Running Across Liechtenstein 🇱🇮

The sixth smallest country on earth

So you want to run across Liechtenstein? It will take you a few hours to complete, but a few months to plan.

I’d had this idea for quite some time, but the biggest question I couldn’t answer was “What is the best way to get to Liechtenstein?”

Liechtenstein is one of two double landlocked countries (the other being Uzbekistan) - meaning that it is landlocked by two countries which are also landlocked (Switzerland + Austria). It also has no airport and only three train stations, one of them belonging to the largest business in Liechtenstein - Hilti.

I ran across it last Sunday, it took me a touch under two hours to run the roughly 27km stretch from the Southern border in Switzerland to the Northern border with Austria. It took me almost as long to get to and from the start line.

But I need to take it back a few steps. Why was I in the second-least visited country in Europe anyway? A couple of years ago I ran across Spain, which, SPOILERS - took a lot longer than two hours. You can read about my experience here:
Life Lessons Learnt on the Camino de Santiago and What It’s Like Running the Camino de Santiago.

Anyone who knows me will know that I can’t sit still. If I have a free weekend, I’m often looking for ways to fill it. Often with trips to other cities (or mountains) domestically or internationally.

Liechtenstein scratched this itch. I would love to visit everywhere my passport will take me, and I currently have a few countries left in Europe. After not visiting anywhere new in 2025, I managed to chalk up another two countries in February alone. The remaining countries are either currently at war or in danger of being invaded, a couple of island nations, and the final few micro-nation-states.

I really had no idea how best to get to Liechtenstein. On a map, it seems the most intuitive way to get here is to fly into Zürich and catch some form of transport over the border(s). But if you read trains > planes, you will know that I absolutely adore travelling on trains.

I’m currently writing this on my way from the Austrian-Liechtenstein border to the German-Austrian border. In 27 minutes, I will enter my fourth country today. I have snow-capped mountains whizzing past me on either side, which is kind of how it felt this morning as I strode my way through Liechtenstein.

Once I get back across the border, I will need to reverse the trip I took to get here by taking a ~3-hour train into Munich before catching the overnight train back to Berlin. Yes, sleeping on the train in an upright seat sucks, but saving €100 on the return journey doesn’t… That paid for my accommodation already.

Doing it like this meant that I also got to check out the island + town of Lindau on Konstanz Lake, spent some time exploring Liechtenstein, my day today in Feldkirch, oh and also a few hours to walk around Munich tonight… but I’ll probably end up in a cafe somewhere continuing with this piece.

I recently watched this documentary about Extreme Birding and have got slightly hooked. It’s like adult Pokémon, but they’re real, and I think it’s cool. This afternoon, I sat up on a hill above a Buddhist monastery reflecting on my weekend when I added three new birds of prey to my life list 🤓

I made some sacrifices with my accommodation, opting for something less cute in exchange for it being directly on the bus line that I needed to get to Liechtenstein. After the overnight train to Munich, I took advantage of my Deutschland Ticket and caught a regional express train to the border for free. I had read conflicting things about crossing the border for free with this ticket, but alas, it wasn’t to be. The train was surprisingly expensive for a journey lasting less than an hour, but the cost of the bus ticket into Liechtenstein surprised me even more, though perhaps this is more reasonable given it allows you to cross into three countries.

After a jaunt across the Liechtenstein border to check out a couple of ruined castles in the morning, I came back into the Airbnb, freshened up, and headed into Vaduz for the day. Despite the persistent rain, I did my best to make the most of the daylight.

Here’s a reminder of what I wrote about in my previous piece 😅

“I think this also comes from a place of me being incredibly diurnal. No matter what time of year it is, I need to absolutely maximise my time outdoors. If the sun is out, so am I. Which can get quite troubling on occassion”

My first stop was alte Rheinbrücke. Built in 1901, this is the last remaining wooden bridge to cross over the Rhine River. It’s a great photo opportunity as it is fully enclosed in timber and has a sign marking the border between Liechtenstein und Schweiz. *The border runs up the middle of the river (pun intended).

