Best Hikes in Switzerland 2025! | Swiss Family Fun (#27)

Episode Summary

This episode features Tanya Deans, the creator of the popular Swiss hiking blog Swiss Family Fun. We delve into her unique journey of transforming a personal passion project into a leading online resource for navigating Switzerland’s landscapes and experiences.

This episode features Tanya Dean, the creator of the popular Swiss hiking blog Swiss Family Fun. We delve into her extensive expertise on Swiss hiking trails, offering practical advice and recommendations for exploring the country’s stunning landscapes.

Expect to learn about top hike recommendations for various groups, including visiting families (e.g., Chäserrugg, Stoos, Panorama Trail), tourists looking to avoid crowds (with specific strategies for popular areas like Zermatt, Jungfrau Region near Grindelwald First and Bachalpsee, Mount Rigi, and Appenzell including Kronberg), and families with young children. Tanya also shares her favorite lesser-known trails such as Segnesboden near Flims, the Brienz Rothorn Ridge Trail, and the SurenenPass. She offers tips for hiking in different seasons (including winter hikes in Elm), provides advice for enjoying stunning views on a budget, and outlines essential preparation considerations for different types of Swiss hikes.

Meet Tanya Deans

Tanya Dean is the creator and author of Swiss Family Fun, a widely-used online guide for exploring Switzerland. As an expat who started hiking with her young family, she built Swiss Family Fun into a comprehensive resource, sharing practical tips and recommendations for outdoor adventures, train travel, and Swiss life for visitors and residents alike.

Full Transcript

Mike: Tanya, thank you very much for joining me on how it ticks. How are you today?

Tanya: Doing great. Yeah. Sun is shining.

Mike: Starting from the beginning, where did the inspiration from Swiss Family Fund come from?

Tanya: Well, I started in 2005 when I first moved to Switzerland. So I was living in San Francisco and my husband found a job here and we thought we’d have a little adventure. So I had a 1-year-old at the time and we moved over and it was quite a different landscape back then. You know, we didn’t have smartphones.

It was really hard to find information about things in English. I had started blogging just so my family could see what we were doing, and as we started to travel and gather tips from other families on what to do, uh, it seemed natural to just put them somewhere so we could share them. So if people asked, uh, and I went to different play playgroups and people are always sharing tips.

So I started. At the time it was called Moms Taught Zurich. And a lot of people have been here a [00:01:00] long time and Switzerland still may know, still know me as moms taught Zurich, so I know that they’re, um, OG followers. And yeah, it just started sharing all these, uh, little tips about where to go. And it was also really helpful for me to get outta the house because I had been working full-time before I came here.

So I was kind of a new stay at home mom. I didn’t speak the language, I didn’t know the culture. I was still learning how to have a happy life here, meet friends, know what to do with children, and it started to become a good way for me to leave the house. And explore and have a purpose. And I did that for quite a few years just as a hobby and just enjoying it.

And I had come from a technical writing background and also doing, uh, was a product manager for a software company and doing usability and UX design. So all of those skills really helped writing the type of content because I wasn’t really telling [00:02:00] a family story. Like a lot of blogs, I was really telling it like instructions.

And I think that’s kind of the key difference on the type of content I provide is that it’s less about me and it’s more about you. I want to make sure that you can do everything that I tell you about. And it’s not about me as a personality, it’s more about how can I make your life better. Um, well I can, maybe you have a question in there.

I could talk all day about this.

Mike: No, that’s great. There’s a couple of questions coming to mind. So what, you said you started blogging about this. What did that look like back then?

Tanya: Oh, that’s hard to remember. That was 20 years ago. But I mean, it was really just small tips. So someone would say, oh, hey, I, I heard about this free museum. Uh, it’s great for kids. So I’d go and I’d write about it. Just the basic information, you know, what was our experience like there? You know the details about how to get there, when is it open?

Because a lot of this information was only available [00:03:00] in German. It was hard to, we didn’t have like Google translate, you know, you had to really figure out what was happening. And I was learning German at the time, so, um, they were really short, you know, just a couple pictures. Um, you know, I didn’t have a smartphone, so I was just taking them with my bad quality camera at the time.

And, you know, I upgraded that pretty quickly and just writing about, okay, this is what was good for us. This was what didn’t work for us. You know, they do have a restaurant or they, you can’t picnic. There. These sort of little tips that were so helpful for families to know and what. Was really important when I had small children is to know what I’m getting into.

Because when you have really small children, you really can’t afford to make a lot of mistakes. ’cause every time you miss the bus and then you have to wait there for a full hour, that’s like the whole day is ruined. So knowing those small things can really make the difference between a good day and a bad day.

And I kind of keep that motto of, we make all the mistakes so you don’t have to because we’ve made [00:04:00] so many mistakes along the way. And I also felt kind of this, I mean, it was a way to just share, um, your experience to say, Hey, we made all these mistakes, but now I know how to do it better. You can do it better than we did it.

And that always felt good to help someone else have a better day than you did.

Mike: W at what point did you think that this could be bigger than something you were just sharing amongst your immediate network?

Tanya: So I, you know, there was definitely a lot of blogs that were monetizing with advertising, and that’s not something that I wanted to do initially. I really, uh, didn’t wanna annoy my audience with a bunch of ads on the website. And there was a real turning point. I, I met a new friend who had a successful YouTube channel at the time, and they really encouraged me to monetize because I was already well above the threshold for, I use Media Vine to do advertising on my website.

And it was well above the threshold [00:05:00] of, I think it was like 50,000 views a month. Uh, and it just never really occurred to me that I could make. Like real money on the website and they really encouraged me to do that. And also I was kind of at a crosswords where I was absolutely burning out. I just was spending, I don’t know, sometimes 15, 20 hours a week on the website.

And I would stay up really late at night every week. And I’d go on a hike, I would stay, I put the kids to bed, and then I would work till one or two in the morning, you know, doing content. And I loved doing it, but I was absolutely burning out because I wasn’t earning anything, doing this work. So anyway, I monetized, uh, with Media Vine and at first I was hardly earning anything.

I thought this is absolutely ridiculous. I’ve, I’m, now, I’m annoying all my people. I’m earning nothing. This is terrible. Uh, and my friend just really encouraged me to like, let it run. It has to figure out, you know, who you are and who your audience are so they can, you know, it can work. And so it took maybe six months or so [00:06:00] till I started earning enough where I thought it was worth it.

And then it really changed my mindset and I really started to treat it more as a business and, and even though I wasn’t making so much money at the beginning, I treated it differently. And when I spent time doing it, I thought, this is an investment in my future business. And it’s not just a hobby because also any time that I spent on the blog was also time.

I wasn’t spending with my family or with my friends or. I don’t know, doing chores or, you know, keeping the household like there, there’s always a choice of where you spend your time and I felt like I could justify that better when I was earning, uh, money with the blog. So that mindset helped me to get over that hump of completely burning out and quitting.

