Me and my family are looking to move to a place with a bit lower living costs in canton of Schwyz. Some of my friends mentioned the fair towns of Galgenen / Siebnen / Schübelbach / Reichenburg.
I wanted to ask if there are any people living in any of those communes? I wanted to ask you the following questions:
How’s life there in general?
Is there a reasonable access to schools and kitas?
What’s the attitude of local population towards foreigners?
I know it may be a bit far fetched, but… Anyone went through the naturalisation process there?
I did a bit of research myself, even a few quick visits, but wanted to reach out if anyone can share some information.
We have two kids, one going soon to kita and the other to kindergarten. We work and live in Zürich so all of the mentioned locations are within reasonable distance.
We’re a pretty flexible family to be honest when it comes to the place of living.
Commuting to Zurich City from there is possible, but I would find it a bit long. There is the S2/S25 in Siebnen-Wangen, so you will have 3 trains per hour. Depending where you need to be in Zurich, it will be more than one hour one way. You need to consider this even with full-time childcare as I would expect the kids need to be picked up by 5 or so.
These places are quite boring compared to Zurich for sure, and also not as nice as the villages by the lake. There seems to be quite some culture of “Vereine”, particular around Siebnen the carnival cultures seems quite active. I don’t know how open people are; it is Schwyz and far less international as the area along the lake. Cannot say anything about the schools there, but would expect nothing particularly good or bad.
Why there? The tax is not as low as in Hoefe, but it will be lower than Zurich. Housing is reasonably priced, but overall a situation with two young kids and two parents being away 11 hours a day for work + commute sounds not ideal. Unless of course you both can partially work from home and alternate the days.
Pretty flexible in which way… If at least one of you can work from home at least a few days per week, I guess it will be OK. The commute is a bit too long( imo) if you have to bustle around two young kids’ schedules…to the point that it can affect the quality of life in a negative way. If one of you has to travel for work and be away from home a lot and the other one has to compensate during this time, working so far from your kids kita/ kindergarten is a proper pain if you ask me.
I mentioned these circumstances because many people don’t really think it through.
It looks like you have a comfortable situation right now, may I ask what exactly do you think you’ll improve by moving, apart from taxes of course?
Any of the towns around the lake could be a better choice imo- e.g.Silver Coast.
As for the combination of child care and a long (40-50min) commute, how would you have approached this challenge except for the obvious reduction of the commute time? =) A day care in the town where both parents work, a day care in the town where both parents live (and one of them can stay working remotely on different days), another option? It sounds like you’ve had this challenge but maybe I am in the wrong =)
Before posting here I already checked the commute time and it’s not a problem for us. We have possibility to work remotely and thus picking up kids from kita / kindergarten is not an issue. On top of that we have flexible working hours (e.g. can go back home early and finish work there). We also do not mind things being a bit more on the boring side when it comes to the place where we will live.
While all of you provided valuable insights, we’re actually looking for foreigners living in the region of Galgenen / Siebnen / Schübelbach / Reichenburg to share their experience.
Allow me to trim and rephrase my questions, to avoid introducing any confusion:
We’re looking for people that got the taste of local “vibes” and how they were perceived as foreigners in that area. The general feelings they had about being there.
If anyone who lived there has kids - what was theirs experience with general education level and were there any problems with kita / kita access? (we checked the Google Maps but wanted to learn a bit more about it)
I was also thinking of moving there. There is a new construction “EDEN GREEN” in Schübelbach with very attractive prices. One thing that really surprised me was how small these cities are. There is nothing special in Schübelbach. I would even have to drive to get my daily groceries. But what’s particularly ugly is that these towns are spread out along the main road, which is quite busy, so such otherwise quiet places are as noisy as living in Zurich.The small size actually also made me think about my social life. I think people are not particularly averse to foreigners; I have seen “international faces” around. However, in such a small community, I might not make any friends for years.
Didn’t live there but when we were looking to buy a house, some places in canton SZ were also considered; the average admission rate for gymi was lower than in most places in canton ZH; I think there were kitas where we looked but with a limited number of places. Not exactly the municipalities you’ve mentioned here to be fair, so maybe it’s better to walk around a little and get that vibe of the place yourself…
Nice places to live in canton Schwyz are Höfe gemeinden and Altendorf/Lachen, the rest is typical farmer level, if you like this kind of vibe, smell of shit and cows, these are the ‘poor’ gemeinden where people concentrate like asylum, social, disabled and so on. Personally i wouldn’t want my kids to grow up there, also depends what you envision for your children (gymnasium or basic working education)? i am not deep into topic, but in schwyz there is one expensive gymnasium in einsiedeln and that’s it, while in zurich i think there are many options. My personal opinion saving just a few thousands in taxes per year not worth it and zurich canton is better for foreigners.
Schwyz does not have cantonal “long gymnasium”, so if you want to send kid to gymi directly after primary, then you have to pay for Einsiedeln. The regular way to gymi in SZ is after 2nd or 3rd secondary. Cantonal gymi in Pfaeffikon and Nuolen.
There are so many things wrong that you wrote here. It’s incredibly arrogant and pretentious on your part with a strong whiff of intolerance. These kind of posts make me angry because it shows how small-minded some people can be, especially those who are “affluent.”