes clear why almost no one does it at scale.
Switzerland is expensive to cover. A return journey on the Jungfraubahn from Grindelwald Grund costs CHF 213.80. A seat on the Glacier Express costs CHF 196 second-class plus CHF 33 reservation for the full St. Moritz–Zermatt routing. A cable car to the Matterhorn Glacier Paradise above Zermatt costs CHF 99. A single fieldwork day in the Bernese Oberland, done properly, clears CHF 400 before accommodation. Most travel media outlets absorb those costs through press-trip arrangements that give the railway or tourism board implicit editorial influence in exchange. We do not do this, which is why our annual fieldwork budget is a genuine operating cost rather than a line item that reads zero because someone else paid it.
Our values in practice:
Accuracy over promotion. If the Bernina Express reservation is frequently oversold in July and you need to book eight weeks in advance for a window seat, we say that. If Jungfraujoch is regularly overcast before noon in summer and your best chance of a clear view is an early start, we say that too. Information that helps you plan a better trip is always more valuable than a sentence that might have appeared in a tourism board brochure.
CHF throughout. All prices are stated in Swiss francs at the fare applicable to the season the guide was last verified. Where a Swiss Travel Pass changes the fare substantially, we show both the walk-up price and the pass-holder price so you can make your own calculation.
No sponsored content. We have never accepted payment to feature a route, property or experience. Consulting clients receive objective assessments; if the route they have enquired about is not worth the cost, we say so and suggest an alternative.
Regular verification. SBB changes the national timetable each December. We update our route guides each spring after the summer timetable publishes. Guides that have not been verified against the current timetable carry a clear date stamp so readers know when the data was last checked.
The development of the desk
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2015
Incorporation and first fourteen routes
Alpenroute Editorial AG is founded in Basel. The first season of fieldwork covers fourteen rail corridors including the Bernina Express, the Glacier Express and the GoldenPass Panoramic. The consulting service opens to an initial mailing list of 120 readers. The annual fee is set at CHF 290 for a bespoke route plan of up to seven days.
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2016
Glacier and lake coverage added
Coverage expands to include glacier viewpoints across the Bernese and Valais Alps, with specific attention to the Aletsch glacier approaches at Bettmeralp and Jungfraujoch. The lakeside towns category is launched, beginning with Lucerne, Thun and the Lake Geneva arc from Geneva to Montreux.
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2018
Third editor joins; historic quarters series begins
The desk adds a third editor with a background in architectural history, which leads directly to the historic quarters series covering Bern's UNESCO arcade district, the Abbey of St. Gallen, Schaffhausen and Stein am Rhein. The annual route update cycle is formalised to align with the December SBB timetable change.
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2020–2022
Pandemic period: archive goes public
With travel halted, the consulting service is suspended. The full route archive — previously available only to consulting clients — is made publicly accessible on the site. The readership grows from approximately 4,000 to 22,000 monthly visitors. During this period, all prices and timetable data are frozen with clear date stamps to avoid misleading readers.
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2023
Full reopening; winter and food categories launched
The consulting service reopens in March 2023, with a restructured fee model including an entry-level outline service at CHF 95. Winter resort access guides and the food and market calendar are added as new coverage categories, reflecting post-pandemic demand for slower, more locally grounded itineraries. The fourth editor joins the team.
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2025
150th route documented; site fully verified for 2025 season
The desk documents its 150th assessed route — the Lötschberg Base Tunnel alternate routing via Frutigen — and completes a full verification pass across all published guides against the December 2024 SBB timetable update. The consulting client base now spans travellers from 34 countries, with the largest groups from Germany, the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States.
Our editorial team
Four travelling editors and one desk coordinator, all based in or around Basel, each with a specific area of expertise within Swiss travel geography.
Thomas Wenger
Founding Editor — Rail Routes and Mountain AccessThomas grew up in Liestal in the canton of Basel-Landschaft and spent his twenties working as a timetable analyst at a regional transport consultancy before turning to travel writing. He holds an SBB rail network licence and has ridden every metre of the mainline network at least twice. His specialisms are the panoramic train corridors — Glacier Express, Bernina Express, GoldenPass, Voralpen-Express — and mountain access logistics including rack railways, cable cars and PostBus connections that most guides treat as an afterthought. Thomas leads the annual timetable verification cycle each January and is the first point of contact for client itineraries involving complex multi-modal routing.
