Visiting Switzerland but hotel is in France - any issues?

NewStart3r

Hi everyone, 

Quite new to travelling so apologies if this is daft. We want to visit Switzerland later this year and having looked at flights, we can get decent prices on flights to Geneva for the dates we want. Looking at hotels, the ones in Switzerland are quite pricy, but there are a lot of more affordable accommodations just outside the border, and actually in France. 

I've tried to research if we would be ok to fly into Switzerland and book a hotel in France just over the border, but I'm not finding a straight answer. Does anyone have experience of doing this? Is there anything additional we would need to do to make sure there are no issues at the border etc.?

Thanks for any advice you've got  

Alan_Bowen

When you arrive at Geneva Airport you can choose to exit directly into France rather than Switzerland if you want to. Just check how you can get to your hotel from the airport as apart from winter ski transfers, the majority of public transport is on the Swiss side

geordiejon

there is a guy at my local pub who was born in switzerland and goes back to visit family, he normally goes to the pub on a weekend, if you don't get an answer i will ask him this weekend.
one thing he said a while ago is at the airport you can hire cars, one is swiss and one is french so use the french one as its cheaper.

i think alan has nailed it.

TadleyBaggie

I used to visit Grenoble often but opted to fly to Geneva. I always walked into the French side of the airport and picked up a French hire care. The drive down the Rhône valley was superb. 

peb

Not an issue.   Done exactly the same when visiting Annecy in France 

zagfles

France and Switzerland are both in Schengen, but Switzerland isn't in the EU customs union, so there are customs posts at the border but no passport control. So you can cross the border as much as you want but there might be restrictions on what you can take across, for instance limits on booze, tobacco etc.