Hi there anyone.

Can you give your suggestions of nice places to go hiking with kids around Zurich (within 2-3 hours from Zurich) ?

My kids currently can take up to 10km, and as you well know diversity is what matters to them, so montains, lakes, forests are all are fine, as long as there is something different to motivate them...

www.flumserberg.ch

Easy by train or car not too hard on the feet

Heres a link to a hiking site, they alo have a Kinder Freundlich section.

if you want to do some research yourself, try Google "switzerland + hiking" should do the trick ....

You can take the S10 to the Uetliberg and wander to the Felsenegg, it's about 8km. There you can take a cablecar down to Adliswil.

If you follow the Gratstrasse you will encounter a few planet models from the Planetenweg (there's a photo of the sun model somewhere in the forum's photo album).

Here's a map of the route.

Just did this one last weekend :-) I recommend aswell..

Ricardo, have y'all been to the one where remaining tree trunks have been carved into animal shapes? I think it's Zugerberg (near Zug) (someone, please correct me if I remembered the location wrongly).

The one near Grosser Mythen has paths with tree trunks carved into fairytale characters you'd recognise. At the cable car top, there's a neat, quite wheezy ride on a 'tray with handle' down a winding track. Lotsa folk queue up for this though.

The Rigi area has a large selection of hikes, and thanks to the various trains etc. the hikes can be as strenuous or otherwise as you choose. Spectacular views, but then you get them everywhere in the Swiss mountains!

the valle verzasca, just north of locarno, is amazing and it all starts/ends at a very large dam (it was used in some james bond film - not sure which one cuz i don't watch them). there are numerous trails (varying difficulty) throughout the valley. a major trail runs parallel to the river and it is very doable for kids and the elderly (well marked). there are many waterfalls and a farm with reindeer (i think), and even a trailside honey stand (i kid you not). An added bonus - along the trail north of lavertezzo there is a exhibit of really cool, funky sculptures. it is really beautiful and amazing and relatively flat. In the three weeks since arriving i have hiked to the top of mt lego and walked along the river from levertezzo to ganne. not sure about the precise distance from zurich but it should fall within your stated time parameters. enjoy, and be sure to bring your camera.

I'm tagging my post onto this old one about hiking with kids as it seems related .... there's a link back there with some good stuff too.

In my pre-kids days I was a very keen hiker and I've been up and all over the Alpine region and a bit in the Jura.

I basically gave up when the kids were small - I never wanted to have to lug them around the mountains when they couldn't walk - but my youngest is now nearly 4 and the oldest is 7 and I would love to start doing a bit of hiking with them. They've never done anything like it at all (apart from a bit of mucking around in the forest). In fact the nearly-4 year old will whine when we're walking round town that he wants to be carried. Am I being stupid to think that I could take them on a hiking weekend in the mountains somewhere? I mean, obviously I'm not going to take them up over a pass or anything, and this has to be fun for them and quite easy going. I just want them to grow up enjoying the great outdoors - having fun with maps and getting from one place to another under your own steam. I don't want them ever to find it "some boring thing that mum makes us do".

So, I was just wondering if anyone has any tips on that? Places to go that are especially good for kids, ways to make it interesting for them, how to "build up" to bigger hikes. Is the 4 year old still too young to do proper hiking? Perhaps I should take the 7 year old and leave the 4 year old with his Dad at home (since hubby is not quite so keen on hiking as me anyway).

I think starting them as young as possible is best that way it is second nature to them. My youngest walked from Engleberg to Traubsee when he was 2 & a couple of weeks ago aged 4 he climed up Pilatus from the first station. I reckon he does this happily and without whinging because that is what we expect form him & he loves it, we have been taking him on hikes since he could walk. Start with something relatively easy & build up from there. We talk a lot when we hike, about what he can see, nature, how the mountains were created, it helps to keep them both engaged and interested.

Our youngest was walking 10 kilometres at the age of 3 1/2. She was a lot more lively at the end of the trip than I was! Although children aren't often impressed by views, they seem to love 'being at the top' of anything.
Ours loved making a fire and cooking sausages; later we took a billy with us and cooked a whole meal. Pasta, meat, sauce, with salad too. They loved damming streams and collecting interesting stones, leaves and similar 'junk'. Things to climb up or over were a hit too. They liked being big with their own rucksacks and they always had 'special' walking clothes which belonged to the hiking.

There are a couple of walks (a sound trail and a route with various models of trades (Nr.31 in the GPS Thread)) mentioned in the GPS Hikes on the forum.

Good luck and I hope you enjoy it all.

How old are the kids? When I did Kriens->Pilatus, there were a few families with kids coming down. None really small, but smaller than I would have expected. There is nothing technical, but a few bits require scrambling and there are some places with cables that you really should hold on to, etc.

Thanks, that's encouraging I think I will just have to give it a go sometime in the school hols and see how it works out - will report back.

I reckon I might start with somewhere fairly touristy - like some short walks around Grindelwald / Lauterbrunnen area as I know it pretty well and if the hiking doesn't go well then there are plenty of other things to do.

I'm even getting quite excited at the idea of hiking again myself
(Off to browse some websites now!)

Hi
Not my kids, but i went today with a cousins family,they have a 4 years old an a 6 years old. They took me to elm berg

http://www.ausfluege.topin.travel/au...okales#eintrag

There is a little trail over there "Tieriweg" I think it was, with some animals carbed in the wood.. and is not a long walk but i think is good for start walking with the kids. there are also other trails, and a restaurant.
We had a got time over there.

Back home i was a scout leader, and I think you will be surprise with kids, they dont get tired easy, as long as they are entertained
you can you teach them a lot of cool things while you are walking so that way the wont get bored with only walking.