’cause I used to think, I, I, every day, every week I would say, I’m quitting. I can’t do it anymore. It’s just I’m exhausted. I don’t know how I can continue doing it. And now that I don’t have the, that same feeling anymore because the investment, I mean, it is my business [00:07:00] and I see my efforts actually contributing to, um, the family in real ways in terms of financially and being able to allow us to do a lot of the things that we couldn’t do before and help support my children in a way that I couldn’t do before.

Mike: Why were you spending so many hours and on the verge of burnout when you weren’t monetizing it yet?

Tanya: Uh, ’cause I’m passionate about it. I mean, and I think that’s, uh, you know, one main difference. Well, I mean, it’s a positive and a negative. I mean, from the positive side, I think that’s what makes a big difference about my content. I mean, I really do care, and I spend a lot more time maybe than I should.

What o often happens is that I have my priority list of things that are going to drive the bottom line for me, and then I often get distracted on things that. I care about. I’d be like, oh, even just last night, I had all these things I had to do [00:08:00] and I, I came across my, a friend asked me for a tip. She’s traveling in a particular part of Switzerland, and I’m like, oh, there’s this great hike for you there.

And I pulled up the post and I hadn’t updated it in quite a few years, and I’ve been there three times since, and I have all these better pictures. And I said, well, this is ridiculous. So I spent like the next 45 minutes, like editing photos, putting new photos, and you know, no one’s gonna see that post except for my friend and maybe a few people because it’s not a super popular hike.

But for me it’s, it’s, I I also say sometimes that it’s like an art project, so it’s my business and it’s also a creative venture for me where, because I am the sole owner, I get to make it exactly how I want. And if I wanna spend 45 minutes making this particular post, absolutely beautiful. You know, I get to do that and that’s fun for me.

Uh, and. I think that if I was all business, I would delete that post. ’cause literally the numbers on that post hardly anyone’s ever looking at it. And probably 60% of my [00:09:00] posts, so few people look at them. And, but for me, it’s a full project because without those posts, they support all the other posts. So I have ones that are like the best spring hikes, the best hikes for beginners, the best, like all these best ones.

Those get a lot more traffic, but those posts don’t exist without the details. And so I care about the details and I think that that has, uh, an effect upstream that maybe you can’t, it’s not super tangible, but I feel it.

Mike: And what do you think changed from when you first started to monetize to six months later when the numbers started with increasing or the revenue started increasing? Does the platform which you advertise on help you with uh, SEO, what was it about it that allowed you to make more money?

Tanya: Uh, the main thing is that I just paid a lot more attention to [00:10:00] the analytics, so they, media Vine wasn’t helping me per se, but seeing the analytics of what content was because you can see post by post, which content. Earns the most, and it’s so fun to see like, wow, there’s some, like for example, I have one post on Kaiser Smarm, which is a dessert.

Um, it’s kind of like a fluffy pancake that you cut up and have with a compote of fruit. It’s actually Austrian, but they serve it here. I wrote a post on that. ’cause I had a stint of, I don’t know, six months or a year where I was writing a bunch of Swiss food posts. ’cause I thought those might do well, and some of them did.

That’s like one of my high performing posts. It has nothing to do with hiking it. It surprises me and it makes me money because food posts make a lot more money than travel posts. Um, so those things are kind of fun and surprising. Sometimes it put me in the wrong direction because I saw that was making a lot of money.

I thought, oh, I better do more food posts. So I did a bunch of food posts, but it’s just not really my niche. And so, yeah, maybe they made me money, but it wasn’t [00:11:00] taking me where I wanted to go. So, yeah, I, it changes because that’s, I’ve been monetized for, I think it’s about five years now, and the landscape has really changed.

But for advertising with ai, I mean, there’s so many different things that have changed and what SEO was. Five years ago is completely different now. Um, and you think that you’ve got it one time. You’re like, oh, I’m great. I wrote this. It’s just some posts I would rewrite for SEO and then maybe three months later I’d see them just skyrocket.

And it was so exciting. And then like that same, one of those same posts now is completely dead because ai, those a certain kind of posts like AI’s, you know, like especially those list posts like listicles, those used to be really high generating. And now those are dying because anyone can type in like, what are the best, you know, whatever wildflower hikes and they just get a list and you know, that sort of post is not really going to deliver for you anymore.

Um, I did spend a lot [00:12:00] of time doing research on SEOI, you know, I paid for different tools to do research, but I’m so niche that they weren’t super helpful. So there’s just not so many people searching for a lot of the things that I write about. So the tools weren’t helpful. I just had to really look at the analytics and see what was working and, and I created a huge database of all of my posts.

And I would track, uh, like I would go year by year and sometimes month by month what the traffic was. So I could see things that were trending up, trending down. I would mark when I would make changes to the titles or the descriptions or the content, so then I could see whether that was making a change to SEO, I mean, to the traffic over time.

And that was, I did that for a couple years and then at some point I’m like, I can’t, I mean, it was kind of fun and interesting, but at some point it was just, it was for one person. I

Mike: effort versus

Tanya: time, I can’t spend so much time. Yeah. Micromanaging that part of it.

Mike: I did wanna ask you about that because, myself included, [00:13:00] but also I know a number of people also expats, living in Switzerland, having their own attempt at a side business. And the reason there isn’t this attempt is because they’ve identified the fact that there is this huge gap of information service, which is providing something English to foreigners living here.

So I wanted to ask you for your journey, what were some of the, was, was there anything that you discovered along your journey which you thought, ah, this is really helpful, or this is something which I did, which I noticed was a big difference in the, um, journey of Swiss Family Fund.

Tanya: Well, I think that we all make the core mistake of thinking that we are our audience. So we see like one gap in the market and then we think, oh, well I have this problem clearly there’s lots of other people that have this problem. What you have to do is take the next step and see if that’s really true.

And so what I, I mean, I talked to so many people I’ve, I’ve had so many people reach out to me and say, [00:14:00] Hey, can I. You know, book an hour with you just to chat. ’cause they wanna do maybe something very similar to what I’m doing either in the, in the same market, sometimes in a different market. And really my advice is, um, you have to follow what your audience wants, not what you want.

And I think that’s the big mistake that a lot of people make, is they write about what they love and what they’re passionate about and they don’t listen. And that listening could be through the analytics, it can be through a lot of different ways. It can be through the engagement on social media, what questions people are asking, what comments people are leaving and that tells you what’s going to work for you.

I think the reason people don’t wanna listen to that answer is that they may not actually be passionate about what people care about. And I struggle with that too. Like, uh, the example I gave earlier about going to that one post, like, I really love [00:15:00] writing. That’s my background and I really enjoy it. And there’s a lot of my business that I don’t enjoy, and I still have to do it to make the business go.

And there’s lots of things that I have to write about that I don’t really care about. So for example, like travel passes, everyone. That’s a really hot topic. Everyone’s confused about it. They need information about it. And also the Panorama trains. Um, like all the scenic train rides in Switzerland, those are really popular.

