About Sweden

Sweden is a country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. With over 267,000 islands, it is the country with the most islands in the world, the largest Nordic country, and the fifth-largest country in Europe. Its capital and largest city is Stockholm.

For most pop culture enthusiasts, Sweden is famous for its pop music, ABBA, Greta Thunberg, Ikea, Hygge, and PewDiePie. Still, tourists travel to the country mainly for its breathtaking views, abundant forests, picturesque lakes, and northern lights.

Attractions and Things to Do

Sweden's tourist attractions range from grand palaces and medieval towns to the famed Ice Hotel and Arctic northern lights. There are so many things to do that you'll want to allow plenty of time to enjoy all its outdoor adventures and historical treasures, such as:

Aurora Borealis, or the Northern Lights, is one of the most famous natural occurrences in the entire world. And, even though it is not exclusive to Sweden, it is still one of the best places in the world where you can go and see them for yourself. The best time to see the Northern Lights in Sweden is between November and March. And you have the best chance of witnessing them if you go to Abisko National Park with its clear skies and Aurora sky station.

Stockholm's Old Town, known as Gamla Stan, is a small concentrated area where the city was founded in the middle of the 13th century. Much of the medieval enclave remains, although, in typical Scandinavian style, it is freshly brushed and painted regularly. Its charm is in the architecture along its narrow stone-paved lanes and cobbled streets around its squares, especially the main one, Stortorget, surrounded by old merchants' houses.

In this neighborhood, along with plenty of shops, restaurants, and cafés, you'll find the Nobel Museum, the Post Museum, the Royal Coin Cabinet, and several churches. It's also an excellent area to stay if you can find suitable accommodations, with options including luxury boutique hotels, guesthouses, and even affordable inns and hostels.

The original Ice Hotel is an actual hotel and art exhibition made out of ice coming from the river Torne. First founded in 1989, its design and appearance are recreated yearly in a new design depending on the season’s featured artists from across the globe. It is located 200km north of the Arctic Circle, in the Swedish village of Jukkasjärvi.

During winter, the Ice Hotel offers a mixture of hot and cold rooms, with the cold rooms literally featuring beds made of ice. Jukkasjärvi is a center for river rafting, stand-up paddle boarding, fishing, and canoeing in the summer.

The Vasa Museum (Vasamuseet) in Stockholm is Sweden's most popular museum and attracts around a million visitors annually. Featuring the well-preserved wreck of the 64-gun Swedish Imperial warship Vasa, which sank on its maiden voyage in 1628, the ship lay below the icy waters for more than three centuries until in 1961, an incredibly ambitious salvage operation took place. Now, visitors worldwide come to see this fascinating time capsule.

The museum caters to tourists of all nationalities, and English language guided tours and audio guides are available, as well as a souvenir shop and a restaurant.

Tours Available

If you're looking for unique places to tour around, you might want to check out the fairy-tale Drottningholm Palace (Drottningholms slott), or Queen’s Island Palace on the island of Lovö, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site that lies about 11 kilometers west of Stockholm city center (45 minutes by ferry). Dating from the 17th century, the palace is now the official residence of the Swedish Royal Family.

Attractions include bronze sculptures from Bohemia and Denmark dotting the palace park; the Chinese Pavilion, which dates from the late 1700s; the 18th-century Palace Theatre which is open during the summer months; while the Theatre Museum features performances in period stage costumes and stage scenery.

Love museums instead? You can grab a tour to the Skansen, is the world's oldest open-air museum (and one of the world's largest), and is a historic village made up of houses and farmsteads moved in from all over Sweden. Located in the huge urban Djurgården park, a favorite place for locals, these impressively preserved buildings represent both rural and urban culture at various periods from 1720 to the 1960s to showcase old Swedish folk life and traditions from all over Sweden.

Other attractions include a zoo featuring animals living in Scandinavia; Skansen Park Open Air Museum; ABBA the Museum where the world famous pop group’s collected works are showcased in a contemporary, interactive setting; the Gröna Lund amusement park; and a variety of traditional cafés, restaurants, snack-bars, and hotels.

Getting around

The public transport system in Sweden is one of Europe’s most efficient. There’s a comprehensive train network in the south of the country; the national train operator is SJ, which runs an extensive network across the whole of Sweden. Individual train tickets are rarely cost-effective, and visitors doing a lot of touring by train may be better off buying a train pass such as InterRail. A one-country InterRail pass for Sweden allows up to eight days’ travel in one month and starts at £153.

