Welcome to the Bernese Oberland. You make your own way to Grindelwald, the famous glacier village, and check into your hotel.

The afternoon is yours. Stroll through the village and look up: the Eiger North Face towers right over it. Climbers spend years preparing for that wall. You get to admire it with an ice cream, which feels like the better deal.

• Accommodation: 3-star hotel in Grindelwald
• Meals: none included today, so dinner is wherever you like

The big one, straight away. Your hike follows the Via Alpina on a steady, rewarding climb toward Kleine Scheidegg, a historic mountain pass and train station sitting right at the base of the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau.

Take your time up there. This is one of the most celebrated views in Switzerland, and it deserves a long lunch and far too many photos.

Then you hike down into Lauterbrunnen, the valley of 72 waterfalls. It’s a long day, just short of 7 hours. If your legs vote otherwise, you can shorten it by train.

• Hiking today: 20 km (12.4 miles), 1150 m (3773 ft) ascent, 1400 m (4593 ft) descent, about 6 hours 40 minutes
• Accommodation: 3-star hotel in Lauterbrunnen
• Meals included: breakfast

After breakfast you catch the train to Kandersteg, about 1 hour 40 minutes, and drop your luggage at your hotel.

Then it’s up to Oeschinensee, Lake Oeschinen, a lake so turquoise that people assume the photos are edited. They aren’t. You keep climbing past the lake shore crowds to the alpine pastures of Oberbärgli, where it suddenly gets quiet.

At the end of the loop you ride the gondola back down to Kandersteg, which saves your knees a long descent.

• Hiking today: 10.8 km (6.7 miles), 740 m (2428 ft) ascent, 480 m (1575 ft) descent, about 4 hours
• Transfers: train from Lauterbrunnen to Kandersteg and the gondola down to Kandersteg, included
• Accommodation: 3-star hotel in Kandersteg
• Meals included: breakfast

Pack light today. Your sleeping bag liner and overnight essentials go in your daypack (forgot the liner? You can rent one at the hut for a small fee), and your hotel keeps your main suitcase until tomorrow.

A cable car lifts you to Sunnbühl, and from there you hike across the wide Gemmi high plateau before the final climb to the Lämmeren Hut, run by the Swiss Alpine Club.

Tonight is the real Swiss mountain experience: dinner at the hut, a dormitory bed and a sky full of stars. Showers are available for an extra charge, so keep a few Swiss francs handy.

• Hiking today: 12.7 km (7.9 miles), 700 m (2297 ft) ascent, 170 m (558 ft) descent, about 4.5 hours
• Transfers: cable car from Kandersteg to Sunnbühl, included
• Accommodation: Lämmeren Hut (Swiss Alpine Club), dormitory
• Meals included: breakfast and dinner (dinner at the hut)

After a night in the mountains, today is the easy one. It’s a mostly downhill hike back across the plateau, with time to stop whenever the view asks you to.

You’re back in Kandersteg with plenty of the afternoon left to explore the village, and your suitcase is right where you left it.

• Hiking today: 12.7 km (7.9 miles), 170 m (558 ft) ascent, 700 m (2297 ft) descent, about 3.5 hours
• Transfers: cable car from Sunnbühl down to Kandersteg, included
• Accommodation: 3-star hotel in Kandersteg
• Meals included: breakfast (at the hut)

Today is Via Alpina leg 14 and the hardest day of the tour. The trail heads deep into remote terrain, so pace yourself on the long, steady climb up to Bunderchrinde, a narrow mountain passage between two valleys.

From the top, the reward is a sweeping view straight down to Adelboden, where tonight’s hotel is waiting. It’s the day you’ll talk about at home.

Not feeling a 7-hour day? We’ll give you an alternative hike for today.

• Hiking today: 16 km (9.9 miles), 1400 m (4593 ft) ascent, 1250 m (4101 ft) descent, about 6 hours 45 minutes
• Accommodation: 3-star hotel in Adelboden
• Meals included: breakfast

Via Alpina leg 15 is your last hiking day, and it’s the reward for yesterday’s big climb. You leave Adelboden along the Allebach stream, then follow the Gilsbach up through cool, shady forest to the open alpine meadows at Geils.

