What's free outright with the Swiss Travel Pass
These are the ones where you walk up, show your pass and go straight in, no booking, no top-up, no queue at the ticket desk:
Two things on this page aren't free, and it's worth knowing which before you plan around them: the Swiss Museum of Transport is half price, and the Rhine Falls platforms and boats aren't covered at all.
Chillon Castle: the most visited monument in Switzerland, free on your pass
Chillon sits on a rock in Lake Geneva with the Alps behind it, and it's a 12th century fortress you can genuinely spend half a day in. There are 25 buildings, three courtyards, 46 numbered rooms and original 14th century frescoes, and around 400,000 people a year come through, so it's busy, but it's big enough to absorb them. Without a pass you'd pay 15 francs as an adult and 7 for a child aged 6 to 15.
Getting there is covered too. Veytaux-Chillon is the station right below the castle, or you can come from Montreux in about ten minutes by train, bus or boat, the boat's the nicest way and your pass covers that as well. Reckon on roughly 2h45 from Zurich.
The Bellinzona castles: three UNESCO castles, all included
Castelgrande, Montebello and Sasso Corbaro are the only UNESCO-listed castles in Switzerland, they're all in one small city, and all three are free with your pass. Buying in would cost 15 francs per castle, or 28 for the Fortezza Pass covering the set.
If you're doing all three in a day, this order works best:
- Start at Castelgrande, right in the middle of town, there's a lift up through the rock from the old centre.
- Walk the ramparts across to Montebello, which is the prettiest of the three from the outside.
- Take the AutoPostale up to Sasso Corbaro, the highest one, for the view back down the valley.
Bellinzona is about 2 hours from Zurich. The castles open daily 10:00 to 18:00 from 28 March to 11 November 2026; outside that window you can still wander the courtyards, but the interiors are shut, so a winter visit is a shorter day than you might expect.
Gruyères: two free attractions on one hilltop
This is the best-value stop on the whole list, because you get two very different things within about thirty seconds' walk of each other. The 13th century Château de Gruyères was the seat of the Counts of Gruyère for nearly 300 years. Next door is the H.R. Giger Museum, twenty rooms of the Oscar-winning designer behind Alien, which is exactly as unsettling as that sounds, and a strange and wonderful thing to find in a medieval village.
The catch to watch: the DayPass La Gruyère costs 32 francs and covers three hilltop sites. Your pass covers two of them, so you're not saving a flat 32, you're saving most of it, and you can pay separately for the third if it appeals.
Gruyères station is about 2h30 from Zurich via Bern and Bulle.
Maison Cailler and La Maison du Gruyère: chocolate and cheese, both included
Maison Cailler at Broc is one of the oldest chocolate brands still made in Switzerland, and the visit ends in a tasting room where nobody's counting. Get off at Broc-Chocolaterie, the station is right there. About 2h30 from Zurich via Bern.
La Maison du Gruyère at Pringy is a working cheese dairy, 36 minutes from Broc, and the stop is Pringy-Gruyères. Both are free with the pass, and both are close enough to Gruyères village that you can reasonably do this as one loop:
- Train to Gruyères, up to the château and the Giger Museum.
- Back down to Pringy-Gruyères for the cheese dairy.
- On to Broc-Chocolaterie for Maison Cailler and the tasting.
Swiss Museum of Transport: half price, and worth the half
This is the country's most visited museum, it's open every single day of the year, and it's mostly hands-on, trains, cars, planes and three Mars Rovers. It's the one big exception on this page: your pass gets you 50% off rather than free entry.
| Ticket | Without a pass | With a Swiss Travel Pass |
|---|---|---|
| Museum only | 37 | 18.50 |
| Day pass (museum + filmtheatre, planetarium, Chocolate Adventure) | 62 | 44.50 |
It's at Verkehrshaus Lucerne, or bus 6, 8 or 24 from Lucerne station, about an hour from Zurich. Give yourself at least two hours inside; most people who budget one end up regretting it.
Rhine Falls: free to see, not free to get close
Your pass gets you to the Rhine Falls and stops there. The trains are covered both ways: Schloss Laufen am Rheinfall for the southern bank, Neuhausen for the northern, 45 to 60 minutes out of Zurich.
Once you're off the train you're paying. The northern promenade is free to everybody, pass or not. The platforms on the southern side, the ones that put you right over the water, are 5 francs an adult and 3 for a child. Boats run 6 to 22.50 depending on the tour. None of it is covered.
You can turn up at any hour. The ticket office and the cafés give up around 5pm.
What you'd pay without the pass
| Attraction | Full adult price (CHF) | With a Swiss Travel Pass (CHF) |
|---|---|---|
| Chillon Castle | 15 (child 6–15: 7) | Free |
| Bellinzona, per castle | 15 | Free |
| Bellinzona Fortezza Pass, all three | 28 | Free |
| Gruyères DayPass La Gruyère (3 sites) | 32 | 2 of the 3 sites free |
| Maison Cailler | 17 | Free |
| La Maison du Gruyère | — | Free |
| Swiss Museum of Transport, museum only | 37 | 18.50 |
| Swiss Museum of Transport, day pass | 62 | 44.50 |
| Rhine Falls, Schloss Laufen platforms | 5 (child 3) | Not covered |
| Rhine Falls boats | 6–22.50 | Not covered |
More free attractions on the Swiss Travel Pass
The full picture is on the what's included hub, and the museums page lists the 500-plus you can walk into for nothing. If you'd rather your free days were spent moving, the scenic trains are covered on the same pass, and mountain coverage explains where the discounts kick in above the treeline.