Hello Woipoottoo90
I do see two options:
- the Swiss Half Fare Card plus individual tickets
- the Swiss Travel Pass for 6 days
The Swiss Half Fare Card plus individual tickets will be the most inexpensive way of travel. You will only spend money for the journeys effectively done. It comes with the disadvantage that you need to purchase tickets for every single journey.
You would need six Swiss Half Fare Cards (CHF 120 each, for 30 days), plus a Junior Card (CHF 30, valid for 1 year) for the child. Then, you are entitled to purchase individual half fare tickets for six people, the child travels for free with the Junior Card.
The 6 days Swiss Travel Pass is slightly more expensive compared to the Swiss Half Fare Card plus individual tickets; however, except for Jungfraujoch (what you call the the of europe mountain) and Mount Titlis, you are not required to purchase additional tickets. The Swiss Travel Pass allows travel at will on any public transport service. And, it comes with the complimentary Swiss Family Card which allows free travel for your child to anywhere. The youth will take advantage of the Youth pass. A Swiss Travel Pass day will cost you around CHF 59 per adult and CHF 47 per youth. For some journeys, a single half fare ticket (plus the Swiss Half Fare Card) is cheaper than a Swiss Travel Pass day. However, the latter allows you to board the trains without purchasing tickets before, so the slightly higher cost is justified by convenience.
To summarise, as you said all sounds too confusing to you (while I think it isn’t, as you will see once you are here), I would opt for the Swiss Travel Pass adult / youth and the Swiss Family Card for the child. You can get all these tickets at the SBB Travel Center in Geneva Airport, there is no need to buy them in advance.
As the Swiss Travel Pass is only valid for 6 days, you will have to purchase individual tickets for one day. Get the Swiss Travel Pass from 24 December 2023 and purchase individual tickets for the day of your arrival.
As you also asked if you need to reserve tickets in advance. No, you actually don’t need to do so. It is not adviseable to purchase mountain excursion tickets in advance as you will not know the weather forecast; a mountain visit only makes sense with good weather. Also, I would not want to visit Jungfraujoch and Titlis. For a more budget friendly Swiss trip, I would do one of the two, with preference for Mt. Titlis.
I would suggest a reservation of the Golden Pass train: https://journey.mob.ch/en/routing/
All public transport schedules can be found on www.sbb.ch/en
Let us know if you need more advice.
Kind regards,
Roland