I don’t really care about either of those topics, like personally, because I’m not a tourist. I live here. And so I don’t do the scenic trains as a tourist. And I don’t buy travel passes. I can’t buy the travel passes because I’m a resident here. Uh, but however, I am now an expert on those things because I understood that my audience really cares about those topics.

I’m in a unique position to be able to talk to a lot of people that are traveling and gather information, [00:16:00] uh, all the time. Like every day I am talking to people that are traveling, uh, on travel consults and through other ways that I communicate with my audience. And so. Yeah, I, I write about something that’s not my primary passion, but it’s something that my followers really need help with.

And I think that’s the main difference. I, I’ve seen people, um, continue to pursue, pursue what they, you know, they started blogging and they had a vision, and I still, I, I would use that same term of an artistic project. Like you have to think of it, are you going to just do this because you have a vision and you wanna execute it, and it doesn’t have to be profitable, that’s fine.

But if you want to make it profitable, you have to change your vision or expand it to have other things that aren’t your initial idea. And the people that fall off the wayside, that blog, you know. Do podcasts or whatever. They do all [00:17:00] these things hard for like four or five years and then they drop off.

It’s because they took that path and they never made the turn to do something that was slightly outside of what their initial vision was.

Mike: Okay, so. Six months after you start to monetize, you see some growth. You see some progress between then and now. What other key milestones or moments in the growth of Swiss Family Fund, um, did you, did happened, uh, that really made you go, yes, this is going well.

Tanya: Well, the first thing that comes to mind, maybe it’s not what you were maybe thinking of, is actually something that was a negative that completely changed how I’m doing my business now. So. wanna say two years, but it could have been longer. Uh, Switzerland changed their privacy laws here, and what that meant for me is that my advertising media vine completely shut off advertising to my Swiss audience.[00:18:00]

Uh, my Swiss audience is like 60% of my traffic, and so overnight I lost all of my, like, basically all of my revenue. So it was just literally, it turned off the next day At the time, I mean, I think it was even a bigger, uh, portion at the time when they turned it off. And I immediately contact ’em. I’m like, what happened?

Like, is there something wrong on my site? Like I’m not getting any more advertising revenue. And they’re like, oh, let me look into it. And like a week later they’re like, oh yeah, uh, no more advertising in Switzerland. I’m like, what? And so, I mean, I literally cried, um, because I had, had just had my best summer ever.

I was like, I’m quitting everything. I’m so excited. Like everything’s, all my dreams are coming true. Like everything is working. And it was literally like one day to the next, completely devastated. Um, so I was sad for like a month and then I didn’t know what I was gonna do. And then I thought, okay, well let’s let, we’re going to, um, Phoenix out [00:19:00] of the ashes here.

And it made me completely change what I’m doing. And in retrospect, it’s great because now I have multiple streams of income doing different things. So I started pursuing affiliate revenue, um, with, uh. Get your guides. So people booking, um, experiences or travel passes or hotels or other things. So as I advise them, either through travel consultations or my website, I’m getting some affiliate revenue.

I hadn’t really invested in that at all before this happened, but I’m like, well, I have to make up for their advertising revenue. I also have to pursue the US audience more because they’re still getting advertising. So if I can make that a higher percentage of the people that are using my website, then I can at least earn from them even if my Swiss residents are not getting the ads.

Um, so I wrote a lot of content that was specific to, uh, the US audience, and it, they, it pays higher anyway. The advertising rates are. Much higher for us [00:20:00] than for Swiss. Um, and then I also started building digital products. So I started with a small ebook, uh, some like one pagers. And then I had an ebook that did really well.

I ended up giving it away. I gave away like 3000 copies just to build my email list. And then I decided to start selling it ’cause it was just so popular. And then I started building a, um, a digital guide. So I have this, uh, Switzerland travel guide through this app called Rex B that has an interactive map.

It has suggested itineraries, it has like so much content and I really wouldn’t have done. I wouldn’t have been motivated to do all of those things if my revenue hadn’t disappeared. And since then, like my revenue has recovered. But because of the efforts that I’ve done, because I’ve built up the US audience, because I’m writing content that is really geared towards advertising revenue.

And I’m not saying that that’s bad content, it’s just towards content that people are searching for. [00:21:00] So. It’s been quite a journey over the past few years . I’m not quite sure I, where I am at at the moment. I have so many different things that I’m doing and I’m trying to figure out what things I want to invest in going forward so I can continue to thrive and not burn out again.

Mike: I have a few different questions which came out of that, . Let’s start maybe with affiliates. How did you. Decide which affiliates to reach out to. I guess get your guide naturally. Makes sense. But did you also go through any Swiss specific ones?

Tanya: I initially started with gear ’cause I thought that would be a good one. You know, people always ask like, what shoes are you wearing? You know what? Rain jacket. And so I started doing all these gift guides also. So a lot of Swiss um, gifts and. Other products. So I thought, okay, I could start with the Swiss audience, [00:22:00] and if they buy something from my gift guide, then I get a little affiliate revenue.

Uh, that was the total failure. Like I didn’t make anything. I’ve spent so much time creating all of this content, you know, researching it and really made nothing, so I had to abandon that. Um, I’ve tried, you know, booking.com for hotels. This seemed like a natural fit. And, uh, my, some of my colleagues that do a similar business seem to be working really well for them, so I spend a lot of time doing that.

Also, very minimal. Um, rev, I mean, almost nothing. In fact, I’m at the point where I’m just like, forget it. I would prefer that people book direct, because I always book direct with, um, hotels and the margins are so thin, and I know that hotels really hate booking because it just, it, they take such a big cut. Huge cut. And so I think ethically I don’t like it and I’m not making any money doing it, so what’s the point? So I’m just gonna take all of that out of my, I mean, when I have time, [00:23:00] I’m gonna take it out because I just don’t think there’s any point. And I make revenue in other ways, so I don’t think it’s a point.

Um, get your guide works great for me. Um, they, they have lots of good experiences and I’ve had a really good ex, I’ve had a good experience with them and I think it’s pretty fair. We’ll have to see, you know, how that is long term right now. It seems to be working as well as it has. I haven’t seen any drop off.

Um, I don’t know. There might be other ways. I haven’t worked with other ones. I know there’s like Viator and other providers, but it’s just, I think, too difficult to have so many different ones. So I’ve just kind of put all my eggs in one basket for that and we’ll see how it goes. And maybe I’ll have to swap it out.

Mike: Hmm, interesting. What about partnerships? I can imagine there are a number of different organizations within Switzerland that you could collaborate with to help spread and share, um, for the purpose of advertisement, but also the knowledge that you are generating.[00:24:00]

Tanya: Yeah, so there’s different types of partnerships. I mean, I have people contacting me multiple every week wanting me to promote their products. I don’t like to do it because it stresses me out. Like I really want people, like if they’re going to either pay me or give me product, like I want it to be worthwhile to them.

