Zurich Zoo and Uetliberg: Two Easy Wins for Kids

If you have two days in Zurich with kids, two outings will fill them beautifully, and both are easy to reach on the tram and train. One is a world class zoo, the other is the city’s own mountain.

Zurich Zoo is genuinely one of the best in Europe, and its star is the Masoala Rainforest, an enormous glass hall recreating a slice of Madagascar. You walk through humid jungle while birds fly free overhead and lemurs move through the trees around you, with no bars in sight. Add elephants in a huge modern enclosure, penguins, and a big Himalayan mountain area, and it is an easy, joyful full day. It sits at the edge of the city, a straightforward tram ride from the center.

For the second day, head to the main station and take the short train up Uetliberg, Zurich’s own mountain. In well under half an hour you climb from the city to the summit, where a gentle path leads to a lookout tower with a sweeping view over the whole city, the long blue lake and the snowy Alps beyond. It feels like a proper mountain adventure with almost none of the effort, and it is a fraction of the cost of the big Alpine railways.

Between the two, you get rainforest and mountaintop in a single easy trip, exactly the kind of variety kids love.

See the whole Zurich plan in Zurich With Kids, or Work with me to build your trip.