Relocating to Switzerland

[liney80]

It’s been asked before but looking for recent experiences and, in particular, with similar aged kids and some info on a specific region.

There may be an opportunity for me to move to the Rotkruetz area of Switzerland with my work.

I may earn enough for my husband not to work initially and focus on helping us all settle in. There is a chance my work would fund international school for both my children, aged 8 and 10. I have two boys who have lots of friends here and that would be a big concern for them. I speak a tiny bit of German, but nobody else in my family does.

My husband loves hiking and being outdoors so I think he’d like the location but he is also very worried about not having any friends out there. We’ve never been as a family so it’s hard to have any idea of whether we’d like it!

Does anyone have any experience of moving their family with children at a similar age? How did you fit in, what did you think about Swiss culture? Did you stay or come back and how was the move back for you and kids? Any perspectives and tips on the experience gratefully received, thank you.

I have friends who moved to a German speaking part of Switzerland.

the non-international schools pretty much expect a parent at home. Kids go home for lunch and don’t usually do a full school day. You need to pass each subject to move up into the next year/grade.

din’t know about the international schools. My friend found most people had a getting by level of English but she was quite lonely for a good few years until she really got to grips with her Swiss-German (which is significantly different from the hochgerman taught in uk schools).

most of her friends to start with were other expats. They are now much more integrated into local life and are also Swiss citizens. Becoming citizens involves the local community voting on whether you should be allowed to be citizens.

Very limited job market, your husband might need to be ok with permanently not working (and difficult to find new role if you are ever in unfortunate position of losing job). People can be let go with no reason - highly pro-employer environment. Extremely high cost of living (e.g supermarket steak chf 70 per kilo upwards which is gbp 65, health insurance basic cover chf 350 pm per person with 2500 per year per person excess before getting anything back) - fully research expected costs and then add a substantial buffer - there are always unexpected bills arriving. Due to low tax, everything you can't even think of gets charged to you. Positive of that is all holidays outside of Switzerland appear very low cost by comparison wherever you go!!! Tends to be mainly apartment living rather than single family houses. Citizenship process varies by village and canton, some much more difficult than others. Nature lovely, very safe overall, children have lots of freedom and expected to be highly responsible for themselves.

I used to live in Winterthur, Switzerland is very easy to settle into ime. I would hike over the border in the black forest, but never tired of any walks on the doorstep. Weirdest things were the tax disc thing you had to put on your bike, and if you didn't buy and put pink stickers on the bin bags, they wouldn't take them away.

Sorry, meant to add, I was single, no kids.

Did you make the move/ hw did it work out? Asking for a friend 😉@liney80