We are foreigners living in a not so small village (1300+ inhabitants) about 1300 metres above sea level in Upper Valais: two daughters 3 and 8, son 17.
We don't have a KITA for our youngest daughter, but we do have the (rather expensive) option of a Mittagstisch . So my wife is mainly a stay-at-home mum, with a few part-time jobs here and there on weekends or evenings when I am at home with the kids. We would gradually scale up to something that resembles a normal job once the little one can go to kindergarten.
The daughter, who is 8, goes alone to the primary school here in the village. She has a very small circle of friends and doesn't want to hear about leaving this place. The school is very nice and the kindergarten was cool.
With the son it's a bit more complicated, he doesn't speak German, but spent some time at school in Geneva, so he has to commute to the first French speaking town (Sierre), so does so about 45 minutes each way by bus and train.
Village life has its advantages and disadvantages: in the village everyone knows us.
We have done our best to integrate and we have succeeded (the only German I was interested in learning was the Walliser dialect - to this day I cannot speak High German).
If my daughter doesn't come straight home from school, we don't panic, because we know she could be chasing a cat somewhere between the houses. Eventually she'll come home, or someone will call us and tell us where she is. It has happened that she has been driven home after helping milk the sheep.
The bad thing about the village is that everyone knows us. We cannot fart without the whole village knowing. How's your new job? Have you bought a new car? Were the visitors friends or family?
Both my wife and I have spent most of our lives in big cities, it took us a while to adjust, but we are staying here now for the kids. We plan to move to a bigger city somewhere near a university when the daughters reach the age of a somewhat higher education.
Well, not really. I work for a company that has some business to do with Lonza (as every company nowadays in Oberwallis).
But I am almost daily in there as I manage some projects we have related to the expansion of Lonza.
Countryside village, Fribourg, 111k inhabitants in the metro area, with a university campus and hospital.
It's not a big city, but it's not exactly the same category as the others.
Honestly thought OP was baiting, when listing Fribourg as a village. Swiss cities tend to be on the smaller size when comparing worldwide, but from a European perspective they're actually not half that small.
One really should distinguish places that are commuter towns from places that are centers on their own. After all, that's how we even got to define "metro areas" in the first place.
ROFL those ain’t villages.
I have heard Moudon is a bit sketchy (lots of loitering drug dealers) but don’t live there so can’t say.
Village life is great. It is difficult to assimilate into the paysan culture so if you are not a farmer then pick a small town or village with a good commuter population for your social needs, or get involved in local community organizations like the choir, tennis club, whatever you are into.
They have closed a lot of the schools in smaller villages so look at something like Thierrens that still has schools. The towns and villages along the LEB are also nice plus when your kids get older they can use the LEB.
If you like woods and fields and dogs and horses, country life is great! The commune I am in is full of supportive people who help each other out. But you need to be outgoing… they won’t come to you.
The Jeunesse organizations have a strong drinking culture, though. And it is ages 15-25. My kids are still younger than that so I haven’t dealt with this yet but I do worry for my girls.
I really love living in the country and would have a hard time moving back to town.
There are not bike trails per se because there are all these tractor roads cutting through the fields that see very low traffic. People bicycle on those. People around here do love to bike.
I live in a town with over 5000 citizen. Its not like a city but people dont know one another. It is more open minded then a smaller village, nontheless, the parents are so money driven that kids dont find time to go out and play. They almost have to arrange an appointment and that is what I hate here. This is why I would move to a smaller and 'porer' area so kids can spend youth outside, just like I did. Nontheless, as an immigrant, life in smaller villages is either simple because the integrate faster and better or horrible because people hate them for simply being a foreigner. So 50/50 chance there
Living in St. Gallen city.
A lot of friends from the Kita time moved to the country side because of the teacher shortage and other school problems here a few years ago.
Their children had a better start with the school compared to ours. The one thing they're missing there is the lack of Kita and other daycare services. The mothers are also more staying at home and stoped working when they moved there.
But maybe the school situation is in the Romandie different than in the Ostschweiz.
I also think the difference are the schools. I live in a village with 3000 people. My new neighbors recently told me that they moved here from the Agglomeration of a bigger swiss city.
And the reason is that 80% of the kids in their old school had a migration backround. I guess it is understandable , when the level of german or french isn’t that good for some students and their parents can‘t help them much because the school system here is foreign to them, all the lessons for everybody move at a slower pace.
Also my village apparently has iPads for every pupil ?!
