Liechtenstein is truly what I’d call a small but mighty country, packing mountains, lush green valley villages, and innovation and culture into 160 square kilometres. That makes it smaller than Washington DC!
I’ve been racking up Europe’s tiny countries in the past couple of years – last year, I visited Monaco, Luxembourg and Andorra, and two years ago I managed to squeeze San Marino into a larger trip. Now it was finally Liechtenstein’s turn – and I loved this little micro-country!
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Liechtenstein sits proudly between Switzerland and Austria, making it a perfect place to visit from either country, and let’s just say it stands up to each of them by itself. It’s one of only two double-landlocked countries in the world (the other being Uzbekistan), meaning you have to cross two countries to get to the sea.
In fact, there is barely any water at all in Liechtenstein, with just one tiny (and spoiler: beautiful) lake, and the river that separates it from Switzerland. Who needs water anyway when you can drink wine from the prince’s cellar?
And on that note, yes, Liechtenstein being a principality means it has a prince. Not only that, but although he lives in a fairytale castle, he’s actually very involved with people in the country and even hosts an open garden party on the annual National Day on the 15th August. Outside of this, you may even spot him walking around in Vaduz mingling with the locals.
Liechtenstein is a popular day trip from Switzerland, as it’s just an hour and a half from Zurich. However most people only visit Vaduz, and I wanted to see what Liechtenstein really has to offer (spoiler: it’s much more than just its tiny capital city!). To help with this, I was very kindly provided with an all-inclusive Adventure Pass by the Liechtenstein tourism board.
I’ll start by saying that the itinerary I’m going to suggest isn’t what we did. For starters, our plan was to spend day one in Vaduz, and then on the second morning, go for a walk with some llamas. Unfortunately we had to re-organise the llamas for the day we arrived, which rather put a spanner in the works when I realised that the tours are at 9am. Not ideal when you’re not staying in Liechtenstein the night before!
So we did everything in a topsy-turvy order, discovered that some of the activities included in the pass are only available at certain times of the day, and we were also knackered after a 6am start at the end of a busy trip.
However, it means I can present to you a far better itinerary that learns from our mistakes, incorporating loads of cool activities on the pass.
Essentially, I would recommend:
Day 1
⭐ arrive Vaduz mid-morning
⭐ spend the rest of the day in the town visiting museums and drinking free wine
Day 2
⭐ morning: trek with llamas in Triesenberg
⭐ lunch: Steg, where you can see a really beautiful (albeit tiny) lake
⭐ afternoon: Malbun, where you can take the chairlift and go hiking
Wait… did you say FREE wine?! Yes, chaps. Yes I did. And that’s just one of the benefits of getting an all-inclusive Adventure Pass in Liechtenstein!
So, here are just a few things included with the Liechtenstein all-inclusive Adventure Pass:
- The National Museum + Treasure Chamber
- Post Museum (though this is free anyway)
- Passport stamp
- Citytrain
- Art Museum
- Princely Moments show at the old cinema
- Free wine tasting
- Sareis chairlift in Malbun
- Free travel across Liechtenstein
- Another free wine tasting at the Prince’s Hofkellerei
- Various discounts, including the llama trek
This is nowhere near everything – you can also get free entry to swimming pools, free rounds of mini-golf, and even free admission to a falconry show!
The tourism board have also just introduced a new FREE Welcome Adventure Pass, which is available exclusively to overnight guests. However it generally only offers discounts rather than free entry, like 20% off the chairlift and museums.
Here’s everything I would recommend doing with the pass, and I’ll weigh up at the end whether it’s worth getting the all-inclusive Adventure Pass, or sticking with the Welcome Adventure Pass.
Read more: A Spectacular 10 Day Rail Itinerary In Switzerland & Liechtenstein
Pop into the tourist centre and get a passport stamp
First port of call: the tourist information centre.
It’s possible to get a proper passport stamp in Liechtenstein! Because there’s no official border control, you need to head to the tourist centre and they’ll stamp your passport. Don’t worry, it’s an official stamp!
It costs 3CHF, but it’s free with the pass.
The tourist centre is very well set up, with plenty of souvenirs and information. We were really impressed, so it’s the perfect place to start when you arrive in Vaduz.
Post Museum
The Post Museum is actually free, so you’re not really making the most of your pass here, but I definitely recommend going in.
There is a huge collection of stamps on display, but even if you’re not a stamp enthusiast, it’s interesting reading about the history and how they kept Liechtenstein connected. Did you know that until the 1970s, stamp sales to collectors made up a whopping 20% of Liechtenstein’s revenue?! The perks of being a unique country.
Interestingly, Liechtenstein was originally part of the Austrian postal service, despite being more connected to Switzerland economically.
This is a unique museum but it’s not huge so you probably only need half an hour (unless, like I say, you’re a stamp enthusiast).
