Each day, more and more countries are flinging their borders open to Canadian travellers. The latest is my favourite European destination, Switzerland.
As of June 26, fully vaccinated Canadians can travel to Switzerland without quarantine or PCR tests.
That’s great news. However, getting to Switzerland from Canada will be a challenge. SWISS Air and Air Canada will not be offering daily service to Switzerland from Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver until August at the earliest.
Also, as long as the Canadian government demands PCR tests to be taken 72 hours before your return, the cost of going to Switzerland will be much higher - the Swiss are charging about $230 (Cdn) per test.
When you arrive in Switzerland, you’ll have to produce documented proof that you’ve been fully vaccinated – two shots. It would be nice if the federal government and provinces would allow Canadian travellers to upload that information on the ArriveCan app, which we could easily produce when landing in another country.
Switzerland joins a growing list of EU countries now allowing fully vaccinated Canadians to enter. The others are Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Poland and Spain.
For more information on Switzerland’s vaccination protocol, go to info.usa@switzerland.com
Most Swiss hotels can refer guests to a PCR testing service. For more info, go to PCR tests
About the Author
Marc Atchison is a veteran journalist and a seasoned traveller with more than 20 years of travel writing experience. As the former Travel Editor of the Toronto Star, Canada's largest newspaper, and now Editor-in-Chief and Senior Writer for TraveLife magazine (Canada) and travelife.ca, Marc has been to over 100 countries in the world. Japan is one of his favorite destinations and he's been there on numerous occasions.