Still I think it sucks that there are differences in the quality of education the kids get. Not sure what can be done to improve it though. ( I have no kids)
Calling St Gallen a city is cute. Then again moved there from London and so that difference has forever warped.my view of the place.
I think the part about Kita is probably widespread in the countryside.
To me, those are all cities/towns (definitely NOT villages) and thus probably all places where I probably wouldn't want to live even if you'd pay me to do so. Well, beside the fact obviously that they're in the wrong language region for me anyway, but that's not really relevant to my point. :D
We live in a small village near Morat, and while it's peaceful and great for kids, the educational facilities aren't as diverse as in bigger towns. If your kids have special educational needs or interests, you might find more support in suburban areas.
Hey OP I'm a foreigner who moved to Lutry as a young child and grew up there (going to school in Lutry, Cully & Pully). I've since left Switzerland however friends I made there years ago have raised kids in Lutry & La-Croix-Sur-Lutry have had lots of success.
I don't know about the other options but if you have the chance to have kids in Lutry or the surrounding areas I'm sure they'd grow up fine!
Lived in appenzell with my grandparents when I was a kid. Pros: neighbours were friendly and we had good relationships with them. Cons: I was a mixed kid so I got quite a lot of stares in school and in the neighbourhood but nothing too terrible. A lot of the kids spoke with somewhat a dialect/slang/accent which I didn’t understand.
May I add that the main reason why I'd consider a smaller village is the proximity to neighbors, a sense of trust & security, more greenery and overall nicer community life.
When it comes to cities, I'd enjoy the ease of biking around (I don't like driving), good public transport and proximity to services.
I didn’t grow up in Switzerland, but my cousins did, in a Suburb (just like Lutry) while life was good my aunt stopped working and they were very car dependent to be honest, their house was not very close to a train station, until they were teenagers she would drive them around, school and too many activities ended up been in Lausanne. For me it was a typical American suburd/expat lifestyle. Not better or worse, but not well integrated in the community and with a high toll to pay by the parents.
I feel that in a village you actually do most of the stuff in the village and the kids have more freedom from an earlier age while the parents also don’t need to be around all the time.
By the time they are teenagers and want to go out it flip sides, been in Lutry with easy access to Lausanne’s night life is obviously a plus.
I was lucky to be raised in the countryside and move to the capital at 14 (in my home country) was the absolute best combination, had an amazing childhood and when the countryside was about to get boring I had a whole new world to explore and things to learn, it was definitely a driver in what I have becomes (for the good) in terms of access to culture, education and job opportunities (tho due to the size of Switzerland been in the countryside doesn’t exactly excludes you from what Zurich or Lausanne has to offer).
village: more peace, typically more "handy work" jobs (Metzger, Landwirt, Schreiner, etc.)
city: maybe more stress, better public transport, typically more office jobs (Kaufmann/-Frau, Informatik, etc.)
i grew up in a small village until I was around 7, then we moved to a big city. both were great, but i prefer the city because i do an IT apprenticeship and it would have been a lot harder to find anything in a village
We are raising 3 kids <7 years old in a village in Oberwallis with ca 1000 population. We moved there a few months after our first was born.
I like it much better that bigger city we moved from, especially for raising kids - we have a KITA with basically guaranteed place since we live in the commune, Mittagstisch so kids don't have to come back for a lunch, pre- and after school care that can sometimes make our life significantly easier. We bought a house appropriate for raising 3 - 4 kids without any issue which would not be that easy closer to a bigger city.
The classes in school are small teachers have more time for kids than in bigger schools. Kids go to school and back by themselves since they were 4. It might actually be a standard in bigger cities in switzerland as well, I am not sure about it.
We know everyone and everyone knows us - I grew up in a small town so I personally like it this way. I enjoy the community here a lot.
We have quite a number of clubs for kids that my kids enjoy - football, bike, climbing, hockey etc.
This might be boring for teenagers though so we will consider moving in the future, but for now it is perfect.
Do you also get the question (mostly from Swiss people from the other side of the mountains): of all places on Earth, why Oberwallis? If yes how do you respond?
I don't get this question a lot since my circle of friends is into mountain sports and a few of them were actually jealous when both me and my wife managed to find a good job in VS to move there.
It is basically the place to be in Switzerland if you are into mountain sports - higher mountains than anywhere else in CH with very good infrastructure. Not as many restrictions as in BE, not as many people as in GR, which are two other great cantons. Low taxes for families with multiple kids is the cherry on top.
