Lone Traveler in Switzerland

I have a little over a week in Switzerland by myself. I am leaning towards staying in Interlaken, but am interested in other locations for a good base for outdoor exploring. I am active and want to do some cycling, hiking, and possibly other activities but will be alone and may like to join up with tour groups/excursions. I don't think I'm up for overnight hiking, perfer day hikes. I am an avid outdoorsy woman from the Pacific Northwest USA and am stoked about going to the Swiss mountains!! Any advice or ideas are welcome. Oh, it will be mid-May when I arrive.

We did some walking in Switzerland when we first went there years ago, as as we live in Sydney and did do a lot of our walking on the flat-ish type country in the Royal National Park, South of the city, and we were badly caught out by our fitness levels you need we first walked in Switzerland.

One of the first walks we tried to do was in the village of Zermatt, and the first stage is to walk Westward from the village, the first part of the walk you need to get up to a higher valley, so for about the first hour the walk is uphill and we were not used to walking uphill for an extended period, and we needed to rest a couple of times!

I only hope you are fitter than we were, good luck and happy walking!

You may have a look at
http://www.myswitzerland.com/en/home.html
http://www.swisstravelsystem.ch/en/
http://fahrplan.sbb.ch/bin/query.exe/en

Outdoor activities depend on the season and the weather which is always unpredictable in the Alps. There are more than 60000 (sixty thousand) km well sigmarked hiking trails in Switzerland.
Hiking: http://map.wanderland.ch/?lang=en
Biking: http://map.veloland.ch/?lang=en

Swimming in Swiss lakes and rivers is doable in July/August only. Even then, the water temperature will seldom exceed 22 degrees centigrade.

Interlaken is among the best places for all kinds ofexpensive (anad somehat dangerous) advenure sports.

Hi, from your description of yourself, I think you will be very happy in Switzerland. Based also on your description of yourself, if you go to the Interlaken area, I strongly recommend that you stay in Grindelwald rather than Interlaken. Not that Interlaken is horrible, but it is, by Swiss standards a somewhat large city/town with lots of big hotels and tourist shops. If you stay in Grindelwald you will be right in the mountains, with much more exciting views and much more immediate access to the hiking, biking, etc. Staying in Interlaken will mean a train trip each time that you want to get to the real mountains - not a long trip admittedly - but why make yourself do that (and why use up all that precious time)? It is true that Interlaken is on the lake, which is pretty, but it is also true that you can easily make a day trip to Interlaken if the lake appeals to you if you stay in Grindelwald. I should also add that to a somewhat lesser extent, my comments would also apply to Wengen and Muerrren which are also right in the mountains. Muerren is a very small village high up and very sleepy, but beautiful. A little harder to access some of the great hikes from there because it is a bit isolated, but it might fit your bill, too (although I would think biking would be less available there). Check out the Grindelwald website. I think you will be convinced. Happy to help more. PS Zermatt is also a great place for hiking but I limit my comments to the Berner Oberland. Enjoy!

berg2 has somehow right about Grindelwald beeing the nicer village then Interlaken,
but I think that Interlaken might have more options on cheaper accomodation (hostels, yha ) then Grindelwald and you might have more chance to meet and mingle with fellow
travellers and join groups there then you would have in Grindelwald (in my opinion)