Remember Switzerland & Mallorca? | October 2025 #Shorts

Every so often, YouTube or our photo app serves up a "memory" that stops us mid-scroll. This time it was October 2025: Switzerland and Mallorca, two places that couldn't be more different, packed into one trip. We put together a short to mark it, and as we watched the clips, we realized a few seconds of footage can't hold everything we remember.

So this post is the longer version. If you've got a minute, watch the Short here, then come back and we'll talk about what a year of hindsight has taught us.

Why Switzerland and Mallorca Work Together

On paper, pairing an Alpine country with a Mediterranean island sounds a little random. In practice, it's one of our favourite trip structures: one stop for crisp air, big scenery, and trains that run to the minute, and one stop to slow right down.

Switzerland is the part of the trip where you're constantly doing: catching the next train, chasing the next viewpoint, checking the weather before you commit to a mountain. Mallorca is where you finally exhale. Mornings get longer, meals stretch out, and the biggest decision of the day is which cove to visit.

Coming from Mississauga, where October usually means finding your jacket and accepting that the patio season is over, stepping into that contrast was a treat. We got the cool autumn feeling and the lingering sunshine in the same trip.

What We Remember Most

Not the postcard shots, honestly. It's the small stuff.

The quiet. Swiss towns have a calm to them that we're still trying to describe. After living in the GTA, where there's always a horn or a siren somewhere, hearing almost nothing felt like a luxury.

The food, as always. One of us (Samantha) is the planner who researches every meal. The other (Amir) is happy to follow his nose. That balance has carried us through every trip, and it worked again here. If you want help figuring out how we approach eating abroad, our habit is to find one "must-try" a day and leave the rest open to whatever smells good.

Having each other to laugh with. Travel gets stressful: missed connections, confusing signs, a phone at 4%. We've learned that the trips we remember fondly aren't the ones where nothing went wrong, they're the ones where we laughed when it did.

Travel Tips We'd Give Anyone Doing a Similar Trip

These are the lessons we'd pass along to a friend planning the same route.

1. Travel in the shoulder season. October was a great call. Crowds are thinner than in peak summer, and prices tend to be friendlier. The tradeoff is that some seasonal attractions and restaurants scale back, so always check opening times before you build a day around something.

2. Pack for two climates. Layers are your best friend. Think light, packable warmth for the mountains and breathable pieces for the island. We'd rather carry one extra layer than shiver through a sunrise viewpoint.

3. Pad your schedule. The biggest mistake we see (and one we've made ourselves) is cramming too much in. Leave an empty afternoon in every destination. Some of our best moments happened in the gaps.

4. Don't over-plan transit. Public transport in Switzerland is famously dependable, but it still pays to download your tickets and screenshot your connections before you lose signal. In Mallorca, think about whether you'll want a rental car for the more remote spots, since getting around is easier with wheels.

5. Budget honestly. Switzerland can be expensive, and it's better to know that going in than to be surprised at the till. Grocery stores and bakeries are a great way to eat well without every meal being a sit-down splurge. Save the splurges for the ones that matter.

If you're heading to Europe for the first time, our top 10 mistakes in Paris covers a lot of the same planning pitfalls, and most of it applies well beyond France. We also wrote about what surprised us about Paris, which is a good reminder that the reality of a place rarely matches the version in your head, and that's usually a good thing.

Travelling as a Couple With Different Backgrounds

One thing we love about travelling together is seeing a place through two different lenses. Samantha grew up with Vietnamese food culture, where meals are social and nothing is wasted. Amir grew up in a Punjabi household where hospitality is a love language and there's always another plate coming. We carry both of those into every restaurant, market, and guesthouse we visit.

It shapes how we notice things: how people welcome strangers, how they share a table, how a small gesture of kindness crosses a language barrier. If you're curious about that side of our journey, we put together what we've learned travelling as an interracial couple, which goes deeper than a short ever could.

Why We Make These Little Look-Back Videos

A year is long enough to forget details and short enough to still feel close. That's the sweet spot for a look-back. When we revisit a trip like this, we're reminded of why we started documenting our travels: not to impress anyone, but so that future us can press play and be right back in the moment.

Life has changed a lot since then, as it does for everyone. But the feeling of standing somewhere beautiful, tired and happy, with your person beside you, doesn't fade the way you'd expect.

Over to You

Have you done a split trip like this, with mountains and beaches, or city and island? We'd love to hear how you planned it and what you'd do differently. Drop a comment on the video and tell us where you'd send us next.

Thanks for coming along with us, then and now.

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▶️ Watch the full Short on YouTube

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