I want them to, you know, have a help with their business. And I don’t know how much social media like influencer work, like you can’t really measure it. It’s really hard. And so I don’t really reach out for brand deals. And the ones that I accept are ones that. Usually makes sense to me where I’m like, yeah, like I do do hotel collaborations and collaborations with tourism offices because it allows me to write more content.

So I get really excited ’cause it means that, like I just did two this week and it’s great ’cause I get to go to the region, I get to do a lot of hikes, I get to see a lot of things and now I have lots of content I could put on the website and I wouldn’t necessarily have the money to go to all of these [00:25:00] places and spend it for myself when, uh, but I do need the content.

So that’s a great, it’s just a natural fit. It still is really stressful for me ’cause I have to do a lot. I mean, hours and hours of work, um, creating reels and editing and photos. I mean, it’s just sometimes it feels like, what am I doing? Um, it’s just a lot of work, but it’s a natural fit to my business. So I think that’s good.

Mike: All this work that you’re doing, have you ever considered hiring someone to help you? I mean, don’t get wrong. I understand that this is your creative baby, but surely there’s a bunch of admin work that you can offload to make your life easier.

Tanya: I know people that do my kind of work, uh, the ones that are much more successful than me definitely have teams. You know, they have VAs, they have video editors, they have people that are doing all that work. Uh, I definitely want to do that. And I did have a few this year. I tried a couple of video editors.

I tried a VA for a little bit. I tried [00:26:00] just an editor for a little bit. And I think it’s like anything, you have to invest in those people over a long period of time to get them to do what you want. And I just don’t feel like I have the time at the moment to step back and spend a lot of time with them.

To get them to the point where it’s actually really working. And I do think that’s probably the next step that I have to do with my business to start getting people so I can, um, yeah, scale. I mean, for example, my YouTube channel, I haven’t posted anything in quite a while and it’s shocking to me how many people, uh, book travel consults with me just from my YouTube channel.

They’ve literally never come to my website, ever. They don’t even know I have a website. And I’m like, ha, I have this, I have a pretty small YouTube channel compared to most people, and it’s absolutely shocking to me that they would that, that they don’t know any of my other channels. And so it’s definitely useful for me.

And even though it’s small, I [00:27:00] have minimum 70 videos worth of footage of hikes in my, you know, on a hard drive here that I just don’t have time to edit. So if I had an editor, you know, and I could have one going out like once a week or twice a week, that would be a great thing for me. Uh, there’s so much potential.

I, I’m like full of ideas. I have so much content. I have so many things I could do. Um, but yeah, I think it’s that being able to step away from your business. I have a really hard time. Um, my son is always giving advice. He’s like, you know, good, good YouTubers or, you know, good people in this space, they in, they don’t spend their money on themselves.

They invest it in the business. They’re like, you should just spend everything you make on Yeah. Like, on the business and have, so it’s just ramping up rather than saying, yay, I made this money and now I get to spend it. You know? And I think that’s just a hard, uh, mindset change. So yeah. I need to have my inner coach tell me [00:28:00] to do the right thing.

Mike: That I can relate to. The company will grow as fast as much as you invest into it, and the more you invest, that’s, I can definitely understand. What about like, how did you. I mean, there’s so many avenues which you’ve gone into with this. Um, I guess what was once a blog, now it’s really a plat travel platform.

Is it all self-taught? Did you go to anyone to learn how to put together packages to share with people how to build an ebook? Did you learn all of that yourself or did you get some help?

Tanya: No, I just did, I mean, you know, I watch tutorials and I just did everything myself. I mean, I do, I, my other job and I’m a web designer on the side, so, um, on the side, sometimes that’s more of my job. Sometimes it kind of goes back and forth. Um, so I do have a lot of technical skills and I can learn things pretty quickly.

So, um, yeah, just pretty much self-taught. I could probably do better if I got an expert in here for sure.

Mike: But like you said, it’s also [00:29:00] if it’s, it’s through an art project, so if part of the fun is figuring out yourself, then that’s fine,

Tanya: Sure, sure. I do have a graphic design and partner that I work with. She, I work with her on web design projects, and so she did, you know, design my logo. She helped me with, um, some of the format and layout for the ebook when I started that. So that was really helpful getting me, um, kind of jumpstarted in that.

Mike: Now I have to talk to you about hikes because that’s probably the main reason people are going to start listening to this best hikes. And I think the most useful thing, at least for me personally, and I have a few different questions and a few different scenarios where I would love to get your input on the best hikes, but I would love to start with the best hikes for visiting family members.

So you’re living in Switzerland and you have visiting family from abroad. It doesn’t matter where they’re from, they don’t know how to hike. Not really, but they want a hike. And say for example, the big ticket items at or [00:30:00] Yau is a bit too expensive ’cause it is really expensive and, but they still want the Alpine.

And say you are based in Zurich and it’s mom and dad. Mom and dad are, let’s say between 50 and 65. What advice can you give, um, on where to hike?

Tanya: Well, I’m an expert on this

Mike: are an expert. I believe it.

Tanya: uh, I actually have a post exactly. It’s like where to take grandpa when he comes, because, you know, my dad comes twice a year and this is exactly what I do with him. I’ve got a, a huge catalog of things and, uh, now that he is getting older and you know, then it’s getting smaller and smaller, what he can do, uh, from Zurich, uh, one of my favorites is, uh, Chäserrugg.

This is over by Toggenburg and you take a funicular train and then a cable car up and it’s to these cliffs that overlook the Walensee. [00:31:00] And so it’s just lots of drama. You’ve done nothing. You’ve only run the cable car up, there’s a restaurant there, and then it has this pretty easy wander that’s around this high alpine plane up there.

And it’s enough of a hike that you feel like, Ooh, I’m hiking. But it’s short. And it’s also on like a proper footpath, not a, um, like some of the easiest hikes would be on a service road or something that’s really smooth, which in some cases that’s really appropriate, especially for anyone that’s older that has mobility issues or if you have to bring very small children, um, or a stroller.

But you know, that’s a separate topic. If you wanna have kind of hike, hike ish, this would be a really good choice. If you want something that’s more, um. Well, kind of along the same lines, but the Stoos Panorama Trail is great too because you can, uh, ride the steepest funicular in the world or whatever they wanna say.

It’s world record breaking, uh, up to the Alpine Village. I was just there this weekend. You know, it’s a crowd [00:32:00] pleaser. Everyone loves it. Then you can ride the chair, lift all the way up to the viewpoint, and then there’s just a short wander along the cliffs. So again, you still kind of feel like you’re on a hike and you’re out in nature.

Um, and you’re having the most amazing view, but almost no effort now. Um, I don’t know. I mean, there’s like so many ways. I have like a whole post that’s just on beginner trails that are like this, but those are two of my go-tos for lots of drama without too much work. And then you kind of feel like you’re hiking.