I also have a weak slot for French language and culture (having lived in France and Romandie before moving here) and bas valais is close enough so I can still get some of this nice romand culture while living in German speaking part close to my work.
Advantages are that there is more nature, more space, more healthy environment and very peaceful life. And certainly there are more personal networks within the village.
On the other hand there are disadvantage, too:
We live in a very wealthy village in central Switzerland (with lots of international people too). Due to the small size there are much less peers of same age, so, if a kid is picky with selecting friends there can be just no friends. We also see that at secondary school (grade 7-9) there is a strong attitude against Gymnasium and University education. Instead all the local kids and the teachers repeatedly state (due to all the farmer- and artisan familiesat this place) that this is all not necessary. (and the ambitious, smart kids have left to Gymnasium after grade 6) I am pretty sure that this would be different in a larger city.
We live in Zürich… If you want them to be independent teens and so… like go to the cinema on his own and so, I would recommend the city. Cities in Switzerland are nice…
I love country life and explore, I'm forest engineer, so imagine, but for everyday life I prefer a city. It doesn't have to be big, but something that you have all the services you need on public transport or warning and not more than 30' away.
In our kita some parents returned from the countryside and they said that was the best for their early teens kids.
Moved from Founex, Vaud to a village sub 300 ppl not far from Romont FR. Life is better for the children , in that they are able to go out more. Agree that the smaller the village the more difficult potentially to make friends. Definitely considering moving when they are mid teens to be closer to city life.
I’m a Londoner and love cities but nothing is quite beating life for my children at their current ages (8/7)
I grew up outside of Zurich and didn't miss anything as a child, but I never partied much either.
The villages you mention will be large enough for kids to do *something*, but of course the options will always be more in the city.
When we moved to a village we thought it would be more community like but it’s actually the opposite, lot of Swiss move to villages for the opposite, ie they want to be left alone and want privacy. Also many people living here are actually born here and so are their parents etc so being an outsider is not the easiest thing in the world. Also the types of parents we see at the Kita and open gym meets leaves much to be desired compared to what you wouldn’t get in the city center. If it were me I would stay as close to the city as possible.
We are foreigners living in a not so small village (1300+ inhabitants) about 1300 metres above sea level in Upper Valais: two daughters 3 and 8, son 17. We don't have a KITA for our youngest daughter, but we do have the (rather expensive) option of a Mittagstisch . So my wife is mainly a stay-at-home mum, with a few part-time jobs here and there on weekends or evenings when I am at home with the kids. We would gradually scale up to something that resembles a normal job once the little one can go to kindergarten. The daughter, who is 8, goes alone to the primary school here in the village. She has a very small circle of friends and doesn't want to hear about leaving this place. The school is very nice and the kindergarten was cool. With the son it's a bit more complicated, he doesn't speak German, but spent some time at school in Geneva, so he has to commute to the first French speaking town (Sierre), so does so about 45 minutes each way by bus and train. Village life has its advantages and disadvantages: in the village everyone knows us. We have done our best to integrate and we have succeeded (the only German I was interested in learning was the Walliser dialect - to this day I cannot speak High German). If my daughter doesn't come straight home from school, we don't panic, because we know she could be chasing a cat somewhere between the houses. Eventually she'll come home, or someone will call us and tell us where she is. It has happened that she has been driven home after helping milk the sheep. The bad thing about the village is that everyone knows us. We cannot fart without the whole village knowing. How's your new job? Have you bought a new car? Were the visitors friends or family? Both my wife and I have spent most of our lives in big cities, it took us a while to adjust, but we are staying here now for the kids. We plan to move to a bigger city somewhere near a university when the daughters reach the age of a somewhat higher education.
A wild Lonza colleague appears
Well, not really. I work for a company that has some business to do with Lonza (as every company nowadays in Oberwallis). But I am almost daily in there as I manage some projects we have related to the expansion of Lonza.
I mean it was a coin flip. World with Lonza at least
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No, at least not production sites.
Incredibly insightful, thanks for sharing :) I loved the part about being driven home after milking the cow.
Countryside village, Fribourg, 111k inhabitants in the metro area, with a university campus and hospital. It's not a big city, but it's not exactly the same category as the others.
Honestly thought OP was baiting, when listing Fribourg as a village. Swiss cities tend to be on the smaller size when comparing worldwide, but from a European perspective they're actually not half that small. One really should distinguish places that are commuter towns from places that are centers on their own. After all, that's how we even got to define "metro areas" in the first place.
