Doing a Season in Davos-Klosters

Davos claims to be Europe's highest city — at 1,560m, with a year-round population of around 11,000 that qualifies as a city under Swiss definitions rather than a village or resort. That distinction is not marketing fluff. It shapes the experience of doing a season here in ways that become obvious within the first week.

This is not a purpose-built ski station. It's a functioning city with a hospital, banks, schools, multiple supermarkets, a cinema, and one of the world's most significant annual conferences on the calendar. For the four to six months you're here, you're living in a Swiss city that happens to have one of the Alps' most extensive ski areas above it — not in a ski village that closes in May.

The Ski Area

The combined Davos-Klosters area covers approximately 330km of piste across five sectors. Understanding the geography matters because the sectors are genuinely distinct in character.

Parsenn

The primary sector and the reason most people are drawn to Davos in the first place. The Weissfluhjoch summit sits at 2,844m, and from here a network of long, sustained runs descends in multiple directions. The jewel is the descent to Klosters and onward to Kublis — 12km of mountain, 2,000m of vertical drop, finishing at 838m above sea level. On a good snow day, with proper conditions top to bottom, this is one of the great mountain descents in the world. It's not technical by expert standards — advanced intermediate skiers handle it comfortably — but the sheer scale and sustained length is something you won't find in most ski areas. As a seasonaire, you can ski this run repeatedly across a winter and still find interest in it.

Parsenn's terrain is predominantly intermediate to advanced, with long red and blue runs that reward skiers who want to build real technical consistency on sustained pitches. It's not a terrain park resort and it's not primarily a freeride destination — it rewards classical alpine skiing done well.

Jakobshorn

Faces Parsenn from the opposite side of the Davos valley, accessed from the town centre by gondola. Jakobshorn has a different character: freestyle-focused, with a consistent terrain park and halfpipe, and more concentrated off-piste terrain accessible from the pisted runs. The south-facing aspect means afternoon snow softening in spring. This is where the snowboard and freestyle ski community concentrates.

Pischa

Smaller, quieter, backcountry-oriented. Pischa is where those seeking ski touring access and fewer crowds go. It's not the area for piste mileage — it's the area for space and off-piste exploration.

Madrisa and Rinerhorn

The outlying sectors — Madrisa above Klosters Dorf, Rinerhorn on the opposite side of the Davos valley from Parsenn. Both are smaller and quieter than the main areas. Madrisa has good beginner and lower-intermediate terrain; Rinerhorn is underrated for intermediate runs and less crowded than Parsenn on peak days.

Davos as a Place to Live

The city distinction earns its weight. A seasonaire's daily life in Davos is materially different from life in a small resort village, and largely in your favour.

Supermarkets: Coop and Migros at city scale, with full ranges and city pricing. You're not buying groceries from a resort convenience store at resort margins. Weekly food costs run broadly in line with Swiss urban norms, which are high by European standards but not the captive-resort premium you'd pay in smaller mountain villages.

Healthcare: Spital Davos is a full hospital. If something goes wrong on the mountain — which across a season is more likely than you'd prefer to think about — you're not being transported an hour to an urban centre. The hospital is in town.

The World Economic Forum: Each January, Davos transforms for five days. Security perimeters go up, helicopters become background noise, and the clientele shifts dramatically. For a seasonaire, WEF is mostly notable as spectacle — the city continues to function around it, the ski area remains open, and your job continues regardless. But it's worth knowing it's coming.

The literary history: Thomas Mann set "The Magic Mountain" in Davos's tuberculosis sanatoriums, which drove the city's development in the late nineteenth century as wealthy Europeans came to convalesce at altitude. As TB treatment improved, the sanatoriums became hotels and the guests stayed to ski. The grand hotels you're serving drinks in or making beds in have that layered history behind them.

Cost and Accommodation

Switzerland. This requires no qualification — costs are high across the board. Shared accommodation in Davos runs CHF 700–1,300 per month depending on quality and proximity to the ski lifts.

The city's scale moderates the accommodation competition somewhat. Davos has significantly more housing stock than smaller resort villages like Verbier or Saas-Fee, which means less of the extreme scarcity that pushes seasonaire accommodation costs to their worst in those places. You'll still pay Swiss prices, but you're competing for accommodation in a city rather than in a purpose-built ski village where every room has one possible use.

Working Rights

Switzerland operates under EU bilateral free movement for EU/EFTA nationals — straightforward. Post-Brexit, UK citizens no longer have automatic rights and face a more complex process. Australian and New Zealand nationals have Working Holiday Visa arrangements with Switzerland. Check /visa-guides/switzerland for current specifics — Swiss work permit administration is genuinely more involved than France or Austria.

The Job Market

The employer base in Davos is substantial. The Steigenberger Grandhotel Belvédère, the InterContinental Davos, and multiple independent four and five-star hotels generate significant hospitality employment. The congress and conference industry — the WEF is the most famous event, but Davos hosts major conferences year-round — adds employment that has no equivalent in a conventional ski resort.

Davos Klosters Mountains (the ski area operator) employs mountain operations staff across the five sectors. The ski school is large.

The critical variable: German language ability opens significantly more doors here than in French Alpine resorts. Davos is in Graubünden canton, which is Swiss German-speaking (the canton also has Romansh as an official language, but you'll encounter it rarely). Hospitality roles in the grand hotels often operate with a multilingual mix, but local and Swiss roles in mountain operations, retail, and mid-range hospitality lean heavily German. Basic German dramatically widens your options.

Who Davos Suits

Davos suits seasonaires who want Swiss scale and city infrastructure over the intimacy and isolation of a small resort village. If the idea of a pharmacy two minutes' walk from your flat, a cinema on a rest day, and a hospital in town sounds genuinely appealing rather than beside the point, Davos is worth taking seriously as a base.

The Parsenn's long descents reward skiers who want to develop real technical consistency on sustained terrain rather than repeat short laps on varied features. Expert skiers come for the Parsenn and the off-piste access from Pischa. Jakobshorn makes it viable for dedicated snowboarders and freestyle skiers.

The German-speaking environment is genuine here in a way it isn't always in Alpine resorts that have become heavily anglicised. If Swiss German cultural immersion and language development is part of what you're looking for from a season, Davos is one of the better choices in the Alps.