Mike: And I’ll certainly link all of these, uh, in the show notes. But just to clarify, these are also ones which are easily accessible without a car.

Tanya: Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, almost everything in Switzerland you can get to. The question is how long is it gonna tank you? So I do have another post that’s the best hikes, uh, from Zurich with public transportation, because this is also a big theme. You want to not have to go three hours, like if you’re going from, [00:33:00] these are from Zurich in particular because I, a lot of the people that follow me are living in Zurich.

Um, and also you wanna have minimal transfers, especially with kids. ’cause every transfer you have, if you have to transfer. Two times on the train and then a bus. It’s just everything becomes super complicated. So yeah, I have a post that’s all about that. But um, yeah, these ones are pretty good. I mean, Stoos is actually one of the easiest ones to get to because you take one train and one bus, it takes about an hour and 20 minutes from Zurich.

It’s not that bad. Um, it’s also really popular prob uh, you know, but not only because it’s, uh, amazing, but also because it’s pretty easy to access.

Mike: Now the next one would be hikes for tourists. Now that’s a very broad. Request for suggestions. So I wanted to put a couple of filters on that. So you’re, yeah. Tourist coming here, but you’re also a tourist that is not interested in being surrounded by other tourists. So it is this balance of, yes, you’ve got, you’ve got a bit of hiking experience.

You are looking [00:34:00] forward to the mountains. You need to be able to navigate Switzerland easily enough, and you don’t want to go to the top five hikes. When you Google top five hikes in Switzerland. What, uh, what can you recommend?

Tanya: Yeah, I would say it depends, but

Mike: course,

Tanya: a big question of course, and this is what I. Do my travel consoles is like, how long do you wanna be on the trail? How difficult of a trail do you wanna be on the trail for two hours, five hours? Do you want to, like, what’s your maximum elevation? You know, a lot of these things play into, uh, which trail I would choose.

But I would say for your average tourist that I think most of the tourists that I talk to, they wanna be on the trail about two hours. Like, they just wanna be out. They don’t want, they don’t mind a little elevation, but they don’t wanna be climbing a whole mountain. Um, and they do want to escape the crowds.

So I’m gonna give you a couple. Examples from the popular regions, because most of the tourists are going to the same places, so they’re not going to stay [00:35:00] in, you know, some random place that I would hike in. I mean, I would say most of the hikes I do, I hardly see anyone, but it’s because I’m going to places that tourists don’t wanna go to.

So I mean, uh, so for, for example, Zermatt, all the tourists wanna go to Zermatt. And if you’re gonna go there, then everyone’s gonna go to the Gornergrot and go to the viewpoint. They’re all gonna go to the Riffelsee Lake. But a very small percentage of those people are gonna continue hiking from the lake down the mountain to say Riffelalp or Riffelberg.

Uh, most of the tourists that are going are either part of a tour group or they’re just going to the viewpoint and then they’re riding back down the mountain. They might only be in Surmont for one day, so they’re just trying to cram all that in. And I find that. Literally one meter on the trail, you lose 99% of the people and then people spread out naturally on the trail anyway, even if there’s some others.

So that would be my top pick in Zermatt, is to either, well, you could do both from Go Degra, hike down to the R, [00:36:00] that’s also gorgeous, and you get to spend more time with the Glacier view. Most people are riding the train down and then from the Riffelsee Lake, then keep hiking down to Riffelberg would be my first choice.

You get to have the Matterhorn in view most of the time. You get to see the, um, longhorn sheep that are hiding in the little crevices there. And it’s just really, it’s actually this trail that’s in my background here that I’m describing now, if you’re in the Jungfrau region, uh, you know, everyone wants to go to Grindelwald First, which has the cliff walk and all those, uh, zip lines and other activities.

So it’s a total madhouse right there. And then a lot of those people are gonna hike up to the Bachalpsee which is really lovely. Uh, but no one turns the other direction and hikes on the Marmut trail, which I did last summer, I saw probably 10 people for the next two and a half hours, and it was absolutely gorgeous.

So if you just do, even in the popular areas. I don’t think you should miss the cliff walk. It’s really spectacular. I just took my dad there for the first time this [00:37:00] summer and he was like, this is amazing. I can’t believe it. 20 years, why didn’t you take me here? I’m like, I don’t know, it’s just like popular.

And we had other places to go and he said, ah, I’m just so glad I got to see this. So, uh, definitely see it, but taking a trail doesn’t mean that it’s B side views, it’s just something that’s just not pro been promoted. Um, in the Lucerne area, again, the ri Mount Rigi is super popular with tourists, but most people are just going up to the viewpoint.

If you hike the Riki Panorama trail, hardly anyone’s doing that trail and you get to spend a lot more time with the lake views. So you still get to do the thing, the tourist thing, but you get to have a lot of solitude for the next couple hours. So those are just, uh, choices that are all kind of near the places that tourists wanna be, but a little bit off of the beaten path.

Mike: Not bad. Not bad. And what about if you go east, go over to,

Tanya: Yeah, so if you wanna go over to Appenzell, so, you know, everyone wants to go to the Aescher, [00:38:00] um, cliff restaurant. So everyone wants to see that I am no longer recommending the trail that goes from there down to the Seealpsee, ’cause people keep dying on that trail. Uh, even, yeah. So I think it was two years ago, five people died in one season, including a mom and a five-year-old.

It was just absolutely terrible. And then this year another person died on that trail. So I think that they need to secure the trail in some way. Um, I mean, it’s very controversial. Uh, so that’s a, no, don’t do that one. Now I’m telling everyone just walk up from the valley, uh, to get to the sale.

So, which was really nice. Okay, but let’s say you just wanna avoid that altogether. But you also wanna see the Alpstein, which is. The really beautiful part, I mean, this is the whole mountain range. The sine, it has Santis, it has the Saxer Lücke, it has all these really beautiful mountains. I mean, there’s other trails you can do here.

Um, I mean a lot of them are quite popular. Like the s Luca Trail is really nice. Uh, but it’s not nearly as popular. Some of these ones in the young [00:39:00] far region. I would still do that one. Um, I think Kronberg is underrated. So this is a trail that’s on the, I guess, I don’t know my directions, but maybe north side of the opine.

So you’re looking right at Santis and the whole mountain range. It has a whole family fund area at the valley, so like a ropes course coaster, like all the things that families would want. But you can ride the cable car up and do this. It’s called the Alpine Panorama Trail. Gorgeous views. Not that many people are on it.

I mean, no one tourists aren’t going there. And I mean, it’s not way high up in the mountains, but it’s so beautiful when you get the rolling hills of ELL and the Alden in view. I think it’s amazing. Um, grow Bunin, I mean, whew. There’s so many places to go. Just last week I was, uh, in Flims and I went up to the Segnesboden and it’s like one of my favorite places in all of Switzerland.

It’s so special. It’s this high Alpine river plane and they’ve built a new cable car. So it used to be quite long to have to [00:40:00] hike to get there. And now you can ride the cable cards, only 15 minutes to walk out to the waterfall. And I’m having to rewrite all my posts because all my posts were written from when they didn’t have this cable card.