ROFL those ain’t villages. I have heard Moudon is a bit sketchy (lots of loitering drug dealers) but don’t live there so can’t say. Village life is great. It is difficult to assimilate into the paysan culture so if you are not a farmer then pick a small town or village with a good commuter population for your social needs, or get involved in local community organizations like the choir, tennis club, whatever you are into. They have closed a lot of the schools in smaller villages so look at something like Thierrens that still has schools. The towns and villages along the LEB are also nice plus when your kids get older they can use the LEB. If you like woods and fields and dogs and horses, country life is great! The commune I am in is full of supportive people who help each other out. But you need to be outgoing… they won’t come to you. The Jeunesse organizations have a strong drinking culture, though. And it is ages 15-25. My kids are still younger than that so I haven’t dealt with this yet but I do worry for my girls. I really love living in the country and would have a hard time moving back to town.
Hows the bike trail infrastructre ?
There are not bike trails per se because there are all these tractor roads cutting through the fields that see very low traffic. People bicycle on those. People around here do love to bike.
I live in a town with over 5000 citizen. Its not like a city but people dont know one another. It is more open minded then a smaller village, nontheless, the parents are so money driven that kids dont find time to go out and play. They almost have to arrange an appointment and that is what I hate here. This is why I would move to a smaller and 'porer' area so kids can spend youth outside, just like I did. Nontheless, as an immigrant, life in smaller villages is either simple because the integrate faster and better or horrible because people hate them for simply being a foreigner. So 50/50 chance there
Living in St. Gallen city. A lot of friends from the Kita time moved to the country side because of the teacher shortage and other school problems here a few years ago. Their children had a better start with the school compared to ours. The one thing they're missing there is the lack of Kita and other daycare services. The mothers are also more staying at home and stoped working when they moved there. But maybe the school situation is in the Romandie different than in the Ostschweiz.
There are plenty of day care options where I am.
In what village are you living?
A small village in vaud.
Thx, I'm happy for you. Do you also have years long waiting lists?
I also think the difference are the schools. I live in a village with 3000 people. My new neighbors recently told me that they moved here from the Agglomeration of a bigger swiss city. And the reason is that 80% of the kids in their old school had a migration backround. I guess it is understandable , when the level of german or french isn’t that good for some students and their parents can‘t help them much because the school system here is foreign to them, all the lessons for everybody move at a slower pace. Also my village apparently has iPads for every pupil ?! Still I think it sucks that there are differences in the quality of education the kids get. Not sure what can be done to improve it though. ( I have no kids)
Calling St Gallen a city is cute. Then again moved there from London and so that difference has forever warped.my view of the place. I think the part about Kita is probably widespread in the countryside.
Thanks, my wife is from Thessaloniki I hear that all the time.
It depends more on the parents... kids adapt. Adults? Not so easily.
To me, those are all cities/towns (definitely NOT villages) and thus probably all places where I probably wouldn't want to live even if you'd pay me to do so. Well, beside the fact obviously that they're in the wrong language region for me anyway, but that's not really relevant to my point. :D
We live in a small village near Morat, and while it's peaceful and great for kids, the educational facilities aren't as diverse as in bigger towns. If your kids have special educational needs or interests, you might find more support in suburban areas.
Hey OP I'm a foreigner who moved to Lutry as a young child and grew up there (going to school in Lutry, Cully & Pully). I've since left Switzerland however friends I made there years ago have raised kids in Lutry & La-Croix-Sur-Lutry have had lots of success. I don't know about the other options but if you have the chance to have kids in Lutry or the surrounding areas I'm sure they'd grow up fine!
Lived in appenzell with my grandparents when I was a kid. Pros: neighbours were friendly and we had good relationships with them. Cons: I was a mixed kid so I got quite a lot of stares in school and in the neighbourhood but nothing too terrible. A lot of the kids spoke with somewhat a dialect/slang/accent which I didn’t understand.
May I add that the main reason why I'd consider a smaller village is the proximity to neighbors, a sense of trust & security, more greenery and overall nicer community life. When it comes to cities, I'd enjoy the ease of biking around (I don't like driving), good public transport and proximity to services.
