Top 10 Things To Do in Sweden (City Guides) Wimup

Quick answer · where to go in Sweden

Start in Stockholm for three or four nights, then pick which Sweden you want. West: Gothenburg is three hours away by train, with the archipelago and the shellfish. South: Malmö and the Skåne coast, with Copenhagen half an hour over the bridge. North: the night train to Abisko and Kiruna for the fells, the midnight sun in summer and the aurora from autumn. June to August is the long-daylight window. February and March are the reliable months for snow and northern lights.

All regions Stockholm & Uppland West Coast Skåne & the south Gotland Dalarna Jämtland fells Swedish Lapland

Jump to City guides Fun fact Stereotypes Famous Swedes Food FAQ

2 Sweden city guides

Sorted by what travelers are saving this month.

Gothenburg

Europe · 10 picks

Stockholm

Europe · 10 picks

Fun fact

One number worth knowing

Allemansrätten, the right of public access, lets anyone walk, cycle, swim and camp for a night on almost any land in Sweden, including private property, as long as they avoid gardens and crops and leave no trace. It is written into the constitution.

Stereotypes, sorted out

The clichés you have heard, what is actually true, and how to fit in.

"It is dark and freezing all year"

The realityLatitude cuts both ways. Stockholm in late June gets light that barely leaves, and above the Arctic Circle the sun does not set at all for weeks. The Baltic is warm enough to swim in by August.

"Swedes are cold and unfriendly"

The realityReserved is not the same as unfriendly. Nobody will make small talk with you in a queue, and the same person will give you twenty minutes of directions the moment you ask. Warmth here is offered, not broadcast.

"It is all IKEA, ABBA and meatballs"

The realityThose are the exports. Underneath them sits a Sámi reindeer-herding culture in the north, a Baltic island with a walled medieval town, a west coast built on shellfish, and one of the densest music-production scenes in Europe.

"Everything is unaffordably expensive"

The realityRestaurants and alcohol are. Almost nothing outdoors is. Trails, wild camping, swimming and the archipelago cost nothing beyond getting there, and the weekday lunch deal is the cheapest hot meal on any menu.

"Stockholm is Sweden"

The realityThe Stockholm region holds roughly a fifth of the population and none of the fells. Gothenburg has its own accent and its own opinion of the capital, Skåne sounds closer to Danish, and Norrland is more than half the land area.

Fika twice a dayShoes off at the doorA queue ticket for everythingMidsummer poles and pickled herringRed cottages with white trimFriday tacosA swim, then a sauna

Cultural notes that actually help

Take your shoes off indoors. It is not optional in a Swedish home, and nobody will tell you twice.
Take a queue ticket. Pharmacies, bakeries, government offices and Systembolaget all run on numbers, and standing in line without one gets you nowhere.
Do not tip out of habit. Service is included, rounding up is the whole gesture, and a percentage reads as foreign rather than generous.
Split the bill. Paying for the table is not a kindness here, and every card terminal is set up to divide.
Silence is comfortable. A long pause in a conversation is not awkward and does not need filling.
Use allemansrätten properly: one night in a spot, well away from houses, nothing left behind. The right survives because people keep to it.
Say hej. It covers hello from a shop counter to a stranger on a trail, and hej hej covers goodbye.

Famous Swedish faces

The names behind Sweden's music, screen, sport, science, writing, art, business and public life. Pick a field.

ABBA

The Stockholm quartet that won Eurovision in 1974 and never left the charts

Ingmar Bergman

Director of The Seventh Seal and Persona, and the reason Fårö is on film maps

Greta Garbo

Hollywood's most famous recluse, and the face of the silent-to-sound transition

Astrid Lindgren

Created Pippi Longstocking and Emil, and shaped how Sweden thinks about childhood

Alfred Nobel

Invented dynamite and left his fortune to the prizes that carry his name

Zlatan Ibrahimović

Sweden's all-time leading goalscorer, and its loudest export

Björn Borg

Won Wimbledon five years running, then walked away at 26

Ingvar Kamprad

Founded IKEA at 17, naming it after himself, his farm and his village

Avicii

Tim Bergling, the producer who took Swedish house onto global radio

Max Martin

The Stockholm producer behind three decades of American pop number ones

Robyn

Left the majors and released Body Talk on her own label

Swedish House Mafia

The trio that made Stockholm a capital of dance music

Zara Larsson

Pop export who started by winning Talang at ten

First Aid Kit

The Söderberg sisters, who took Swedish folk-country international

José González

Gothenburg songwriter whose fingerpicked covers travelled further than the originals