So I’m like furiously rewriting my posts. Uh, but it’s amazing because it makes it so accessible and it’s such a special place. It’s like a UNESCO protected nature reserve and you know, it’s very delicate, so they have to be a little careful about how now it’s more accessible to get, um, to have people treat it respectfully.

Uh, but I think this is kind of hidden gem go now before it gets super popular. This one’s absolutely gorgeous.

Mike: was a nice transition into my follow-up question, which is hidden gems. So let’s say if you are living in Switzerland and you do know how to hike and you’ve already been to the top ones, which you would generally recommend for a tourist and maybe you are skeptical of suggesting hidden gems ’cause they’re hidden for a reason.

But are there any in particular which you think would be [00:41:00] really nice to share? Um, for people who, which they may not know about and they are already hiking enthusiasts.

Tanya: Yeah, I mean, I agree. I agree. It’s, you know, I don’t wanna give away all my secrets and, you know, everything that I mentioned is. That I’ll mention here is already on the blog, so it’s available. And I think one nice thing about it being on the blog is that there’s a thousand posts, so it’s all there if you’re looking for it.

Uh, but it’s not like I’m shining a light super bright on one so it gets over done because I, I definitely don’t want my places to be ruined. So, um, yeah. So which ones will I reveal on the, on the podcast? I mean, okay, this is maybe not super hidden gem, but I think it’s one, this is one that I’ve been recommending a lot because I keep hearing people thinking they wanna do the Hardergrat, you know, the really dangerous one.

And I don’t want [00:42:00] people to do that. This is the ridge that’s above the lake Brienz, um, it’s like known as one of the most dangerous trails in the world, and there’s lots of YouTube videos on, so people think that they can do it. It’s not a good idea. It’s very dangerous. So instead,

Mike: I’m curious on that. Before you go on, there’s YouTube videos. Are these Swiss people or

Tanya: Um, some, some are of the Swiss people that I’ve seen that done it, that have done videos, they’re more thoughtful and I appreciate it. Uh, what I don’t like, there’s one, it really makes me so angry. They, you know, they’re like, we just got off the plane. We don’t even have hiking shoes. We have no water. We’re gonna get on this trail.

You know, and it’s just, it’s fine. You can do whatever you want with your own life, but when you’re putting it on a YouTube video and making it look like, Hey, it’s an exciting adventure, if you just wanna do it, you know, you can, you know, you can do it too. I think that that’s just really irresponsible. Um, and I know someone who died on that trail.

I mean, not like a [00:43:00] personal friend, but a, um, a colleague of mine and it’s just. The, you need to respect the mountains. It’s like the, it’s like the river or the ocean, and these are natural places that have dangers and you just need to be respectful of it. Anyway, my point is, uh, in this same area, the Brienz Rothorn Ridge Trail is amazing.

It’s a well-defined trail. It’s rated red, white, it’s maintained by the region and it’s not. Um, you know, it still has its dangers, but it’s a proper trail and I just did a section of it, I dunno, two weeks ago, like a different version than I had done before. And I was just convinced again how spectacular it is.

And it’s a little, you know, one reason, uh, a lot of people don’t do it because it’s usually a one-way trail. So it’s maybe just a little complicated. You have to park your car, one place, take a train, then a mountain train. You know, there’s all these logistics to make it happen. [00:44:00] I did it as a loop last week, which I haven’t written on the blog yet, but I will do to.

So you could just go one place and not have to do this one way business. But the views from this ridge are just some of the best in Switzerland. And it’s not like there’s no one on this trail, but it’s not like you’re running into a bunch of T tourists. They’re all Swiss people. You know? It’s the only Swiss that you’re hearing and.

You’ll see all the like 80-year-old Swiss people out there that are way faster than you and you know, much better shape. And I just find that really inspiring. I’m like, I wanna be doing that when I’m also that age, hopefully. Um, and it feels like even though it’s quite close to interlock and in the, it’s not like way out in girl Bunin, you know, away from the tourist region, but it just feels very Swiss to me.

And I think that that would be for drama, that would be my top pick. Um, if you wanna be away from people, like you don’t wanna see anyone on the trail all day, uh, but not have to go [00:45:00] too far away. The Surin Surin passes really one of my favorites. So this is part of the v pina, so it’s not completely unknown.

The v alpina is this long distance trail that cuts across the entire, um, Switzerland. I can’t remember which stage exactly this is, but it goes from Aldo, which is at the very end of Lake Luzerne, like the south end. I shortcut it with a cable car to start this trail, and then you go up and over the sern and pass and end up in Engelberg.

And it’s just, I did it, uh, by myself one time. And I mean, I saw five people, you know, the whole, I was on the trail for like six hours and it was gorgeous. I had rega on my phone just in case there were any problems and I had to be helicopter or rescued. Um, but you have all the drama of these really, uh, gorgeous spiky peaks.

There’s alpine meadows, there’s waterfalls, there’s rivers. And even though you’re quite close to civilization because you’re going over a mountain pass, [00:46:00] uh, you just feel very remote and it’s doable as a day hike. You don’t have to commit to staying overnight and a hut. But there are huts available on either end if you wanted to, you know, do that.

Um. So I think that’s really, really nice. Another one I really enjoy is the, um, the unterschächen Valley. It’s also kind of in the same, we’ve been doing a lot in this area. It’s this valley. A lot of people do it because of the Stäuber waterfalls. Um, and they’re in this valley as well. But there’s a bunch of small cable cars that service this valley.

So the cable cars carry like four to eight people.

Mike: W what’s, what’s, what’s, what’s the nearest village to this valley? Just to

Tanya: Uh, like, um, like Fluen and Alt Dorf, and there’s a bunch of, it’s like near the Klausen Pass. So the Klausen Pass is at the highest point of this valley, and then it goes all the way down to Alt Dorf. And so there’s a bunch of [00:47:00] little villages. Along the way, and each of them have their own little cable car that bring you up the mountain.

And so we’ve been doing little day hikes exploring these, the area in there. So they’re kind of slowly making their way onto the website. So if you’re a super fan, you’ll find those soon. But I think that that whole area still has so much to, for me to explore as well. And I think after 20 years and I hike all the time to still feel like there’s valleys where.

I have no idea what’s happening in corners of them. I think that’s really exciting. So, you know, the, I, the great thing about Switzerland is you can go to any one of these cable cars, get the free map from the bottom and just pick one of the trails that’s on the map and you’re gonna be fine. The, the signs are great, but I think this is also something that’s really difficult for tourists.

Like, if you know how Switzerland works, you understand how to use the public transportation, you speak at least a little German kind of can have had some mistakes along the way. You know how to get into a [00:48:00] self-service cable car and call the guy and tell him you want him to have you come up the mountain.

