Driving to Davos: the Prättigau, the Wolfgang and the Flüela
Do you need a Swiss vignette to drive to Davos, and which road is open in winter?
For part of the journey, yes, but very likely not for the last stretch. The approach from Landquart through the Prättigau to Klosters and over the Wolfgangpass into Davos runs on main road 28, which carries ordinary blue signage where a charged motorway would be green; the motorway you take to reach Landquart is charged. Switzerland sells the vignette by the year and in no shorter form, so there is nothing small to buy for the motorway part.
From Landquart up the Prättigau
The Prättigau road leaves the Rhine valley at Landquart and follows Hauptstrasse 28 up to Klosters. The same number carries on over the Wolfgangpass into Davos, then over the Flüelapass towards the Engadin and over the Ofenpass to the Italian border.
The stretch that runs from Landquart as far as Klosters Selfranga was taken into the federal national road network in 2002, but built to a standard that keeps the character and the blue signs of an ordinary main road. Blue signs instead of green ones mean no vignette is owed on it, though only secondary sources describe that classification.
Settle the vignette question by the road you arrive on. The canton you end up in has nothing to do with it.
The Wolfgangpass is the winter way in
The Wolfgangpass, at 1,631 metres, links Klosters in the Prättigau with Davos in the Landwassertal across about 12 kilometres of road with a maximum gradient of ten per cent.
An encyclopaedia entry is the only place we found it said that this road has no winter closure and is kept open essentially year round. That is a thin footing for the routing advice it supports, because the whole reason a February arrival in Davos comes up from Landquart is that this pass stays open when the Flüela does not. Neither the canton of Graubünden nor the federal roads office would confirm it for us.
Read the road report on the morning you travel anyway. No closure in principle is not the same as no closure today.
The Flüelapass shuts, and that redraws the map
The Flüelapass, the direct road from Davos towards the Engadin, closes every winter. The Rhaetian Railway confirms it from the other side: it extends its own Vereina timetable each year until the pass road opens.
A driver carrying on from Davos to St. Moritz in the ski season therefore turns back through Klosters and loads the car onto the car train. the drive to St. Moritz covers that crossing in detail.
Do not put a Davos to Engadin day trip over the Flüela in a winter itinerary. Plan the Vereina instead and book the slot.
Where the charge is owed on this drive
Road class decides it, not distance and not destination. Only first and second class national roads are charged, so a driver who reaches Landquart on the A13 through the Rhine valley has already used a charged road before the Prättigau begins.
The A13 itself is described as running from St. Margrethen through the Rhine valley to Chur and on over the San Bernardino to Bellinzona. It does not continue into the Prättigau, so it plays no part in the last hour to Davos.
Switzerland has nothing shorter to sell for that motorway half of the drive. The annual is the whole catalogue, as the Swiss vignette options page sets out, and it is the same product from BAZG's shop, from a staffed customs post at the border, or from us with a service fee added and itemised before checkout.