From Paris to Lisbon: Alps, Coasts & Capital Cities

Arrival in the City of Love

Land in Paris, get yourself to the hostel, and drop your bags. You'll meet the rest of the crew this evening. The first move is usually a casual drink at the hostel bar to kick things off before the real exploring starts tomorrow.

Picnic by the Eiffel Tower

The day starts with a quick orientation walk to get your bearings. The main event is a group picnic on the Champ de Mars with the Eiffel Tower as a backdrop. Afterwards, the city is yours. Your best move is to pick one neighborhood and go deep—wander the cobbled streets of Montmartre, check out the Latin Quarter, or get your art fix at the Louvre or Musée d'Orsay. Just don't try to do it all in one afternoon.

Overland to the Swiss Alps

A full-on travel day, swapping Paris for the Swiss Alps. You'll take a train across the French countryside to the Swiss border, then switch to an overland journey for the final leg. The scenery shifts dramatically as you climb into the mountains, arriving in Interlaken, a town set between two lakes and surrounded by jagged peaks. Drop your bags at the hostel and breathe in the clean mountain air; tomorrow is for adrenaline.

DIY Reality Check: Stitching together the overland journey from Paris to Interlaken requires navigating two separate national rail systems and their respective booking platforms. For 2026 travel, this is complicated by planned engineering works on the Paris-Lyon high-speed line, which are scheduled to cancel or divert some TGV Lyria services to Switzerland, forcing travelers to find alternative connections. While a DIY traveler must self-manage the train-to-train transfer with luggage in Basel, a coordinated trip handles the multi-part booking and bypasses the final rail leg entirely with a pre-arranged private vehicle waiting at the station.