Klosters Has Been the British Royal Family's Quiet Ski Retreat for Decades

Klosters sits in the Prättigau valley of Graubünden, a few minutes by train from Davos but a deliberate world away from it in atmosphere: where Davos built itself around conference halls and large hotels, Klosters stayed a small, quiet village centred on the Gotschna and Parsenn ski areas. That contrast is precisely what drew the man who became King Charles III, who first skied there in the late 1970s and returned most winters for decades, making Klosters one of the more enduring and least performative royal travel habits of the modern era.

A tragedy that defined the relationship

Klosters is also inseparable from one of the darker episodes in modern royal travel history. In March 1988, an off-piste skiing party that included the then Prince of Wales was caught in an avalanche near the Wang run above the village; his friend Major Hugh Lindsay was killed, and Patti Palmer-Tomkinson was seriously injured. Rather than avoiding the village afterward, Charles continued returning to Klosters for years, a decision widely read at the time as a mark of loyalty to a place, and a tragedy, he did not want to be defined by walking away from.

A village built for skiing, not spectacle

Klosters' appeal to a family wanting privacy is structural as much as social: it has no large conference hotels or casino scene of the kind found in St Moritz, and its two ski sectors, Gotschna-Parsenn and Madrisa, are reached directly from the village rather than through resort infrastructure built for mass tourism. The Rhaetian Railway link to Davos and onward to Chur keeps it accessible without requiring the kind of private-jet arrival associated with some other alpine retreats.

Beyond one family

Klosters' quieter reputation has also drawn a longer line of writers and public figures over the decades, including the American novelist Irwin Shaw, who lived in the village for years and helped give it a literary as well as royal association well before it became shorthand for discreet alpine travel. The village has largely kept that lower-key identity even as neighbouring Swiss resorts leaned further into visible luxury.

Traveller tips

• Klosters is reached by direct train from Zurich via Landquart, with the journey taking around two and a half hours.
• A combined Gotschna-Parsenn-Madrisa lift pass covers both of the village's ski sectors.
• The village stays notably quieter than Davos even during peak winter weeks, reflecting its smaller size and lack of conference traffic.
• Summer visitors can use the same lift network for hiking, when the Prättigau valley's trails are largely free of the winter crowds.