How to Get to Verbier from the Main Swiss Cities
When heading to Verbier for a winter sports break - or indeed to investigate a potential chalet purchase - it pays to know your way around the area. More broadly, it's worth knowing the best ways to get here from any one of the main Swiss transport hubs.
A majority of overseas visitors to this quintessential Alpine town and leading international ski resort will typically fly to a major airport such as Zurich or Geneva. Others will opt for a slightly more targeted arrival, landing fractionally closer to their eventual destination at a smaller regional hub such as Bern.
Either way, you’re going to want to know what your best options are for the next leg of your onward journey. Of course, this applies equally whether you’re aiming to arrive in style and luxury, or simply hoping to shave as much time and money off the completed journey as you can.
Zurich to Verbier train
The Zurich to Verbier train is always a popular option for inbound passengers alighting at Switzerland’s largest and busiest airport, partly due to the sheer convenience of the Zurich hub for many passengers and airlines.
Not only is this by far the busiest facility of its kind in Switzerland, served by thousands of international flights every week - it also recently won a 17th consecutive World Travel Award as ‘Europe’s leading airport’.
The centralised Swiss Federal Railways company (abbreviated to SBB in German, CFF in French and FSS in Italian) is a source of some national pride among its regular users, and rightly so: its outstanding reliability and fantastic network reach make it one of the highest-rated rail services in Europe.
To enjoy one of the frequent and scenic train routes from Zurich to Verbier, you’ll need to board a service heading to Visp. You can do so at either the Zurich airport stop itself, or from the main Hauptbahnhof station in the city centre.
Costing from just CHF 35 (around 32 Euro), the total ride time from Zurich is around 3.5 hours, and includes a couple of changes. At Visp, board a train to Martigny, and at Martigny make a final change to the Saint-Bernard Express for a quick hop over to Le Châble. On alighting at Le Châble, a short (9-minute) lift ride will bring you up past the picturesque mountainside pistes directly into Verbier.
Train from Geneva to Verbier
If you’ve flown into Geneva, on the other hand, you’re already considerably closer to Verbier than visitors landing at Zurich. Geneva is a similar distance from Verbier as Bern is, at around 160km (or roughly 2.5 hours) by road.
Many people still prefer to take the train, however, and it’s straightforward to do so - especially on weekends and public holidays during peak skiing season (December to April). That’s when the dedicated Verbier Express brings you straight to Le Châble from Geneva airport, where you’ll once again complete the final 9-minute leg of the trip by mountainside lift into Verbier.
On weekdays (or outside the peak winter sports season, if you’re interested in visiting during the warmer months), the trip isn’t much more complicated - there’s just one additional change at Martigny, where you’ll board the Saint-Bernard Express, alighting in Le Châble and jumping on the cable lift up to Verbier in just the same way. Total train travel time from Geneva to Verbier is around 2.5 hours, with frequent and reliable services, and costs from as little as CHF 25 (around 23 Euro).
Wherever you land when you fly into Switzerland, the high quality of Swiss rail networks means they’re always a quick, convenient and reasonably straightforward option for onward travel - and they’re a very cost-effective way to travel around the country, too.
Regardless of what time of year you plan your visit, you should have little trouble following a regular timetable of reliable and comfortable train services. Within 2-4 hours (depending on your start location), they’ll bring you more or less all the way from the airport arrival gate to your Verbier chalet door.