Amann bakery for lunch, 20% off with pass
As well as free entry and activities, the all-inclusive Adventure Pass also includes a bunch of discounts. Some of these are definitely more useful than others! We went to Amann bakery, right in the centre of Vaduz, to take advantage of one. This seemed pretty popular with locals, and we got lunch for around 13CHF for both of us, which was excellent value.
If you don’t have an Adventure Pass, I was really tempted by Wanger bakery, purely for the name (I am 12 years old) – though it does also have good reviews.
Citytrain – 1pm or 4.30pm
Now this is where I messed up a bit, because I didn’t realise that the Citytrain only runs twice a day! It’s at 1pm and 4.30pm, so we missed it both days, but that was partly because we didn’t want to wait more than two hours until the later one. Kinda wish we had though, as we would have seen more of Vaduz if we’d gone on it.
Anyway, I think this would be a great way to get your bearings and learn a little about Vaduz, so I’d get this at 1pm.
The Princely Moments film is shown at the old cinema at 2pm, so if you wanted to see this, I’d leave the Citytrain until 4.30pm after the museums. The film shows an insight into Vaduz Castle, which isn’t open to the public so this is the best way to “see inside”! We missed it both days, unfortunately.
National Museum + Treasure Chamber
After exploring Vaduz on a little train, it’s time to learn more about Liechtenstein as a whole. We went into the National Museum, which also includes the coveted Treasure Chamber next door, though you have to pay extra for this if you don’t have the pass.
The museum is much larger than we gave it credit for (especially as the Post Museum is pretty small), and we ended up spending a couple of hours across the museum and Treasure Chamber. The included audio guide is really informative – a bit too informative, I found, as I started skipping things after a while and only focused on things that looked interesting.
We learned about the history of Liechtenstein and the monarchy, the history of its money and why it made more economic sense to use the Swiss Franc, traditions such as Bonfire Sunday (Funkensonntag), an insight into social gatherings like weddings and New Years Eve, and an interesting look at the innovation coming out of Liechtenstein today. Did you know Liechtenstein has more patents per capita than any other country? As in, ten times more? I suppose they are on the border with Switzerland, one of the most innovative countries in the world!
Another fun fact I learned is that NYE in Liechtenstein is apparently a bit like our Halloween for kids – children go door-to-door and are given toys or treats, and the older kids are given a drink of schnapps! Also, Funkensonntag gives me serious Wickerman vibes…
There’s also a natural history section, packed with taxidermy and set up in scenes of natural habitat which I thought was well done. The one thing that really stood out? A raccoon. What on earth does that have to do with Liechtenstein, I wondered? Well, this raccoon was found in somebody’s garden! The only raccoon ever spotted in Liechtenstein.
To be honest, I was hoping to read more about this guy (which may be my favourite fun fact of all about Liechtenstein):
After we’d had our fill, we popped over to the Treasure Chamber next door. To enter, you are given a gold coin to put into a slot which opens the door into a dark room!
No photos are allowed, but I have to say I was really impressed with this room. It’s mostly renowned for housing the crown jewels, but it was so much more than that. I have never seen so many Fabergé eggs in one place. They also have a little piece of moon rock, and a Liechtenstein flag that went to the moon. Very cool!
Without the Adventure Pass, the National Museum is 10CHF to enter, and it’s an extra 3CHF for the Treasure Chamber.
The Treasure Chamber by itself is 8CHF, which I think is quite pricey for that alone, so I 100% recommend getting the combined ticket.
Grab a free drink from the Hoi Laden shop
(Hoi is “hello” in Liechtenstein!)
Remember I said you could get free wine? Pop into the Hoi Laden shop on the main street and you can have a free tasting of one of the Princely Collection wines! We had hand luggage only, so we couldn’t buy a full bottle to bring home, but we did buy one of the glasses that the tasting came in, as I thought that made a great souvenir.
Note that there’s also a tasting opportunity at the Prince’s Cellar. I had read mixed reviews, so in the end we didn’t bother because it’s probably similar to this and it was a bit of a walk out of town. But if you want more free wine, then do it! (I’m now sitting here wondering why we didn’t, but we’d had a long day at this point – remember we had done more than the above already, with a 6am start!)
That’s probably enough for day one, although you could also pop into the art museum, which is right opposite.
Read about another small country: Let’s Go To Luxembourg: An Underrated European City Break
Llama trek
Marc and Anna at Lama Alpaka Triesenberg have created a highlight of Liechtenstein! I mean, how often can you say you’ve been trekking with llamas in Liechtenstein?
The all-inclusive Adventure Pass gives 10CHF off their tours, making it an even more great value excursion. As well as the regular morning walk, they also offer evening tours with fondue in the forest! This does sound super fun, but we decided to stick with the daytime walk.