These sort of things. When you know those things, it’s not, you can really explore Switzerland in a different way than a tourist who literally has no idea how to even get on the train. They’re like, do I show my ticket to somebody? Or I don’t even know what I’m doing. So that’s why it’s really hard to tell tourists about hidden gems ’cause they just don’t have. The skills to make it work.

Mike: No. Totally. Totally.

Tanya: sense. Yeah.

Mike: What about, and this is something that I personally would love to do more of, but never really spent the time figuring out how, which is hiking in winter. Now, like a snowy hike where, look, this is not glacier hiking. I’m not going to get special, um, special equipment, but perhaps, um, snow shoes.

Uh, so of course otherwise you’re going to have to avoid the snow together. [00:49:00] Um, have you done, I, I kind of know the answer to this, but I’ll ask it anyway. Have you done a lot of, uh, research in the best winter hikes?

Tanya: We have a lot of winter hikes and snowshoe hikes on the blog now. I mean, we really started in earnest in, um, during COVID because, uh, when the cable cars were closed or, you know, there people didn’t really wanna be in, um, you know, around other people. We bought snowshoes so we could, you know, do other things and we ended up really enjoying it.

And it’s also great when the snow is bad quality. So we’ve also had some pretty bad winters lately where the snow’s icy or doesn’t snow for a long time. That’s a great time to go snowshoeing because you know, you’re not having the big fluffy snow, but it’s actually really hard to hike and big, fluffy snow.

The main, uh, benefit of having snowshoes is that you can walk on trails that haven’t been prepared by a machine. So even if it’s been tamped down, it just means you can explore a beautiful area. Um, and especially away [00:50:00] from the ski resorts, that’s what I find the most exciting is that a lot of the prepared winter trails, which I still like, are obviously close to the ski resort ’cause they use machines to groom the trail.

When you have a snowshoe, that means you don’t have to be near a ski resort because you’re going away and it’s very quiet and yeah, so we’ve been doing a lot of these. I’m just looking at my list here to see some of my favorite that we’ve done of so many good ones. Oh, you know, one that we keep doing is an elm.

You drive, you don’t even have to use a cable car for this one. You just drive to the end of the valley and then you hike up to a ski hut and it’s a hut where people will do ski touring, so they’ll go even higher up the mountain, then ski back down to this hut and we’ll just do a loop there and it’s just so quiet back in the valley.

It’s, you know, basically free just your cost to get there, whether you’re driving or taking the bus. And yeah, I think we did it twice last winter. It’s

Mike: And for those who don’t have a map of Switzerland in their head, Elm is where from Zurich.[00:51:00]

Tanya: Yeah, it’s Southeast, so it’s in the, uh, Glarnerland region. And I dunno if, if I can provide anything more specific, that would even be helpful. It takes about an hour and 15 minutes to drive there from Zurich, uh, about an hour and 45 if you go by public transportation.

Mike: My last request in terms of, um, tips for hiking would be working on a budget. And this one especially because it is really expensive to use public transport if you are coming to, especially with the Swiss Franc, just dominating every other currency. Um, the, and, and then tourists not having the luxury of a help tax.

If people are wanting to get this experience, let’s go back to summertime now, but are concerned about money, what are some tips which they can keep in mind?

Tanya: Yeah. So I mean, if we’re talking about tourists, um, there’s two main costs that I think that are really expensive. I mean, I think, [00:52:00] uh, the hotels and other things are kind of in line. I don’t think that those things are so much more expensive than in other European countries. But I think the dining out is very expensive here and it’s not usually good value.

It’s just expensive. Uh, so I think. When, and then the cable cars and public transportation. So all these are three things that are really gonna suck your budget. Um, I would say first try and picnic as much as possible so you can spend your budget in other places. So just don’t die out as much. I think you can avoid the cable cars sometimes, but I think the cable cars are actually what makes, uh, Switzerland quite special.

I mean, I grew up in California and if you hike, you gotta hike up the whole mountain and here. The mountains are super accessible and you don’t have to spend two hours hiking through the forest up a mountain to get to the good views. You could just skip the boring, Hey, skip the boring part. And so yeah, it is expensive, but it’s also worth it.

I think every, I mean, [00:53:00] there’s ones that are really expensive and I would say just don’t do those ones. I mean, I don’t think for most travelers they need to do the young fro yo or a lot of these expensive cable cars that are more than, you know, 70 or 80 francs. I think that’s just not really necessary.

But a lot of tourists do them ’cause they’re the only ones they’ve heard of. Now if you wanna minimize, there’s a lot of ways to minimize those costs of the cable cars. I mean, for tourists there is a short term half fair card. So I think that is usually the most, the best value for most tourists is, uh, it costs 120 per adult next year.

Unfortunately it’s going up to one 50, so enjoy it while you can, but, uh. That gives you 50% off public transportation and the mountain transport. The other option is, this was travel pass. It’s much more expensive. So somewhere around like four 19 for eight days, covering free public transportation. I mean, it’s not free, you pay for it, but included public transportation and then 50% off the mountains.[00:54:00]

Now it’s a lot of money to put out upfront, but I would say that 95% of the people that I talk to on a travel consult, uh, they get the Swiss travel paths because it adds convenience. You don’t have to buy individual tickets, you don’t have to know what the names of the bus stop are, the things you just get on the train and it’s always good.

So a lot of people are willing to pay for that convenience. Um, if you get that pass, then you just should start maximizing it. So the longer you can come to Switzerland, the better, because then your per day cost becomes much lower. If you’re here for three days, Swiss Travel Pass, it doesn’t gain you much.

If you’re here for 15 days, it’s amazing. Your pure day cost goes is down to like 30 bucks. So, you know, it’s really, you get a lot of value. Um, and then there’s a lot of things that are free with the Swiss Travel Pass. So instead of, um, always going up a mountain, uh, cable car, you could use the Swiss Travel Pass to get to places that are free with that [00:55:00] and then hike from there.

So going up to a mountain pass on a bus, going on mountains that are free, like Rigi, that’s completely free with the Swiss Travel Pass, you don’t have to pay anything extra. Um, urine is totally free with the Swiss Travel Pass. So there’s a lot of ways you can maximize that. Um, if you want to. I’m trying to think.

Um, there’s also regional passes, but I think in general, like the young fraud Travel Pass, the Ertel Pass, these are kind of all inclusive for the regions, but they really don’t make sense unless you stay in the region more than 10 days if you really do the math. So I would say if budget is the biggest concern, Swiss Half Fair Card is almost always when you do the calculations, you’ll be spending less money.

Uh, but you will have to manage how many times you go up cable cards and try and pick ones that are less expensive. Now the good news for families is when you get either of those passes, Swiss Half Fair Card or Swiss Travel Pass, uh, all your children under 15 are free. And that means that you [00:56:00] pay for those passes almost immediately, like one or two outings and you’ve already paid for the whole value.

