Liechtenstein's mountain huts, one by one

In a country of 160 km² it’s hard to imagine needing a bed in the mountains, but you do. If you want sunrise on the Naafkopf or to do the Fürstensteig without racing the clock, you’ll need to sleep up high. Here’s what there is, what it costs and the thing nobody mentions until you turn up without cash.

Two Alpine Club huts and a few inns

The Liechtensteiner Alpenverein, the national Alpine club, runs two huts. The Pfälzerhütte sits at 2,108 m on the Bettlerjoch, on the Austrian border, and the Gafadura hut at 1,428 m above Planken. Alongside them are several mountain inns with beds. The tourist board’s hut page brings together the Pfälzerhütte, the Gafadura hut, Berggasthaus MATU at Gaflei and Berggasthaus Sareis, and the Historisches Lexikon also mentions Berggasthaus Sücka above Steg, with rooms, though its data dates from 2011.

If you just want to eat, the list grows. The tourist board lists the Gaflei Stuba, Berggasthaus Masescha, the Bergstübli and the Seeblick at Steg, and a string of restaurants in Malbun.

The Pfälzerhütte, the real thing

If I had one night in the mountains, this is where I’d spend it. It’s a stone building from 1927-1928, its walls built from rock blasted out of the mountain itself, with terraces facing south and west, and the national Alpine club bought it in 1950. From the door you can climb the Naafkopf, where three countries meet, in about two hours there and back. It’s two to three hours on foot from Malbun depending on the route, and the Sareis approach can be shortened with the chairlift when it’s running, and its website shows each day whether it is.

The Gafadura hut, the old hunting lodge

The Gafadura hut has a different feel. It was built in 1926-1927 as a hunting lodge for Prince Johann II, passed into private hands and was opened as an Alpine Club hut on 7 July 1968. It has 14 places in a single room, a terrace looking over the Rhine, and it’s reached from Planken in 90 minutes to two hours. It’s also the natural end point of the Fürstensteig. Two house rules are worth knowing. You can’t eat your own packed food on the terrace, and there’s neither a winter room nor an emergency phone.

The inns, if you’d rather have a room

If you’d prefer a room to a bunk, there are three sourced options. Berggasthaus MATU is at Gaflei, at 1,450 m, has rooms and is recommended by the Alpine Club itself as an overnight stop on the way from the Gafadura hut to the Pfälzerhütte; bus 22 stops outside at Gaflei, Matu. Berggasthaus Sareis, 2,000 m up above Malbun, is on the tourist board’s list of mountain accommodation. And on the Samina valley side, Berggasthaus Sücka at 1,402 m, successor to an 1888-1890 spa house, offered beds according to the Lexikon in 2011; I haven’t seen a more recent source.

What to know before you go up

Rule one is money. Both huts take cash only, in francs or in euros at the day’s rate, so hit a cashpoint before you leave the valley. Rule two is booking. The Pfälzerhütte uses an online system and the Gafadura hut takes bookings by email, and you should say if you want half board or only breakfast. Members of Alpine clubs with reciprocal agreements pay less if they show their card.

Rule three is dates. Neither website publishes the 2026 opening and closing dates, so I’d write before planning anything. In winter the Pfälzerhütte closes and the Adlerhorst stays open, a self-service shelter with a wood stove, a cooker and 21 places at CHF 20 a night. In 2026 the club warned that its solar-powered lighting was playing up, so take a head torch. And under the Alpine Club’s general rules, pets stay out of the dormitories and your rubbish goes back down to the valley.

Hut to hut in three days

If you want to link them up, the tourist board offers an organised three-day version in the summer season, priced at CHF 339 a head in 2026. It climbs from Malbun to the Pfälzerhütte over the Augstenberg, drops down the Valüna valley to Steg, spends a night at Gaflei or Triesenberg and finishes with the Fürstensteig to Planken. I go through it stage by stage in my hut-to-hut Route 66 guide.