Then comes the moment you’ll want your camera for. At the Hahnenmoos Pass, 1951 m (6401 ft), the view opens up to the Wildstrubel and Wildhorn peaks and the Plaine Morte glacier. Find a spot in the grass, eat your picnic and soak in the fact that you hiked here from the foot of the Eiger.

From the pass it’s downhill all the way, past summer pastures and wooden chalets, into the village of Lenk. Your traverse ends here, and the celebratory Swiss chocolate is very much allowed.

• Hiking today: 14 km (8.7 miles), 700 m (2297 ft) ascent, 1000 m (3281 ft) descent, about 4 hours 30 minutes
• Accommodation: 3-star hotel in Lenk
• Meals included: breakfast

After breakfast, carry on to your next stop in Switzerland or head home.

• Meals included: breakfast

We grade this tour Challenging. The trails are rated T1 to T3 on the Swiss hiking scale, and across 6 hiking days you cover 86.2 km (53.6 miles) with 4860 m (15,945 ft) of ascent.

You should be sure-footed, comfortable with heights, have some mountain hiking experience, and have the endurance for up to 7 hours of hiking. The minimum age is 16.

Two days are long. Day 2 (20 km / 12.4 miles) can be shortened by train, and Day 6 (1400 m / 4593 ft of ascent) has an alternative hike. Days 3, 4, 5 and 7 are 3.5 to 4.5 hours.

Your free custom training plan (€300 value) is built to get you ready. Not sure you’re ready? Ask us, and we’ll tell you honestly.

This isn’t a hut to hut hike every night. It’s 6 hotel nights with one night at a Swiss Alpine Club hut, the Lämmeren Hut, on Day 4.

That’s the best of both: you get the hut dinner, the dormitory and the stars, then a hotel bed again the next night. Pack a sleeping bag liner (no liner? You can rent one at the hut for a small fee) and overnight things in your daypack. Your hotel in Kandersteg stores your main suitcase.

On the standard tour you carry your own backpack between hotels. On Days 3 and 4 that’s lighter than it sounds: you drop your luggage in Kandersteg before the Oeschinensee loop, and the hotel keeps it while you’re at the hut.

Prefer a daypack the whole way? Add our luggage transfer for CHF 449. Your bag moves from Lauterbrunnen to Kandersteg, Kandersteg to Adelboden and Adelboden to Lenk, up to 2 bags of up to 20 kg (44 lb).

Three rides in the itinerary are included: the train from Lauterbrunnen to Kandersteg on Day 3, the gondola down from Oeschinensee to Kandersteg, and the cable car from Kandersteg to Sunnbühl and back on Days 4 and 5.

Getting to Grindelwald at the start and home from Lenk at the end isn’t included, which keeps your travel plans yours. Most hikers fly into Zurich Airport, the closest big airport, and take the train to Grindelwald via Bern and Interlaken Ost, with a couple of changes and about 3 hours of travel. Geneva and Basel airports work too, a little further away. At the end of the tour, trains from Lenk run via Zweisimmen and Spiez to Bern, Zurich and Geneva. Check the SBB app or sbb.ch for times on your travel day.

The Via Alpina is Switzerland’s great east to west hiking trail. On this tour you hike it on Day 2, from Grindelwald over Kleine Scheidegg, and on Days 6 and 7, legs 14 and 15 from Kandersteg to Adelboden and on to Lenk.

Those last two stages are where the tour gets quiet. The famous viewpoints are behind you, and it’s mostly you, the trail and the next pass.

Breakfast is included every morning from Day 2 to Day 8, 7 in total, and dinner is included at the Lämmeren Hut on Day 4. No meals are included on Day 1, when you arrive in Grindelwald. Other lunches and dinners aren’t included, so you eat where you want, when you want.

Travel insurance isn’t included and we strongly recommend it. Make sure your policy covers mountain hiking, mountain rescue and trip cancellation.

Not sure what to get? Use our Adventure Travel Insurance Finder and get a tailored recommendation in under 60 seconds.

You book online and a 30% deposit holds your dates. The balance is due 40 days before you hike.

Questions before you book? Contact us. We’d rather talk it through now than have you guess.