Asklemmy

53717 readers

894 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
!lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 7 years ago

MODERATORS

Is Switzerland expensive for American travelers? (lemmy.zip)

submitted 2 days ago by LtDan@lemmy.zip to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

11 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I mean, even though USD is a popular currency: does the PPP hold up in Switzerland? The thing is that, despite having $10,000 (CHF 7905) in their budget, that still won't cut it since there is a bottle of liquor that costs CHF 100,000 ($126,755) for example.

Don't even mention restaurant prices, it's ridiculous that buying from the supermarket is cheaper. Have you been there? If so, is it even a wonderful country to visit despite how expensive it is for tourists? (Explains why barely anyone goes there).

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] Qzr@programming.dev 23 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Don't even mention restaurant prices, it's ridiculous that buying from the supermarket is cheaper.

Funny, I'm from Switzerland and for me it's surprising that in some places in the world it's cheaper to eat in a restaurant than to buy groceries and cook them yourself. How does this even work? And shouldn't you save money if you put in more effort yourself?

Anyway, I digress. It's a pretty country, especially the mountains and nature. It is very expensive, especially restaurants as you mentioned. It's hard for me to judge from your perspective, but I went to Denver last summer and I was surprised how expensive everything was in the US. For instance Starbucks didn't feel exactly cheap to me. So perhaps Switzerland is not that much more expensive.

In the end it really depends on your budget and what you want to do. Fine dining in St. Moritz requires a bigger wallet than just grabbing a backpack and going for a hike.

Here some random reference points (from a citizen, not a tourist):

Just had lunch in a restaurant for 30 CHF (causal, not fancy)
Bern-Zürich (1h) by train costs 53 CHF without any recuded fare.
The coffee I grab at the train station in the morning is 4.10 CHF.
1 day ski pass (just the pass) in Zermatt is around 100 CHF, 7 days are around 500 CHF.
The ~8000 CHF from your PPP example would last me 3-4 months, living in a shared apartment and not consuming a lot^ (obviously vacation will be more expensive).

^ for instance NOT buying 100 CHF liquor bottels.

[–] FatVegan@leminal.space 3 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Easy, you exploit your employees.

[–] Qzr@programming.dev 1 points 1 day ago

ha! Don't be mistaken, we do that too in Switzerland. Gastronomy is one of the lowest paying fields in Switzerland as well I think.

[–] rbn@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 day ago

Even if you didn't pay them at all, a restaurant should be more expensive than cooking yourself. A restaurant still has plenty of other costs (rent, insurance, furniture, kitchen supplies etc.) and usually ingredients aren't that much cheaper in wholesale to make up for the difference.