Marc is just as entertaining as the llamas themselves, and honestly it felt a little like herding cats at some points (the humans as much as the llamas, it has to be said), which was hilarious. The weather wasn’t brilliant – we were stuck in a cloud for most of it, with the sunshine above taunting us just out of reach! So we didn’t get any llama selfies with the valley view behind us. But that didn’t matter at all because it was all about the characters. We had a fantastic time on this tour!
They also run a small farm shop onsite, with locally made produce and artisanal products as well as a range of llama souvenirs. Make sure to check it out if you’re passing through Triesenberg, and there’s a vending machine up in Malbun too.
We also stayed in the yurt on the llama farm – I’ll write more about that separately but it was brilliant!
I have lots more llama photos to share, too!
Seeblick Restaurant in Steg for lunch
This isn’t on any of the passes, and nor is anything in this part of Liechtenstein, but I need to mention it! Especially because I’ve never seen people talk about it on other blogs. About half way between Triesenberg and Malbun is a tiny mountain village called Steg.
It’s home to Liechtenstein’s only lake, Stausee – and it’s tiny, but LOOK how beautiful it is!
We also got absolutely incredible autumn colours in the sun.
Next to the lake, there’s a lovely restaurant called Seeblick, and I highly recommend coming here for lunch. The staff are really friendly – we spent ages chatting about Outlander, which is not what I expected – and the food is really reasonably priced. The restaurant itself is lovely inside, although we sat out on the terrace in the bright sunshine. I had an absolutely delicious spatzle that I almost couldn’t finish (but it was so good that I somehow managed!), and Ash had a rosti that was far better than the one he had in Switzerland.
I can’t recommend this place enough! Plus the location is just fantastic. I couldn’t get over the colours of that lake! There’s a walk you can do past the lake as well, and it would be a fantastic place to take a picnic if you didn’t want to eat in the restaurant.
Oh, and we listened to someone playing an alphorn on the hillside. Standard.
Malbun
The place I was looking forward to the most in Liechtenstein was Malbun. I feel like this is so overlooked, as a lot of people just visit Vaduz. Liechtenstein is actually a fantastic hiking destination, so it seems a shame to only visit a town on ground level.
Malbun is around half an hour on the bus from Vaduz (included with both passes), and is also on the same bus route as Triesenberg. So you could get the bus to the llama farm, then the same bus afterwards to Malbun, with the stop at Steg on the way. Very easy!
Malbun is a classic mountain village filled with chalets and ski hotels. This was actually my original plan for staying in Liechtenstein before I found out you could stay on the llama farm!
The Sareis chairlift provides skiers with access to the top of the mountain, and in summer this is used for hiking. You could spend an entire day – or more! – just in Malbun to explore the trails, like the popular Princess Gina Weg.
I planned to just take the chairlift up, take in the views of Austria, and then walk back down, which is an easy, gentle and winding path down into the village. It took around 45 minutes to get back down, so altogether it was about an hour with the chairlift.
There are a few other activities included with the all-inclusive Adventure Pass in Malbun, such as mini-golf and scavenger hunt games. I was very tempted to bring out my inner child and do the scavenger hunt!
The pass also includes the falconry show at the Hotel Galina in Malbun, which only runs at weekends. This sounds AWESOME and went straight on my list – until I discovered they stop for the winter in early October, so we missed it by a week. Bear this in mind if it’s something you want to do, because it’s such a great thing to be included on the Adventure Pass!
Needless to say, we could have spent a whole day around Malbun, although there isn’t a lot in the village itself. If you’re a hiker, this is where you need to head.
Instead, we headed back down to Vaduz to make our way to Zurich.
Read about another scenic micro-country in Europe: Andorra La Vella: Is This Europe’s Most Scenic Capital?
Old wooden bridge in Vaduz
Before leaving Vaduz, I really wanted to see the old wooden bridge connecting Liechtenstein with Switzerland! This is really cool, and well worth the 15 minute walk from the town centre.
It’s the last remaining wooden bridge over the Rhine, and its current form was completed in 1901 and renovated in 2010, keeping it well preserved.
Of course I walked across the bridge to take photos from Switzerland!
And that, fittingly, marked the end of our time in Liechtenstein.
Getting between Vaduz and Zurich is an easy journey which takes around 1 hour 40 minutes. This includes a change in Sargans, with a train for the Switzerland portion and a bus for the Liechtenstein portion. The buses run really regularly right outside Sargans station, especially as there are two – the 12E which runs to and from Vaduz, and the 11 which goes through Liechtenstein to Feldkirch in Austria.
For either bus, the best stop to get off at is Vaduz Post.
Is the All-Inclusive Adventure Pass worth it?
