Arboretum de l'Aubonne with Kids: One of Switzerland's Most Beautiful Family Nature Walks

The Arboretum de l'Aubonne is one of Switzerland's most underrated family attractions, combining peaceful walking trails, giant trees, wooden bridges and beautiful views in a unique natural setting between Lausanne and Geneva. Home to thousands of tree species from around the world, this vast outdoor park offers children plenty of space to explore while learning about nature along the way. Whether you're looking for a family walk in Vaud, a relaxing day outdoors or one of the best hidden gems near Lake Geneva, the Arboretum de l'Aubonne is a destination well worth discovering. (Updated: June 2026)

We first went here on a chilly day last Autumn and fell in love with the place so we went back again this weekend to enjoy a walk in the sunshine.

It’s situated just above Aubonne and well signposted. There is plenty of parking then you follow the signs to the start of the arboretum.

Path between the parking and the reception

Reception

There seem to be lots of possible paths around the area and we have tried two so far.  Both took us across a bridge over a rushing river which is beautiful. The first time we took a path to the right after the river which took us through the Japanese gardens. It was a fairly steep single path leading through the woods and we were surrounded by beautiful foliage at that time of the year. Jude was a bit younger then and found it quite hard so we didn’t complete the whole circuit but it was a pretty walk and I think we would find it easy now.

The other path takes you round to the left after the bridge and is more open with a proper path leading you round to the lake which was beautiful in the sun.

There are some good places to sit and space to picnic or have a BBQ. The path then takes you up through the trees before returning to the beginning again.

At the entrance of the arboretum is a small restaurant and kiosk selling drinks and snacks and a nice area with tables to sit at to eat.

This is a really nice walk of 1 hour and really interesting to discover a very large variety of trees and plants.

Information

Parking : Yes

Toilets : Yes

Baby Change Facilities : No

Accessibility : The lake path is possible with a pushchair but it's quite steep in places