Zug is a wonderful place to live, right on the edge of the alps, with a large English speaking community. So various facilities are available but you will need to contact your local community group to find them. Try the "London Store" or the Anglican Church at Steinhausen for a ready network.

Children in Switzerland start school at seven but kindergarten is available before then (Get the book Living and Working in Switzerland by David Hampshire. It's the expat bible for this country and will give you most of the answers.)

There are no really bad places to live around Zug but rents are high as is demand for flats there. Try Immopool.ch for flat hunting and good luck.

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I live not far from Zug and have a lot of info I can e-mail to you as an attachment.

You can write me at...

carmencrenshawhovey@yahoo.com

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Hi,
I'm also Canadian and have a nearly 5 year-old and am currently living in Cham. Both Cham and Baar have large expat communities, as does Zug. It's relatively difficult to find housing in Canton Zug, so I think your priority will be finding a suitable home regardless of where it is in the greater Zug area. (If you speak German, check out www.amtsblatt.ch.) We were happy to find a place in Cham, which has the advantage of a beautiful lakefront park, but probably has fewer English-speakers than Baar.

Baar and Hünenberg (close to Cham) both have English-speaking preschools for 2-6 year-olds. Stepping Stones (www.steppingstones.ch) and the Montessori Kindergarten (www.montessorizug.ch) are in Baar; The Bee Hive is in Hünenberg (info@beehive-preschool.ch). All three are no more than a 15-minute drive apart (eg even if you live in Baar you can easily get to the Bee Hive and vice versa). Official Kindergarten doesn't start until age 5 in Canton Zug unless your children were born in Jan or Feb, in which case they will start Kindergarten when they're 4 1/2. The language of instruction is Swiss German. Aside from the two preschools which offer English Kindergartens, the International School in Baar offers preschool, Kindergarten and Elementary schooling in English (office@isoz.ch). Both Cham and Baar also offer Swiss German playgroups for 3-5 year-olds, which are traditionally only one or two half-days a week.

A great English-speaking community is the International Mums and Kids Club, which has playgroups for Mums & Kids nearly every morning of the week in Baar. Different age-groups have different days of the week assigned to them (imkc.membership@bluewin.ch). There's also an International Women's Club (www.ziwc.ch), but which tends to focus its activities around women without children. The International School is also a very large community.

Depending on how long you think you'll be here, you'll have to make the decision whether or not to send your children to the local school in Swiss German. If you choose to do so, I'd recommend a local playgroup so they can get some exposure to the language first. If, however, you know you want to keep your kids in an English-speaking environment, you can certainly do that here.

Good luck! And feel free to contact me for any further information, or to have a coffee when you arrive!

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Hello there

You are coming to a fabulous part of the worlld to live - I've been here just over 10 years now and am very happy.

Housing is tight though and it might be that you need to build some flexibility into your plans depending on what you expectations are.

The Cham and Baar areas have quite a number of residential areas which are child friendly - and also handy for the international school if that is where your children will be going.

Please feel free to e-mail me with any questions as I am invoived very much in the relocation world for this area (primarily Zug, Luzern and sometimes Zurich) professionally and would certainly be able to help.

Good luck and best wishes
Nicki
You can reach me directly via suerli@gmx.ch

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