I then headed into the postal museum. I love postcards so much that I have a postage stamp tattooed on my arm. Liechtenstein is well known in the Philately world for having had some stunning designs over the years, thanks to Louis Jäger who worked on them for 53 years for the country.

I then made the march up to look at Vaduz Castle, the main residence of the Prince of Liechtenstein. Some quick history for you. The Liechtenstein family are nobles from eastern Austria. They wanted voting rights within the Holy Roman Empire and needed land to be granted these rights. They then bought the Lordship of Schellenberg in 1699 and the County of Vaduz 1712 and were granted a seat at the table. Nobody from the family bothered to visit for over 100 years after the purchase, and it wasn’t until 1938 that this became the main residence for the ruler of Liechtenstein. He is also now the wealthiest monarch in all of Europe.

Tangent aside, I spent some time in the art museum cafe writing before being chased by the police. I left the cafe, turned the corner and had two police officers running after me, yelling. They “wanted to make sure I wasn’t the person they were looking for”, before promptly letting me go.

I had done a bit more wandering around the city throughout the day, so when I got up to run, I knew I wouldn’t need to stop anywhere to interrupt it. I read a couple of articles that ran Liechtenstein from North to South, but I was staying in Austria, relying on public transport, and had to get back to my Airbnb to check out by 12.

I’ve since done a little bit more digging and see that some people have done a variation of the route, which has the Southern border along the highway. Which I do think is rather boring, if you’re going to run along a country that is bordered by the Rhine, you may as well run along that border the entire way.

I created a segment on Strava and it seems that no one else (using the app) has taken the same route as me. Which I can understand, because the starting point that I chose it not very accessible by foot or car. With that in mind, I’ll claim this unofficial FKT (Fastest Known Time) along this border.

I woke up at 6 from some awful nightmares. Lay in bed for a little time and questioned what the hell I was doing - something I often do before a big run. Spoiler alert, this happened to be one of the most enjoyable runs of my life!

I’d done a number on myself the night before. Thinking the supermarket would close at 19:30, like it did the night before. This wasn’t the case, when I checked the bus timetables + supermarket opening hours at 17:10, I found out that the supermarkets in Liechtenstein close at 17:00 on Saturday and those in Austria close at 18:00. I found one shop in the town I was staying in that was open until 19:00, so I hopped on the bus and found that it had closed over half an hour early when I arrived.

Therefore, my breakfast this morning was 4 mini tortillas with a packet of chickpeas, which I thankfully hadn’t eaten at lunch because it was a bit of a pain in the arse to put together on the bridge. I had also had a coffee and a banana before heading up to the bus stop. The bus driver seemed surprised that I was only buying a single ticket without a return… if only he knew.

I was one of three passengers on the second bus of the day, taking it as far south as possible into Liechtenstein before it continued to its terminus in Switzerland. I abruptly ended the call with my parents, had a caffeine Maurten gel and jogged the 2km to the river border. Stepping briefly over into Switzerland before starting my watch again.

I joined the Berlin Braves Racing Department last year and have thus been afforded the privilege of private coaching. In the schedule, I had requested that my long run today would be at least 27 kilometres because I knew I was coming to Liechtenstein and planned to run the whole thing. We also had a call last night, where he generously lent me an ear and then put my mind at ease about the upcoming races that I have.

He had scheduled a 30km run with 15km easy, 10km steady (90-95% Marathon Pace), and 5km cool down. I got the first two mixed up and ended up running across Liechtenstein with more steady running than easy. I planned to run the 11km to the alte Rheinbrücke before picking up the pace for the end of the run - or at least the run across Liechtenstein. I still had to run another 8km back to the Airbnb. Which is why I had gotten up so early and taken many photos yesterday - I knew that I could run 37km in under 4 hours, but I didn’t want to take any chances. I also left my watch running during all of my photo breaks so that the run across the country was “pure”.

The sun rose during my bus journey across the country and even decided to bless me with its presence throughout the second half of the run. Liechtenstein is the point where the Eastern Alps meet the Western Alps. In the valley here, there are also plentiful big mounds of earth, too small to be called a mountain, but too big to be called a hill. One of these juts up immediately beside the river where Liechtenstein becomes Switzerland.