If you have three kids under 15. It’s like they’re paying you to do it. It’s so, I think for families they make it really, really attractive. I hope they continue to do that. I mean, I haven’t heard anything different, but I think it’s just an amazing value. So I would say it’s expensive, but as I said before, I think it’s still worth it and you just have to make smart choices.

I think a lot of people are swayed by Instagram and you know, other. Things being famous and they want to do them because their friends have been there. You know, they wanna say they’ve been there. And what I always tell people is, every single mountain that you visit is gonna be amazing. There’s literally nowhere you’re gonna go where you’re like, Hmm, I really wish I was somewhere else.

This isn’t as pretty. That never happens. I think it all, I still think it, I’ll go out, I’ll make a whole plan and I’ll think this one’s stupid, but I’ve done everything else. We’re just gonna try it. And I get there and I have a bad [00:57:00] attitude and five minutes on the trail, I’m like, this is the best trail I’ve ever done.

I can’t believe it. And it happens to me so often. I should just really learn my lesson. But, but it’s true. So Switzerland, it is just, it’s truly trying hard to make you love it.

Mike: That is a great piece of information as well, I also give that information, the same thing where there really isn’t a wrong answer when is going for a hike. One final question for you, for valuable information for listeners regarding hiking is.

Um, some preparation, essential preparation to maximize your trip and to be safe because, and we touched on it already, Switzerland does seem to be a country where they put the owners, the responsibility on the individual, uh, when it comes to safety, which I guess in most cases I think is a good thing.

 What are some things that people should really be aware of or should do that [00:58:00] maybe they haven’t thought of before going for a hike if they’re not so experienced?

Tanya: Yeah, so the first thing that I would do is always check the weather. I think that that’s maybe not something. Depending on where you’re coming from, maybe it’s always sunny where you are, or maybe you’re not doing so many outdoor activities, so you just don’t think about the weather very much. That’s like the only thing I think about in Switzerland.

I’m checking the weather all day, every day. It’s really, really important to know what the weather’s gonna be like and to prepare for the weather, and to also be prepared to make a choice to not go on a trail because the weather, the weather’s coming in. Like don’t just say, okay, well this is the day we plan to do this hike and we have to do it because some trails can be dangerous.

Like you don’t wanna be on the Au Ridge trail when it’s raining. It’s too dangerous. You don’t wanna be on the top of a ridge when there’s lightning. You know? There’s just. You need to know what the weather’s going to be like. And also you really need to bring layers. So this is the question I [00:59:00] get in every single travel console call, uh, what should I pack?

Uh, do I pick summer, summer clothes, or winter clothes? And I say pack both, because you never know what is gonna happen. Probably most of the days you’re gonna wear shorts and t-shirts, but. A storm comes in like it did this week, and you’re gonna be putting on your, all of your layers. I was just on, uh, let’s see, when I was in flames on Monday, it snowed in the mountains of above about 2100 meters, absolutely covered like three centimeters.

And I was up there and I was in a full snowstorm because I went to just go check it out to see if I could go hiking the next day. And, and within like 15 minutes, I was absolutely covered. And this is the middle of July, so, you know, and just like three days earlier it was 34 degrees and I was, you know, swimming in the lake and it was very, very hot.

So it can be all over the place. And I think that sometimes. I see people out there, it’s cold and they’re wearing shorts. I mean, like families not, I mean, there’s some people that are hikers and they’re gonna wear what, what they’re gonna wear. Uh, but I can see people that [01:00:00] are just in clothing that’s not really appropriate to leather, and I’m guessing it’s because they didn’t pack the appropriate clothing.

I would say also the main thing is shoes. I think this is really hard when you’re packing, especially if you wanna bring a smaller bag, is that people don’t wanna bring hiking shoes. And I get it, but I think it’s really a mistake. If you’re gonna come in shoes that have a slick bottom, like these, you know, walking sneakers that have no tread at all, you’re just really doing yourself a disservice.

So I’m not saying you’re gonna have an accident, but you’re just creating a situation where it’s gonna be. Really slippery, especially if you wanna do a trail that has any uneven terrain. I know a lot of people don’t like to bring hiking sticks or don’t have them, but it can really save you on if you’re planning to do real hiking trails.

I was in wet weather this week a lot on the mountain, and the amount of times that I al that I kind of slipped in the mud and my stick saved me, it was like so many times, like dozens of times. So it’s not [01:01:00] necessary, but there’s some things that are really gonna help you have a better time on the mountain.

And I, again, I know if you have a small bag, you are really careful about what you choose and maybe you’re only planning on doing one or two hikes in Switzerland, so you don’t wanna commit a whole bag to one or two hikes. But maybe either bring those things or choose hikes that aren’t really gonna require them.

’cause I just don’t want you to be in a situation where, um, yeah, you’re gonna have an accident.

Mike: Amazing. Well, Tanya, I could definitely talk to you about this for hours. The amount of knowledge you can just roll off the top of your head is pretty incredible. Just to finish up, I thought I might ask, uh, the platform, you personally, where do you hope it goes the next few years?

Do you have any ideas or it’s just one day at a time?

Tanya: thinking about all the time. I’m trying to figure out what the. Right future is for Swiss Family Fund. I think there’s, I really want it to always live [01:02:00] on, uh, I don’t know what it exactly looks like. I think personally I would like to have more passive incomes, so I have a better balance of my personal life to my work life.

Um, but I’m not sure how that really works with, um, what AI is doing in terms of cannibalizing all the content. So I, I think that it feels like the real value going forward in a world where AI can give us any answer that we want is having trust in real people and having relationships, uh, with, I mean, when I think about the information that I really trust, it comes from people that I trust, people that I’ve been following, people that have shown me over time that I can trust what they tell me.

And I think that I’ve built that trust. Over a long period of time with a lot of people, and I hope to continue to do that. And so I’m looking at ways that I can, [01:03:00] um, continue to have kind of a personal relationship with people that, um, still has balance for me. That’s why I think that although I would like to have more passive income, it’s really these trouble consults that I do where I see I’m adding so much value to people’s trips and I’m trying to figure out how to Yeah.

Scale that so I can. I can have a business going forward. It’s really this handholding when I talk to people, usually at the end of the call I have of them that it’s just like I’ve talked them off the edge. They’re like, I didn’t know it was gonna happen on my trip. And I was just so stressed and now I feel calm and everything’s gonna work out.

And it’s, and that’s what I, I feel like I do in my written content. Like in all of my content. That’s kind of my goal is to take you from chaos to calm. And yeah, I’m trying to figure out the right ways that I can continue to do that, [01:04:00] uh, as technology changes, as platforms change. And yeah, I’m always, always listening to my audience as well, so they’ll tell me what they need and hopefully I’ll be in the right position to provide it.

Mike: Well, you’ve come this far and you’ve done so much. So I have faith that you’ll figure it out.

Tanya: Thank you.

Mike: Tanya, thank you very much for your time. This has been a very great conversation.

Tanya: All right. Thank you. It’s been fun.

Mike: Bye-bye.