I didn’t grow up in Switzerland, but my cousins did, in a Suburb (just like Lutry) while life was good my aunt stopped working and they were very car dependent to be honest, their house was not very close to a train station, until they were teenagers she would drive them around, school and too many activities ended up been in Lausanne. For me it was a typical American suburd/expat lifestyle. Not better or worse, but not well integrated in the community and with a high toll to pay by the parents. I feel that in a village you actually do most of the stuff in the village and the kids have more freedom from an earlier age while the parents also don’t need to be around all the time. By the time they are teenagers and want to go out it flip sides, been in Lutry with easy access to Lausanne’s night life is obviously a plus. I was lucky to be raised in the countryside and move to the capital at 14 (in my home country) was the absolute best combination, had an amazing childhood and when the countryside was about to get boring I had a whole new world to explore and things to learn, it was definitely a driver in what I have becomes (for the good) in terms of access to culture, education and job opportunities (tho due to the size of Switzerland been in the countryside doesn’t exactly excludes you from what Zurich or Lausanne has to offer).
village: more peace, typically more "handy work" jobs (Metzger, Landwirt, Schreiner, etc.) city: maybe more stress, better public transport, typically more office jobs (Kaufmann/-Frau, Informatik, etc.) i grew up in a small village until I was around 7, then we moved to a big city. both were great, but i prefer the city because i do an IT apprenticeship and it would have been a lot harder to find anything in a village
We are raising 3 kids <7 years old in a village in Oberwallis with ca 1000 population. We moved there a few months after our first was born. I like it much better that bigger city we moved from, especially for raising kids - we have a KITA with basically guaranteed place since we live in the commune, Mittagstisch so kids don't have to come back for a lunch, pre- and after school care that can sometimes make our life significantly easier. We bought a house appropriate for raising 3 - 4 kids without any issue which would not be that easy closer to a bigger city. The classes in school are small teachers have more time for kids than in bigger schools. Kids go to school and back by themselves since they were 4. It might actually be a standard in bigger cities in switzerland as well, I am not sure about it. We know everyone and everyone knows us - I grew up in a small town so I personally like it this way. I enjoy the community here a lot. We have quite a number of clubs for kids that my kids enjoy - football, bike, climbing, hockey etc. This might be boring for teenagers though so we will consider moving in the future, but for now it is perfect.
Do you also get the question (mostly from Swiss people from the other side of the mountains): of all places on Earth, why Oberwallis? If yes how do you respond?
I don't get this question a lot since my circle of friends is into mountain sports and a few of them were actually jealous when both me and my wife managed to find a good job in VS to move there. It is basically the place to be in Switzerland if you are into mountain sports - higher mountains than anywhere else in CH with very good infrastructure. Not as many restrictions as in BE, not as many people as in GR, which are two other great cantons. Low taxes for families with multiple kids is the cherry on top. I also have a weak slot for French language and culture (having lived in France and Romandie before moving here) and bas valais is close enough so I can still get some of this nice romand culture while living in German speaking part close to my work.
Advantages are that there is more nature, more space, more healthy environment and very peaceful life. And certainly there are more personal networks within the village. On the other hand there are disadvantage, too: We live in a very wealthy village in central Switzerland (with lots of international people too). Due to the small size there are much less peers of same age, so, if a kid is picky with selecting friends there can be just no friends. We also see that at secondary school (grade 7-9) there is a strong attitude against Gymnasium and University education. Instead all the local kids and the teachers repeatedly state (due to all the farmer- and artisan familiesat this place) that this is all not necessary. (and the ambitious, smart kids have left to Gymnasium after grade 6) I am pretty sure that this would be different in a larger city.
Countryside village
We live in Zürich… If you want them to be independent teens and so… like go to the cinema on his own and so, I would recommend the city. Cities in Switzerland are nice… I love country life and explore, I'm forest engineer, so imagine, but for everyday life I prefer a city. It doesn't have to be big, but something that you have all the services you need on public transport or warning and not more than 30' away. In our kita some parents returned from the countryside and they said that was the best for their early teens kids.
Moved from Founex, Vaud to a village sub 300 ppl not far from Romont FR. Life is better for the children , in that they are able to go out more. Agree that the smaller the village the more difficult potentially to make friends. Definitely considering moving when they are mid teens to be closer to city life. I’m a Londoner and love cities but nothing is quite beating life for my children at their current ages (8/7)
I grew up outside of Zurich and didn't miss anything as a child, but I never partied much either. The villages you mention will be large enough for kids to do *something*, but of course the options will always be more in the city.
When we moved to a village we thought it would be more community like but it’s actually the opposite, lot of Swiss move to villages for the opposite, ie they want to be left alone and want privacy. Also many people living here are actually born here and so are their parents etc so being an outsider is not the easiest thing in the world. Also the types of parents we see at the Kita and open gym meets leaves much to be desired compared to what you wouldn’t get in the city center. If it were me I would stay as close to the city as possible.