May to SeptemberOut through the islandsfrom $39 The archipelago in June. Abisko in February.
Which archipelago boat actually stops at an island. What a night under the lights outside Kiruna runs to. Whether Gamla Stan needs a guide or just good shoes. Every tour in the country, reviewed and priced.
October to MarchUnder the lights up northfrom $59 A boat, the old town, a museum and one night up north.
The four bookings a first Swedish trip tends to hang off, what each costs, and what the people who took it said afterwards.
01Day one, on the waterCity Archipelago Sightseeing Cruise with GuideThe classic run out through the inner archipelago and back before dinner. More travellers take this boat than anything else in Sweden.
02An hour in Gamla StanSecrets of Gamla Stan Guided Tour w/ Fika OptionStortorget, the narrow lanes behind it and a coffee-and-bun stop built into the walk. Cheap, and it fixes the map in your head.
03The family half-daySkansen Open-Air Museum Admission TicketFarmsteads, wooden churches and Nordic animals on a hill in the middle of the city. The one museum that works with children in tow.
04The night up northKiruna Northern Lights Tour with PhotographerOut of Kiruna after dark with someone who knows where the cloud breaks, and a camera that can actually record it.
Stockholm is built on fourteen islands. The good days start at a quay.
The city sells you the water three ways: a slow deck out through the archipelago, a small boat under the bridges, or your own paddle. Here is what each one costs and who it suits.
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 · Stockholm Archipelago Cruise with Guide
A deck and a long lunchTwo to three hours out through the inner islands, coffee on board, back by evening.
Under the bridgesAn hour or two around Djurgården and the locks — the cheapest way to see the city properly.
Your own paddleSheltered channels, a picnic rock of your own, and nobody else on the water.
Straight out, at speedA rigid inflatable and open throttle: the archipelago in a fraction of the time.
All 45 boat days in Sweden →
Stockholm first. Then decide how far north you are willing to go.
A capital on the water, a west-coast port with its own archipelago, a bridge to Denmark, a university town of rune stones, and the Arctic. Five bases, and the best days out from each.
The Swedish days out that fill up first.
Every Swedish tour we have reviewed →More travellers take these than anything else in the country. What each one is, what it costs, and why it earns the slot.
1
City Archipelago Sightseeing Cruise with Guide
Review of Stockholm’s guided archipelago cruise, with route choices, boat seating, onboard café, value, and practical tips for choosing your tour.
From · $41
Read our review →
2
Skansen Open-Air Museum Admission Ticket
from $27
3
Archipelago Boat Tour
from $39
4
Highlights Boat Tour
from $39
5
Ghost Walk and Historical Tour
from $31
6
Walking Tour of Stockholm Old Town
from $25
7
The Original Stockholm Ghost Walk and Historical Tour – Gamla Stan
from $39
8
Stockholm Archipelago Cruise with Guide
from $48
Gamla Stan is small, and that is the point.
The old town fits inside about fifteen minutes of walking, so the difference between guides is what they stop for: the coronations, the blood bath in the square, the rune stones built into house walls, or the ghost stories after dark.
- 1Ghost Walk and Historical Tourfrom $31
- 2Walking Tour of Stockholm Old Townfrom $25
- 3The Original Stockholm Ghost Walk and Historical Tour – Gamla Stanfrom $39
North of the Arctic Circle the sun sets in December and stays down.
From late September to late March the nights are long enough for the aurora, the lakes freeze hard enough to drive on, and the hotel outside Jukkasjärvi is rebuilt out of river ice. None of it is bookable in July. If your dates are winter dates, this is your catalogue.
Sweden is expensive. Its best days out are not, always.
Every tour on the site sorted by what it costs. The gap between a boat ticket and a night chasing the aurora is wider here than almost anywhere.
City boats, old-town walks, museum entry and the hop-on buses. Most of a Stockholm week sits in this column.