Jussi Björling

The tenor every other Swedish voice is still measured against

Ingrid Bergman

Casablanca and Notorious, and three Academy Awards

Max von Sydow

Played chess with Death for Bergman, then worked for sixty years everywhere else

Alicia Vikander

Won the Academy Award for supporting actress for The Danish Girl

Stellan Skarsgård

Four decades of work, from Breaking the Waves to Dune

Noomi Rapace

The original Lisbeth Salander

Lasse Hallström

Directed My Life as a Dog, and most of ABBA's music videos before it

Ingemar Stenmark

Won 86 Alpine World Cup races, still the men's record

Annika Sörenstam

Ten major titles, and the first woman to play a PGA Tour event since 1945

Armand Duplantis

The pole vaulter who keeps raising his own world record for Sweden

Charlotte Kalla

Cross-country skier with Olympic gold across three Games

Peter Forsberg

Won the 1994 Olympic final with a shootout goal that ended up on a stamp

Henrik Lundqvist

Vezina-winning goaltender, and Sweden's face in the NHL for a decade

Carl Linnaeus

The Uppsala botanist who gave every living thing a two-word name

Anders Celsius

The Uppsala astronomer behind the temperature scale

Svante Arrhenius

Nobel chemist, and the first to calculate how carbon dioxide warms the planet

Selma Lagerlöf

First woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature

August Strindberg

Playwright, novelist and painter, and where modern Swedish prose starts

Stieg Larsson

Wrote the Millennium trilogy, published after his death

Henning Mankell

Created Wallander, and put Ystad on the map for a generation of readers

Tomas Tranströmer

Nobel laureate poet, and a working psychologist for most of his life

Carl Larsson

His watercolours of a Dalarna house exported the Swedish interior

Anders Zorn

Portrait painter from Mora who worked for three American presidents

Hilma af Klint

Painted abstract canvases years before Kandinsky, then asked that they wait

Daniel Ek

Co-founded Spotify in Stockholm and rebuilt how music gets paid for

Markus Persson

Wrote Minecraft alone before selling it to Microsoft

Erling Persson

Opened the shop in Västerås that became H&M

Dag Hammarskjöld

Second Secretary-General of the United Nations

Raoul Wallenberg

Issued protective passports in wartime Budapest and saved thousands

Olof Palme

Prime minister, assassinated on a Stockholm street in 1986

Greta Thunberg

Started a school strike outside the Riksdag that spread worldwide

Must-try Swedish food

The classics, then the sea, the north, and everything fika covers. Pick a category.

Köttbullar

Small pork and beef meatballs with cream sauce, lingonberries and pressed cucumber.

Pyttipanna

Diced potato, onion and leftover meat fried hard, topped with a fried egg and beetroot.

Janssons frestelse

Potato, onion and sprats baked in cream, and a fixture of every Christmas table.

Raggmunk

Potato pancakes fried crisp, served with fried pork and lingonberries.

Ärtsoppa

Yellow pea soup with pork, eaten on Thursdays, with pancakes after.

Kalops

Slow beef stew with allspice and bay, and pickled beetroot on the side.

Falukorv

A thick mild sausage, sliced and fried or baked whole with cheese and mustard.

Kroppkakor

Potato dumplings stuffed with pork and onion, from Öland and Småland.

Gravad lax

Salmon cured with salt, sugar and dill, sliced thin and served with mustard sauce.

Inlagd sill

Pickled herring in a dozen dressings, always with new potatoes and dill.

Toast Skagen

Prawns in dill mayonnaise piled on fried bread, with roe on top.

Löjrom

Vendace roe from the Kalix coast, served with sour cream and finely chopped red onion.

Kräftor

Crayfish boiled in dill, eaten outdoors in August with paper hats and drinking songs.

Surströmming

Fermented Baltic herring, opened outdoors and eaten in a flatbread roll. A tradition, not a dare.

Räksmörgås

An open prawn sandwich built high enough to need a knife and fork.

Renskav

Shaved reindeer fried with mushrooms and cream, over mash and lingonberries.

Suovas

Cold-smoked reindeer from Sámi kitchens, sliced into a flatbread wrap.

Palt

Dense potato dumplings from Norrbotten, boiled with cured pork inside.

Hjortron

Cloudberries picked from the northern bogs, warmed over ice cream or soft cheese.

Kanelbulle

The cinnamon bun: cardamom in the dough, pearl sugar on top. Fika's default order.

Kardemummabulle

The cardamom sibling, and the one Swedes order when nobody is watching.

Kladdkaka

A chocolate cake taken out of the oven early on purpose, still sticky in the middle.

Chokladboll

No-bake oat and cocoa balls rolled in coconut or pearl sugar.

Prinsesstårta

Sponge, jam and cream under a dome of pale green marzipan.

Semla

Cardamom bun filled with almond paste and whipped cream, eaten through the weeks before Lent.

Lussekatt

Saffron buns curled into an S, baked for Lucia in December.

Pepparkakor

Thin ginger snaps, snapped in the palm for luck at Christmas.

Tunnbrödsrulle

Flatbread rolled around mash, sausage, prawn salad and crisp fried onion.

Korv med bröd

The grilled sausage in bread that every kiosk and ferry terminal sells.

Kebabpizza

Sweden's own invention: pizza under kebab meat and a garlic sauce.

Glögg

Mulled wine with almonds and raisins in the bottom of the cup, from Advent onward.

Julmust

A dark malt soft drink that outsells cola in Sweden every December.

Snaps

Spiced aquavit taken in small glasses, and never without a song first.

Punsch

A sweet arrack liqueur, traditionally drunk warm alongside Thursday's pea soup.

Kaffe

Sweden drinks more coffee per head than almost anywhere, and fika is the reason.

Sweden travel FAQ

How many days do you need in Sweden?+

Eight to twelve days covers a first trip. Give Stockholm three or four nights, add Gothenburg or the Skåne coast by train, and keep three days spare if you are going north, because Lapland is a night away and rewards more than a look.

When is the best time to visit Sweden?+

Two answers, and they are opposite seasons. June to August for the long light, the archipelago and the swimming, with July the busiest month by some distance. February and March for reliable snow, the ski season and the best odds on the northern lights.

Is Sweden expensive?+

Eating and drinking out are the expensive parts, and alcohol especially so. Being outdoors costs close to nothing: allemansrätten covers wild camping, the trails are public, and the weekday lunch deal is the cheapest hot meal in the country.

Can you see the northern lights in Sweden?+

In the north, yes. Abisko has the reputation because a gap in the mountains leaves it unusually dry and clear. The season runs from roughly September to March, it needs a dark clear night, and no operator can promise one. Stockholm sits too far south to plan a trip around.

Do you need cash in Sweden?+

Rarely. Cards and phone payments are taken almost everywhere, including buses and market stalls, and a growing number of places accept nothing else. Bring a card with a PIN rather than notes.

Top 10s across Sweden