Travelling in Switzerland with no money
Switzerland, as in, the most-expensive-country-in-the-world-land? You must be thinking that travelling there for a while spending no money must be IMPOSSIBLE!
I’m just writing this to tell you that it’s not, and it’s not so hard either. All you need is some skills, a bit of gear that most people should have, and the will to stop buying stuff! For the last month, we’ve been travelling by bike in Switzerland, carrying all of our camping and climbing equipment, and we wanted to try to spend our whole time in Switzerland without spending any money, or any money on food at least. Our secret to do it was a mix of things like camping, dumpster diving, need/want management and websites like Couchsurfing and Warmshowers.
Wild Camping
As avid climbers and outdoorsy people, we are used to putting our tent basically anywhere, and we carry it with us basically everywhere we go, along with out sleeping bag and mattresses. We’ve never slept in a paid camping spot, as wild camping is either allowed or tolerated, so we feel no need topay lots of money to just get a shower and maybe a plug for the night. We’ve slept in public parks, in between boulders at 2400 meters next to Sanetsch Pass, and even in a bird watching tower next o Villeneuve, Vaud, even in Yannick’s garage one night, awesome guy we met climbing in Scex du Corbeau.
On the link above I described generally how to find food in the trash in Europe, but now I will write specifically about Switzerland, and the places that have worked for US.
Check THIS MAP out, to see all of the super markets that we have used in the last month. trying to spend no money and relying on Dumpster Diving means that we won’t know when will our next catch be, so we have to carry as much as we can with us each time we do find something. This isn’t so cool, cause sometimes we find ourselves putting 5-10kgs of food on our bikes, but screw it, the goal is more important that being minimalists. You can check a short video of one of our finds at Aldi Schattdorf clicking on this link.
Needs Management
Want a beer? Forget about it. Want some cheese? Hell no, not allowed. How about some world famous Swiss Chocolate? Only if you find it, baby! One of the most important things to make it in Switzerland (or anywhere else) without money, is just knowing what you can and can’t eat/drink. Im guessing many coffee drinkers will think it’s impossible to go through with it, just because of that daily dose of needed coffee cup. But hey, that’s life, the faster you forget about those things you are “dying to eat”, the easier it will be. Many times we do get to find coffee, beer, pizzas, and tons of other yummy things, so don’t lose hope, you’ll be fine.
We do have a Jetboil, which let’s us cook some of the stuff we find, and makes our life better letting us heat up some water for coffee or tea on colder days.
Free Hospitality Apps/Websites
Sick of your tent?, or maybe sick of your travelling partner/girlfriend?. Don’t worry, free hospitality apps like Couchsurfing or Warmshowers are here to help you. We love meeting people, and do like a real bed from time to time, especially if the weather SUCKS. So we use Couchsurfing and Warmshowers (Only for bikers) to get some much needed human contact, and some comfort. If you do start using these apps, it would be great that at some point you started helping people and hosting them back at your place too, that’s how the system supports itself.
Transportation
With our fully loaded bikes.
Obviously, we use our bikes most of the time to move around. But if biking makes no sense, for example to go up incredibly hard mountain passes just to climb for 1 or 2 days, then Hitchhiking is your best option! It has worked quite well for us, even during these troubled covid-times! It works better in the mountains that near big cities though. The few times we have decided to hitchhike up a mountain pass to go climbing and escape the heat, we just knocked on someone’s door, to ask if we could put our bikes and gear in their garage, and they said yes both times. In some cases, when the distances are not so long, and hitchhiking isn’t so simple (like going up to Zermatt), we just walk!
I feel like my grandma saying this, but: get some insurance before you go there. We had a small issue and found that an emergency visit to the doctor costed 300chf, compared to 25eur in France. So we hitchhiked to France to get the treatment and will hitchhike back as soon as it’s all good.
Good luck and safe travels!