If you’re in Sweden for any length of time, traveling at least part of the summer-only Inlandsbanan, which runs through central and northern Sweden, is a must. The route takes in some of the country’s most unspoiled terrain and offers a chance to see real off-the-beaten-track Sweden.

In the north traveling by train isn’t quite so easy; however, it’s still possible to reach the main towns in the north by train, and where train services no longer exist, buses generally cover the same routes. Most long-distance buses are operated by one of two companies, Swebus and Nettbuss.

The main players on the Swedish domestic airline market are: SAS, Norwegian, and Nextjet. When booked well in advance, one-way fares on most routes begin at around 450kr.

In a country with such an extensive coastline and many lakes, it’s only natural that domestic ferry services in Sweden are many and varied. The main route is between Visby, on the Baltic island of Gotland, and Nynäshamn, on the mainland near Stockholm, while many of the various archipelagos off the coast – particularly the Stockholm archipelago with its 24,000 islands – have ferry services that link up the main islands in the group. Departures are very popular in summer, and you should try to book ahead.

Finally, look out for the city and regional discount cards, which often give free use of local transport, free museum entry, and other discounts.

What to Eat

No doubt you’re probably familiar with Sweden’s world-famous meatballs, but there’s so much more to Swedish food than that. From soft, crisp bread to tender, melt-in-mouth fish and meat from the mountains and forests, there’s a whirlwind of freshness and flavor in this unique Scandinavian cuisine.

Swedish smorgasbord, is a buffet offering a variety of fish dishes, cheeses, and hot and cold foods. Traditionally, the foods were set out on long tables from which the diners helped themselves and a modern smorgasbord may be a simple appetizer table offering the essential bread, butter, cheese, and pickled and marinated herring, or it may be an elaborate display of scores of hot and cold dishes, including herring prepared a dozen ways, pâtés, cold meats, and salads as well as Swedish specialties such as gravlax (marinated salmon), meatballs, and “Jansson’s temptation,” a casserole of potatoes, onions, anchovies, and cream.

Köttbullar, or meatballs, is Sweden’s national dish made famous worldwide via IKEA restaurants and has a very important role in Swedish cuisine. It’s served both as an everyday meal and as special meal during the holidays. Christmas, Easter, Midsummer. The recipe is simple and goes way back: minced pork or beef, onion, egg, milk, and breadcrumbs lightly seasoned with salt and pepper.

Mixed and fried in a generous amount of butter, it’s traditionally served with mashed potato, lingonberry jam, and brown cream sauce.

Sill (Pickled Herring) is another historical Swedish dish with long traditions. Herring is preserved in barrels with great amounts of salt or dry it so that it can either be sold and transported or saved for the winter. Today the most popular way to prepare and serve the herring is to pickle it. After the pickling process, the fish is flavored with mustard, garlic, onion, herbs, and others before serving and is usually eaten all year round with potatoes, egg, sour cream, and crisp bread (knäckebröd).

Many Swedes grow up eating pea soup and pancakes (ärtsoppa och pannkakor) every Thursday. This tradition has been upheld by the Swedish Armed Forces, restaurants, and schools since World War II.

The pea soup is made from dried yellow peas and pork broth, seasoned with thyme, and topped with salty pieces of pork and mustard. This is often served with a warm punch drink, and for dessert, Pannkakor (pancakes) with lingonberry jam or any kind of jam (sylt) is served.

Decorating the window displays of bakeries throughout Sweden is the all-time favorite green princess cake or prinsesstårta, topped with a bright pink sugar rose. This cake appears on many holidays in Sweden, but it's also often used to mark milestones in people’s lives.

Comprising layers of yellow sponge cake lined with jam and vanilla custard and then finished off with a heavy topping of whipped cream, the cake is carefully sealed with a thin layer of sugary sweet green marzipan. Princess cake can also come in a variety of colors depending on the occasion – from the classic green to yellow for Easter, red at Christmas, orange for Halloween and white for weddings.

Overall

With its rich history and varied landscapes, Sweden is a traveler's paradise. The roads and public transport are excellent, the citizens are invariably friendly and helpful, and in recent years, Swedish cuisine design and lifestyle have become global trends. Furthermore, if you love the outdoors, it's a country that certainly should be on your bucket list with its thousands of acres of unspoiled forests and majestic lakes to explore, not to mention the vast archipelagos along its coasts.

Throw in a rich history and unique culture that is an eclectic mix of Viking lore, catchy pop music, and social welfare; one thing is certain, Sweden will never be boring.