Saas-Fee – the village without cars beneath the glaciers of Valais

Saas-Fee lies at the far end of a side valley in Valais, at 1,800 metres, and around the village rise around ten peaks over 4,000 metres. The glaciers reach almost down to the houses. Cars are not allowed in the village – you park at the entrance and then get around on foot, in small electric cars or electric buses.

For families it is a safe and beautiful village. But it is also a resort with steep red slopes and Swiss prices, so it is good to know what to expect.

The car-free village

• Park at the entrance – or come by PostBus, which stops at the bus terminal in the village.
• Electric buses and small electric cars take you and the luggage to where you are staying.
• Safe streets – the children can walk freely without watching out for cars.

Up to 3,500 metres

From the village you take the gondola up towards Felskinn and then Metro Alpin – an underground funicular that runs in a tunnel through the mountain – to Mittelallalin at just over 3,450 metres. Up there you will find:

• The world's highest revolving restaurant – it turns once an hour, so you see all the four-thousand-metre peaks while you eat.
• The glacier cave – an ice cave of 5,500 square metres inside the glacier, with a 70-metre passage from the station.

The air is thin at that altitude. For most healthy children a short visit is fine, but do not stay too long, take it easy and go down if anyone gets a headache or feels sick.

The pistes

Difficulty	Kilometres	Share
Blue	21 km	21 %
Red	60 km	59 %
Black	20 km	20 %

Saas-Fee has about 100 kilometres of pistes and 23 lifts, from 1,800 to 3,573 metres. Most of it is red, so the resort suits best when the children can already ski. The glacier gives reliable snow from the start to the end of the season, and it is often open for skiing in summer and autumn too.

Saas-Fee with kids

• Children's area and ski school in the village for the youngest.
• The ice cave and the revolving restaurant – an outing the children will remember.
• The lift ticket for children costs about half the adult pass.

We go through how to plan the week with ski school and rest days in ski trips with children.

How to get to Saas-Fee

• By train: take the train to Visp and the PostBus up to the village, about an hour. From Zurich the whole journey takes around three hours, from Geneva a little longer. We go through the journey from Sweden in train to the Alps.
• By car: drive to the car park at the entrance – you cannot go further than that.

Saas-Fee or its neighbours?

In the valley next door lies Zermatt beneath the Matterhorn – also without cars, but bigger and even more expensive. If you want a glacier closer to Zurich, there is Engelberg with Titlis, and for families with beginners Laax and Flims suits better. We compare all the Swiss resorts in ski resorts in Switzerland.