- 1City Archipelago Sightseeing Cruise with Guidefrom $41
- 2Skansen Open-Air Museum Admission Ticketfrom $27
- 3Archipelago Boat Tourfrom $39
Full days: the archipelago under sail, Sigtuna and the rune stones, food walks, the guided Gothenburg canal-and-coast runs.
- 1The Nordic Food Walk Stockholmfrom $123
- 2Tour Across the Øresund Bridge to Lund and Malmöfrom $134
- 3Stockholm at a Glance Bike Tourfrom $63
The Arctic. Aurora chases with a photographer, dog sleds, snowmobiles and the day trip to the ice.
Three things Sweden has that nowhere else does.
Cold weather and pretty water are all over the north. A hotel that melts every spring, a coffee break with legal standing, and the stones the Vikings left in the fields around Uppsala are not.
The hotel made of a river
Every winter the Torne river is cut into blocks and rebuilt as a hotel eleven miles outside Kiruna, with art suites carved by a different set of sculptors each season. In spring it melts back into the water it came from. A year-round wing now runs on solar cooling, but the ice rooms themselves exist only from December to April, which is why the day trips out of Kiruna and Abisko sell out first.
- 1Guided Tour to Icehotel and Jukkasjärvi★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 28 reviews
- 2Tour of Icehotel and Jukkasjärvi★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 20 reviews
- 3Explore the Icehotel★★★★★★★★★★ 4.2 · 16 reviews
A coffee break with rules
Fika is not a snack, it is a fixed point in the Swedish day: coffee, something baked, and a pause long enough to be worth having. Workplaces stop for it. The food walks in Stockholm and Gothenburg build a whole afternoon around it — cardamom buns, princess cake, herring in a market hall, and a running argument about which bakery is actually best.
- 1Stockholm Food Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 404 reviews
- 2Secrets of Gamla Stan Guided Tour w/ Fika Option★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 282 reviews
- 3Stockholm Small Group Food Tour with 7 Classic Food Tastings★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 168 reviews
The stones in the fields
The countryside north of Stockholm holds the densest concentration of rune stones on earth — thousands of them, standing where they were raised, often on the verge of a working farm. Add the burial mounds at Gamla Uppsala and the trading town at Sigtuna and you get a full day of Viking-age Sweden inside an hour of the capital.
- 1The Viking Museum Exhibition and Viking Ride★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 667 reviews
- 2Entrance ticket to The Viking Museum★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 · 301 reviews
- 3Viking History, Runes & Countryside 9h Tour to Sigtuna & Uppsala★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 283 reviews
Four Swedish bookings that do not wait for you.
Most of this country can be sorted from a café table the morning of. These four run on ice, daylight and a season that opens and closes on its own schedule.
- 01Guided Tour to Icehotel and JukkasjärviThe ice rooms are carved fresh each winter and melt in spring. Outside roughly December to April there is nothing frozen to visit.
- 02Kiruna Northern Lights Tour with PhotographerYou need darkness and a clear sky, and the good operators cap numbers. In the aurora months the photographer-led nights go weeks ahead.
- 03Sit Down Husky Ride Dog Sled Tour in KirunaKennels run a fixed number of teams a day and the sledding season ends when the snow does. There is no walk-up option.
- 04City Archipelago Sightseeing Cruise with GuideThe classic archipelago boats keep a summer timetable, and the best of them run at full capacity from midsummer through August.
By place — capital, coast and Arctic
By kind of day — deck, pavement, snow or table
Stockholm, the islands, the rune stones, the west coast, then the Arctic.
The newest Swedish tour reviews.
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Private blood, ghosts and folklore Old Town 2h Stockholm tour
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Ghosts of Stockholm: A Guided Tour of Horror and Dark Folklore
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Uppsala’s biggest attractions – 1h city walk in Uppsala city.
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Cruise port VIP Transfer: Cruise port to Stockholm city center 1-6 Passangers
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