It was from here that I started. As soon as I got up onto the main cycle path, I got battered by some wind blowing across the valley. I could see that roughly a kilometre ahead, I would be shielded by the mountains, so I put my head down and got there as quickly as I could.

After that, the conditions were pretty much perfect. There was little to no wind, and the sky was overcast, with just enough sun to make the mountains look pretty. The route along the river had a net negative elevation overall - in other words, I was running ever so slightly downhill the entire way.

Very quickly, I found my rhythm and settled into a comfortable pace. This allowed me to really take in my surroundings and get into a bit of birding - I think I counted a total of 12 species during my run.

Within Liechtenstein, I ran past the township of Triesen first, with the aptly named Triesenberg sitting up on the mountain above it. Watching over me as I ran past. I tried to wave to every single person who looked at me today - the people driving close to the path, the people fishing within the Rhine, and of course, the other runners on the route.

I was overcome with gratitude very quickly. I always say that the best way to explore somewhere is to run through or around it. On a bike, you travel too fast, and whilst walking, you don’t get to see as much. That said, I was feeling incredibly grateful this morning.

Grateful that I have the opportunity to live in Europe and nip away for the weekend like this.

Grateful that I have strong legs that will carry me across an entire country.

Grateful for the formations of the earth inspiring awe.

After a kink in the river, another couple of kilometres flew by. I had already made it to Vaduz. I had just about finished looking up at the village of Triesenberg when I noticed Vaduz Castle a little further along. I wonder if the Prince saw me running along the river this morning. Perhaps I should have thought to wave up to him, too.

I made it back to alte Rheinbrücke, jogged quickly across the river into Switzerland again, stopped for a selfie in front of the sign, and made my way back into Liechtenstein, ready to pick up the pace.

Despite being the capital, Vaduz only houses 5,000 of the roughly 39,000 inhabitants of Liechtenstein. However, it does host the sole professional football club, which currently competes in the second division of Swiss football. The stadium is a cute little ground, a little further along than the aforementioned wooden bridge.

My goal for this run was to enjoy it as much as possible. Despite having now picked up the pace slightly, I was focusing my attention on the snowiest peaks of the mountains. The main range in Liechtenstein encompasses the entire eastern part of the country. Which still had some snow cover across the peaks. Across the border to my left, there was a single mountain range that was covered in snow, but this was quickly coming to an end as the route made a sweeping right turn.

On this turn, I lost sight of the snow on the mountains in Liechtenstein, but was rewarded with another set of mountains running parallel to the river on the other side once more. This time, with the bonus of having the sun reflecting on them. From here, I spent as much time as possible looking up at the mountains whilst not falling off the path into the water. I knew the end would soon be approaching, and after my final two gels, which tasted as if they had gone off - I was on the final stretch.

I made a little zig, then a zag, and pushed the pace a little bit so that I would definitely finish in under 2 hours. I stopped ever so briefly before starting a new activity on my watch and trudging home. Which makes it sound like it wasn’t enjoyable - quite the contrary, I was now running through wide open fields with even more sweeping views of the mountains I’d just left behind me.

If the question is “Can you run the Entire Length of Liechtenstein?”, then the answer is yes.

If the question is “How do you run the Entire Length of Liechtenstein?”, the answer is a little bit more complicated.

I like the route that I took, but that’s mostly because it was convenient. Though running slightly downhill the entire way has to count for something. To get to/from the river borders, you can catch the number 11 from Feldkirch or anywhere in Liechtenstein to Balzers/Rheinstrasse and travel 2.1km to the southern border. Or, you can catch the 404 bus from Feldkirch to Bangs Zollhauaser and journey 1.4km to the northern border.

Or, you could order a taxi and not be cheap… but that’s not in my nature.

I stayed in Feldkirch, which I do believe to be a fine alternative to Vaduz or Schaan - the two main towns in Liechtenstein. Which I do feel like is just one big village anyway.

For those playing along at home, I arrived back at the guest house at exactly 11am. I spent half an hour on the balcony enjoying the sun and thinking about how awesome my morning was. It’s not so common for me to get the runner’s high these days, but today it was definitely there.

As always, thanks for reading - feel free to reply with which country I should attempt to run across next 🤠