Logistics: everything is shut exactly when you arrive

The walking is the easy part to plan. What actually caught me out was everything around it. Shops shut in the middle of the day. There is a habit across Europe of closing between about 12:30 and 4, which is exactly when you come down off a pass wanting food. I lost more than one lunch to it. From then on I always kept a hot meal in reserve, and on the days a shop was shut that reserve was lunch. Sunday is the day of rest. The weekend runs Friday through Sunday inclusive, and on Sunday a lot of supermarkets and other things simply do not open. In Slovenia I hit a different version of the same problem — plenty of places there close on Monday and Tuesday, and several stops I had counted on for lunch were shut. Public holidays are worse, because in Switzerland they are not national. Each canton sets its own. I walked into a valley on 15 August, which is a holiday in Valais, and everything that closes on a Sunday was closed that day too. Resupply. I planned food by the number of days to the next supermarket. For most of the route that was never more than three days, but there are stretches where resupply is genuinely hard and you carry a week — which you feel immediately in the pack. Gas canisters come from outdoor and sports shops and are not hard to find. Coming down to a town to shop is usually a detour off the route, and that detour is part of the distance. The season is shorter than you think. Huts generally open around mid to late June, once the snow has cleared from the approaches, and most close between late September and the first week of October. I finished on 24 September and watched the season shutting around me for weeks before that — from about day 52 onwards, hikers and hut staff kept telling me the same thing, and by the end I was walking past huts that had already closed. One I had planned to sleep at was shut, and I was not the only one caught out. If you are walking the tail of the season, plan for the hut you want to be closed. Beds are not guaranteed even when a hut is open. I was turned away from refuges that were full — not just for a bed, but for permission to lay a sleeping bag outside. And arriving late costs you: at most huts, turn up after seven in the evening and they will tell you to sort yourself out. Towns are not a safe fallback either. I once reached a town in the dark to find every hotel booked, because there was a trail race on. Money. Switzerland and Liechtenstein use francs, everything else on this route uses euros. Use up your cash before you cross out of Switzerland — I had to spend the last of mine deliberately on my final day there. Franc prices are noticeably higher than euro prices for the same thing. The one thing I did not have and would get. An alpine club membership — the German, Austrian, Swiss, Italian or French club. They have a reciprocal agreement, so a card from one gets you the member rate at the others' huts across the Alps: the discount is on the bed, not on the food — roughly half off the bed, which works out at €10–18 a night, and it typically pays for itself by the third night. Most memberships also carry mountain rescue and repatriation cover. I slept eleven nights in huts and hotels at around 30 euros for a dormitory bed, and the card would have paid for itself several times over — before counting what a rescue costs. Note that privately owned huts are not part of the agreement and give no discount. Getting back to the route. After a detour into a town, buses did the job for me repeatedly. Hitching did not — I tried and failed more than once, and one of those failures turned into a taxi and a 27-kilometre day. Data. I went with eSIMs and spent close to ₪1,055 on them, which is far more than a normal person needs. That was because I was uploading video the whole way and video is heavy. If you are not publishing as you go, budget a fraction of that. Laundry in a town costs about 5 francs, and on a sunny day it is worth stopping for. I carried two sets of clothes and always tried to keep one clean, so a sunny morning was a laundry morning whether I felt like it or not. Documents, and what has changed since I walked. An Israeli passport gets you 90 days in any 180 in the Schengen area, which covers a 69-day walk comfortably — but only if you have not spent time in Schengen in the months before. I met people doing the same route far more slowly precisely because a European passport removes that pressure. Since I walked, the border process has changed. The EU's Entry/Exit System was rolled out through to April 2026, and ETIAS — a travel authorisation Israelis will need before entering — is expected to become operational in the last quarter of 2026, with a transition period after that. If you are going, check the current status before you book; this is the part of the planning most likely to have moved since this was written. Sources, and how current this is. Everything about opening hours, the season, resupply, beds and transport is what I ran into on the route in 2025. The alpine club figures are from the international reciprocal hut agreement between the German, Austrian, Swiss, Italian, French and Spanish clubs. The hut season dates are the general Alpine pattern rather than any single hut's calendar. The Schengen, EES and ETIAS dates are as published in September 2026. This is what I found, not advice. Border rules and hut calendars both move. Check the current position with the club, the hut and the official immigration source before you rely on any of it.