Jungfraujoch day trip

See it before you pay for it

Summer in the valley, winter on the terrace

This is the part people are least ready for: you board in green meadows at 800 meters and step out into snow at 3,454. The listings say it plainly — ice and snow at the top all year round. The ride is a cogwheel railway that climbs through a tunnel bored inside the Eiger, with a change at Kleine Scheidegg; the top holds the Sphinx Observatory terrace over the Aletsch Glacier, the longest in the Alps, the Ice Palace tunnels cut into the glacier itself, and the Alpine Sensation walkway through the story of the railway. The Zurich day trip is rated 4.8 across 2,519 reviews.

Side by side

The valley ticket, the guided day, the private car

People book these interchangeably and then find out they bought different days. A ticket from Lauterbrunnen is 6.5 hours door to door at $322: the train, the seat reservation from Kleine Scheidegg and admission to the top, with the timetable yours to arrange. The guided day from Interlaken is 7 hours at $340 and adds a multilingual guide, the coach, the Eiger Express cable car and priority boarding, so the day is planned for you. From Zurich the same summit becomes 12 hours at $358, because the country is crossed twice, and from Geneva it is 13. A private day from Bern or Zurich, $1,008 and $1,553, puts a driver-guide and a car at your hotel door for your party alone.

Two-minute check

Which departure fits your trip?

Three things decide it: which city you are sleeping in, how many hours of the day you want to spend travelling, and whether you would rather read the timetable yourself or follow a guide. The valleys are the short end — 6.5 hours from Lauterbrunnen, 6.5 from Interlaken by train, 7 with a guide. Lucerne is 10, Zurich 11 to 12, Geneva 13. Every listing on this page carries free cancellation, so answer the three questions and pick the departure before you pay rather than at the platform.

Six ways up

5,983 reviews across thirteen ways to the Top of Europe

Ratings are the operators’ own numbers on GetYourGuide, shown as published. We do not write reviews and we do not average other people’s into a score of our own.

What it really costs

What a day at 3,454 meters costs, line by line

Prices are per person and cover the ride up, the seat reservation where the listing includes one, and admission to Jungfraujoch itself — the Sphinx terrace, the Ice Palace and the Alpine Sensation. What moves the number is distance and company: a ticket from the foot of the Lauterbrunnen valley is the short, plain version, a guided day from Zurich or Geneva buys a coach, a guide and the whole country in between, and a private day buys a car, a driver-guide and hotel pickup for your party alone. Meals, drinks and anything you buy at the top are settled on the mountain.

The honest answer

Is a Jungfraujoch trip worth it?

Three hundred and twenty-two dollars is a serious price for a train ride, so the question deserves a straight answer. What the fare buys is altitude nobody walks to in a morning: a rack railway bored through the Eiger to 3,454 meters, a terrace above the Aletsch Glacier that reaches toward Italy, France and Germany on a clear day, and tunnels cut into the ice inside the mountain. The gap between the valley and the summit is the whole point — meadows at the bottom, snow at the top, in the same six and a half hours. Across thirteen listings 5,983 people have rated the day, and the most-booked of them, the twelve-hour run from Zurich, sits at 4.8 from 2,519 of those reviews.

What it's like

One station at 3,454 metres, and seven cities that sell the day to it

If you are not staying in the mountains

The three long days by coach

You do not have to move to the Bernese Oberland to stand on the Jungfraujoch plateau. These three collect you in Zurich or Geneva and hand you back the same evening: eleven to thirteen hours, a driver-guide on the road, the summit ticket, the Ice Palace, the Alpine Sensation and the Sphinx Observatory, with time of your own in Interlaken built into two of them.

Practical

Plan the day

Five things decide how it goes: the city you start from and the hours it costs you, whether you want a ticket or a guided day, how early you hold the date, what you carry for a summit that stays frozen while the valley is warm, and what the mountain weather does that morning — which is what free cancellation is for.

Best time

When to come

The station runs all year and the top is ice and snow in every month, so the calendar changes the valley more than it changes the summit. What really moves month to month is how long the light lasts, how clear the terrace is, and how early the good seats go.

Worth knowing

Six things that aren't in the listing

Common questions

Jungfraujoch trips and tickets, answered

Why trust this page

How we put this together