Claudia Bertsch
Senior Editor — Lakes, Historic Quarters and Cultural CalendarClaudia studied art history at the University of Basel and joined the desk in 2016 after a decade writing for Swiss regional newspapers. Her coverage areas are Lake Lucerne, Lake Geneva, Lake Thun and the Lago Maggiore shore, as well as the historic urban quarters series — she is the primary author of the Bern UNESCO old town guide, the Schaffhausen and Stein am Rhein assessments, and the St. Gallen Abbey precinct coverage. She also manages the annual food and market calendar, including the Bern Zibelemärit notes, the Basel Christmas market and the Lausanne market circuit. Claudia is available to consulting clients specifically for itineraries centred on cultural or culinary travel.
Reto Hasler
Editor — Glacier Viewpoints and Alpine TerrainReto holds a qualification in mountain guiding from the Swiss Mountain Guide Association and has been contributing to the desk since 2018. He covers the glacier viewpoints category in full: Jungfraujoch and the Aletsch approach, the Gornergletscher near Zermatt, the Rhone glacier above Gletsch, the retreating Unterer Grindelwaldgletscher and the Matterhorn Glacier Paradise at 3,883 m. He is also responsible for the winter resort section, with particular attention to transport access — which resorts are reachable by public transport without a car, and where the Swiss Travel Pass reduces lift access costs meaningfully. Reto's assessments include explicit notes on altitude considerations and physical fitness requirements, which many of our clients with mobility questions have found useful.
Sarah Minder
Editor and Consulting CoordinatorSarah joined the desk in 2023 and manages both fieldwork assignments and the day-to-day operations of the consulting service. She covers the family day trips category — principally the Rhine Falls at Schaffhausen, Zurich's Uetliberg, Zug and the Lake Zug circuit, the Ballenberg Open-Air Museum near Brienz and the Swiss Museum of Transport in Lucerne — and handles most of the first-contact consulting inquiries. Her background is in logistics planning, which makes her particularly effective at the practical side of itinerary construction: booking lead times, connection margins, luggage storage options and the kind of operational detail that separates a functional day plan from one that sounds good on paper. Sarah writes all confirmations for consulting clients and manages the follow-up process after trips have been taken.
Where the desk goes in the field
The editorial archive is organised into six main categories. Each has been built through paid fieldwork rather than press-trip access. Below is a summary of what each category covers and how it developed.
Panoramic train routes
Our most-consulted category and the one that started the desk. We cover the four principal panoramic routes — Glacier Express, Bernina Express, GoldenPass Panoramic and Wilhelm Tell Express — with full per-seat breakdowns, carriage diagrams, reservation requirements and realistic cost totals including supplements. We also assess the secondary panoramic lines that receive far less coverage: the Lötschberg route through the Bernese Alps, the Voralpen-Express between Lucerne and St. Gallen, and the Centovalli Railway from Locarno to Domodossola. Every fare quoted is the SBB counter price in CHF for the current season.
Glacier viewpoints
Switzerland has the highest concentration of glaciers of any country in the Alps, and most of the major ones are accessible without climbing equipment. Our glacier section covers eight principal viewpoints, ranging from the Jungfraujoch at 3,454 m — the highest point reachable by rail in Europe — to the Gornergletscher, which can be seen from the Zermatt valley floor. We include precise transport directions, current lift and railway fares in CHF, and notes on seasonal access restrictions that change as glacier retreat alters the pathways available to visitors.
Lakeside towns and steamer routes
The lake network of Switzerland is one of its most underused travel assets. Our coverage spans Lake Lucerne (including the Wilhelm Tell Express lake segment), Lake Thun and Lake Brienz in the Bernese Oberland, Lake Geneva from Geneva to the Chillon castle at Montreux, and the quieter lakes of the Mittelland — Murtensee, Bielersee and Neuenburgersee. For each, we describe the steamer timetable, the most useful landing stages and the connection to the SBB rail network. The Three-Lakes Region covering Murten, Biel and Neuchâtel is covered in particular detail as it is consistently overlooked by standard Switzerland guides.
Full archive of reviews
Beyond the six main categories, the desk publishes a running archive of shorter assessments covering individual station restaurants, mountain huts that are reachable by public transport, market days in smaller towns and specific seasonal events worth timing a trip around. The complete archive is available on our reviews page. Consulting clients have access to the full database including unpublished notes from fieldwork that has not yet been written up as a formal guide.
Work with the desk directly
Whether you need a complete multi-week itinerary with booked trains and CHF cost breakdowns, or a single question answered about a specific route, the Basel team responds within one working day. Use the contact form to start.
Ask the Basel desk