Engelberg is a small town that is an hour train ride from Luzern with trains going between the two roughly every hour. There isn't much to do in the town itself, but it serves as a starting point for a variety of mountain activities in the area. I'll cover the two things I did out of Engelberg, although I'm sure there are far more options, my two trips being a quick day excursion on the 4 Lake Hike and a group trip with the ThinkSwiss Program to Mt. Titlis. 

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4 Lake Hike:

    The Sunday I did this hike I woke up later than my usual 5:50 am weekend alarm which signals that it's time to get up and go hiking. On Saturday I had gone to do the Edelweisseg in Zermatt which involved a 7 hour round trip train ride accompanied by a long 9 hour hike. So allowing myself to sleep in until about 8 I put on my running shoes (my feet being too beat up for boots) and decided to go find and easy nearby hike I could check out.  I decided on the 4 Lake Hike as it was only about 2 hours from Zurich to the start, and I was on my way. I'm lucky that I made myself get out of my room that morning because this hike was really a treat. More hardcore hiking buffs will probably find the trail itself a bit boring and the end sections to be a bit too touristy, but the views themselves are quite good and the trail is very accessible. If you are with family or you want a hike where you can feel a bit more relaxed this is a great destination for you.

    For reference here is a map of the hiking area. To start you can either choose to hike up right from Engelberg to Trübsee, the first of the four lakes going from Engelberg, and Jochpass or take a cable car/chair lift up to either as the starting point of the hike. I decided to skip right on up to Jochpass to start to make the hiking easier, and because I didn't think the views on this side were all that special. Trübsee itself has a small playground area around it, and an area to rent row boats if you are looking for additional things to do.

    Starting at Jochpass most of the hike from here on is downhill, and very easy. You pass by the second lake, Engstlensee, which I think is probably the nicest one. There is then a small group of buildings with restaurants and a parking lot, I'm unsure if there's a bus to here or not, and you will see a lot of people hanging out in this area. If you have a car I think that this would actually be a pretty good way to get to this hike as it will save you money on a cable car and quicken the trip. 

    The hike is then finished by going to Tannensee and the little resort area of Melchsee-Frutt. You can take a small "train" back and forth between these last two lakes and at this point it's not really much of a hike so feel free to hop on if you're tired because I don't think you will miss much. You can then get a cable car down from Melchsee-Frutt and catch a bus. However, the bus ride is quite long, and it will not take you back to Engelberg, you're going to have to catch a train and figure out where you need to go with the SBB app. 

    If I did this hike again I think that I may change the last section. Although the end was nice it wasn't really that interesting going from Tannensee to Melchsee-Frutt. Instead I would diverge from Tannensee and head to Alpen Tower in Haslital, an area I took a cable car to after a half day of work but never had time to hike at, because the views from there are really spectacular. I'm not sure how much additional time this would add to the hike, and it would definitely throw in some elevation gain. I don't think it would be much more than two hours though. You can see the map for the Haslital area here. The trail in question being the Horizontweg, marked with the letter D. From there you can get a cable car down and go by bus/train back to Luzern in about 1.5 hours.