Overview to Sweden: Travel Guide and Tourist Information
- Sweden Information
- Events in Sweden
- Things to do in Sweden
- Where to stay in Sweden
- Sweden street map
Like much of Northern Europe, backpackers will immediately appreciate the high standard of living in Sweden. Streets are clean (and safe), public transport is excellent and the people are invariably friendly - in fact, they go out of their way to be helpful to travelers.
Extending itself over a number of islands, Stockholm, the country’s capital, is that rarest of things: a city that’s both outrageously pretty and full of a wild, youthful vigor in its cultural scene and nightlife.
In comparison, the country’s other big city Gothenburg is slightly overlooked. Culturally vibrant and with great eating and drinking, it also contains the country’s largest theme park, Liseberg, and an absolutely enormous Botanical Gardens.
Gotland, the largest of the Swedish islands in the Baltic Sea, is home to the World Heritage town of Visby - a stunning, medieval walled city. Uppsala, a vibrant old university town with a number of fascinating sights, is just a short journey from Stockholm.
Whilst not quite as wild as neighboring Finland or Norway, the twenty-five provinces of Sweden are made up of countryside that is starkly beautiful and sparsely populated. The country’s many (icy cold) lakes and rivers have long been a major destination for canoeists and kayakers.
To the north, Arctic Norland is home to some of the most untamed stretches of wilderness in Europe. In Lapland, the Abisko National Park (just within the Arctic Circle) is home to the country’s highest mountain, Kebnekaise.
The whole country is dotted with forts, burial grounds and an assortment of other intensely evocative Viking monuments. It’s this sense of the mystical and ancient, allied to its modern cosmopolitan cities, that makes Sweden such an appealing travel destination.