A 1-day Adventure Pass costs 25CHF, and a 2-day pass costs 29CHF.
Let’s break down what we did, and look at any extras…
Passport stamp – 3CHF
National Museum inc. Treasure Chamber – 13CHF
Post Museum – FREE anyway
Sareis chairlift – 16CHF return (or about 10CHF for one way)
Discount at Amann bakery – about 3CHF
Discount on the llama trek – 10CHF
Free glass of wine
Free public transport for two days
I would absolutely have done the Citytrain if I’d worked around the times – this costs 12CHF.
And if we’d been there during the summer, the falconry show would have been an instant addition for me.
So altogether on what we did do, we got around a 40CHF value from a 29CHF pass – plus the wine and the public transport. I say “around” because I only took the Sareis chairlift one way, so it would have been a 45CHF value doing that both ways.
If we had done the Citytrain and the falconry show (both of which I would have), that would have been another 24CHF!
You could also easily fit in the art museum (12CHF), the Princely Moments film (10CHF), and another wine tasting, or play a round of mini-golf.
So as you can see, if you’re strategic you could get over 90CHF out of the pass!
You can find out more about the Adventure Pass and Welcome Pass on the Liechtenstein tourism website, as well as buy the passes online so you can activate them as soon as you arrive.
With just the free welcome pass, we wouldn’t have saved much more than about 10CHF on all of the above. Bear in mind that this is only available to overnight guests too, so if you’re on a day trip, you’d be looking at a 25CHF Adventure Pass. I think the two day pass offers much better value.
As with many of these things, it does depend what you want to do. I highly recommend the National Museum and Treasure Chamber, which is half the one day pass value alone. Add in the Citytrain, and you’re essentially getting the passport stamp and a wine tasting (or two!) for free, plus anything else you might want to do. Malbun added a lot of value to our passes as well.
For me, I really do think it’s worth it, and even more so if you get the two day pass which is only 4CHF extra.
Related: Is The Go City London Pass Worth It? I Got The Two Day Pass To Find Out
I really enjoyed Liechtenstein – it’s a tiny country packed with beautiful scenery at every turn, and with some unique activities on offer and miles of hiking trails, it would be easy to spend more time there to enjoy everything.
I recommend getting out of Vaduz too, because all our highlights were elsewhere in Liechtenstein, and I think it’s very overlooked when so many people simply do a day trip to Vaduz.
Liechtenstein might just be my favourite European micro-country. So don’t just treat it as a box-ticking exercise; go with the purpose of enjoying it as a worthy destination in itself.
Disclaimer: the Adventure Pass was provided to us by the lovely people at the Liechtenstein tourism board. All opinions are my own, as well as the itinerary.
Read more about our Switzerland & Liechtenstein trip here:
⭐ A Spectacular 10 Day Rail Itinerary In Switzerland & Liechtenstein
⭐ Lauterbrunnen, Interlaken & More: Three Incredible Days In The Bernese Oberland, Switzerland
⭐ A Day In Zermatt & A Million Photos Of The Matterhorn
⭐ Glacier Express vs Bernina Express: Which Swiss Panoramic Train Is Better?
And some more European micro-countries:
⭐ Let’s Go To Luxembourg: An Underrated European City Break
⭐ Andorra La Vella: Is This Europe’s Most Scenic Capital?
⭐ Monaco On A Budget: A Cheap Day Out From Nice
⭐ A Day Trip Guide: San Marino From Bologna
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Lovely little Liechtenstein! We only managed a day trip from Zurich, and I wish we’d stayed to explore some more of the nature the tiny nation has to offer – it looks stunning. I speak fluent German but I couldn’t understand a single thing here as the dialect was so different. A wonderful place with its own culture and personality 🙂
Wow, so much to do there. And I could stare at the scenery all day, so any itinerary I plan better have room for that. Thanks for the info. I hope to put it to use one day.
What an amazing trip, beautifully captured
What a great itinerary. The pass definitely seems worth it, I can’t believe how much you were able to see. I also can’t believe the entire country only has one lake. For some reason, that, more than anything else, drove home to me how tiny it is.
Excellent guide, Clazz! The micro-nations in Europe are either overlooked by tourists or visited for country-counting purposes– Liechtenstein is no exception. Looks like there’s a lot packed into such a small place, and it’s interesting to learn that it’s the size of Washington, DC! Thanks for sharing your itinerary with us, and this post will be super useful whenever I head over to Liechtenstein some day!
Liechtenstein may look tiny, but it’s absolutely packed with fun things to do. The llama trek, the castle, the chairlift, the FREE wine (major win!), all of it sounds amazing. And thanks for the honest breakdown of the Adventure Pass… super helpful for planning.
I’ve always been interested in this small but mighty country- so it was so great to follow along with you to see it. Definitely on the list 🙂