I’m often asked what my favorite place I’ve visited is, and I’ve never been able to fully answer that question. But there is a pretty clear front runner, and that is Mountain Hostel in Gimmelwald, Switzerland.
Tucked high in the mountains of the Lauterbrunnen Valley, this hostel is simple but it stole my heart. After two buses, a train and a gondola to get there I never wanted to leave.
The rooms at Mountain Hostel are simple, just one 16 bed male dorm and a 16 bed female dorm and one “couples dorm”. My bed happened to be right next to this window and I think it’s easy to see why I ended up staying 10 days.
Gimmelwald has a population of only 130 people and is a traffic free village. Outside of tourism, most of the locals are in farming and cheese making. There are even little self serve cheese fridges around the village that operate on the honor system.
The next town up from Gimmelwald is Mürren, and you can either take the gondola or a nice hike up. The other hostel folks and myself would usually do the trek everyday to get groceries to cook in the communal kitchen.
Out of Mürren you can also rent climbing gear to clip into the Via Ferrata. Not for the faint of heart, but an incredible experience thousands of feet above the valley floor.