Motorhome Routes

Free standing is not regulated nationally in Switzerland: each canton and municipality decides for itself. In practice that means caution. Valais and Bern — precisely the cantons containing Zermatt, the Aletsch Glacier and the Lauterbrunnen valley — enforce strictly and fines are steep. Plan on campsites, and check locally with the tourist office if you do want to stand free.

A motorway vignette is compulsory for vehicles up to 3.5 tonnes. Only an annual vignette exists, costing 40 CHF and valid from 1 December until 31 January of the following year; there are no day or week vignettes. Two weeks of driving costs the same as six months. A trailer needs its own vignette. Without one you pay 200 CHF plus the purchase.

Think carefully about a heavier motorhome. Above 3.5 tonnes the vignette does not apply and the flat-rate heavy vehicle charge takes over, billed per day through the Via app — and it runs for every day the vehicle is in Switzerland, including days parked on a campsite.

Two things for your planning. Zermatt, Saas-Fee, Wengen and Mürren are car-free: you park in Täsch or Lauterbrunnen and continue by train. And the high passes are generally closed from October to May, so a tour over the Furka, Grimsel, Susten and Bernina is a summer route. Tunnels, car-carrying trains and some passes are charged separately. The canton of Geneva also operates the Stick'AIR emissions sticker, comparable to the French Crit'Air.