Sweden is two trips. Water in summer, darkness in winter.
Which archipelago boat actually lands on an island. What a night chasing the lights out of Kiruna costs. Whether Gamla Stan is better at nine in the morning or after the day boats leave. Reviews of every tour you can book in Sweden.
A boat out of the city, Gamla Stan on foot, an aurora night and a moose at dusk.
The four bookings a first trip to Sweden tends to hang off. What each one costs, and what the travellers who took it say.
01The first boat outCity Archipelago Sightseeing Cruise with GuideThree hours east through the inner archipelago with a guide, leaving from the quay below the palace. The cheapest way to understand why the city is where it is.
02The morning walkWalking Tour of Stockholm Old TownGamla Stan before the day boats land, through alleys wide enough for one person at a time. Two hours, and the rest of the city reads differently afterwards.
03The aurora nightKiruna Northern Lights Tour with PhotographerA photographer drives out of Kiruna to wherever the cloud is thinnest and sends you the pictures after. Book two nights, not one.
04The moose eveningMoose & Wildlife Safari with Campfire DinnerOut of Stockholm at dusk into logging forest where the animals come to the clearings to feed, ending at a campfire dinner.
Stockholm: water down the middle, and something moored to every quay.
Everything in Stockholm →
The city is fourteen islands, so a good day here is half hull and half pavement. A morning on the water, an afternoon in the old town, and the Vasa kept in reserve for when the rain comes in off the Baltic sideways. These three carry more travellers than anything else in the country.
- 1City Archipelago Sightseeing Cruise with Guidefrom $41
- 2Skansen Open-Air Museum Admission Ticketfrom $27
- 3Archipelago Boat Tourfrom $39
Sightseeing loop, or a boat that lands
The city cruises circle the central bridges and have you back for lunch. The archipelago boats keep going east into the skerries and put you ashore on an island. Different days, similar money.
The Vasa, taken with a guide
A warship that sank twenty minutes into its maiden voyage in 1628 and came back up almost whole three centuries later. A guide earns their money here; without one it is a very large brown ship.
Gamla Stan once the day boats have gone
Alleys, courtyards and the cellar bars underneath them, with the ghost walks working the same cobbles after dark. The stones are uneven and rain makes them slick.
The days out more travellers book than anything else in Sweden.
Every Swedish tour we have reviewed →What the crowd actually books, from a three-hour cruise through the islands to a night out under the lights, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
City Archipelago Sightseeing Cruise with Guide
See Stockholm from a classic archipelago ship on a live-guided cruise through the inner islands. Choose 1.5, 2.5, or 3 hours, listen to English or Swedish commentary, and use the onboard café, restrooms, WiFi, and indoor seating. Guides such as Erik, David, and Christopher have made the route lively and informative.
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 $24
7
The Original Stockholm Ghost Walk and Historical Tour – Gamla Stan
from $38
8
Stockholm Archipelago Cruise with Guide
from $47
Sightseeing loop, archipelago crossing, or a kayak you paddle yourself.
Almost every good day in Sweden starts at a quay. Three kinds of boat day, what it costs to get aboard each one, and how far out of the city each one takes you.
Stockholm first, then how far north you are willing to go.
A capital built across fourteen islands, a west-coast port with canals and its own archipelago, a bridge town on the Danish sound, and three places near the Arctic Circle where the winter does all the work. Six starting points, and the best day out in each.
Aurora nights, sled dogs and snowmobiles out of Kiruna and Abisko.
Everything above the Arctic Circle runs on the same dark half of the year. Chase the lights with somebody who knows which valley is clear tonight, drive your own team of dogs, or ride out on a snowmobile and eat dinner in a hut.
- 1Kiruna Northern Lights Tour with Photographerfrom $223
- 2The Ultimate Aurora Photo Adventurefrom $183
- 3Northern Lights Tour with Photosfrom $187
Gamla Stan is one small island, and it is best walked early.
The old town takes an hour to cross, so the guided walks here are about detail: the alley the width of a shoulder, the cannon set into a corner to stop cart wheels, the square where the executions happened. Go at nine, before the harbour empties its day trippers into it, or go after dark with the ghost walks.
Three things that only happen in Sweden.
Cold and forest are not rare. A hotel rebuilt from river ice every winter, a reindeer herd worked by the people who have always worked it, and half a tonne of moose standing in a birch clearing are.
The Icehotel at Jukkasjärvi
Blocks are cut from the Torne river in spring, stored through the summer, and built back into rooms each December. Artists carve a different set of suites every year, the inside sits at around five below whatever the weather does outside, and in April the whole building melts back into the river it came from. Tours run from Kiruna, twenty minutes down the road.
- 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 day with a Sami herd
Reindeer herding in this part of Lapland is a working job, not a display. Animals move between winter forest and summer mountain the way they always have, and a visit means feeding by hand, a circuit behind a sled and coffee in a lavvu, told by somebody whose family holds the herd.
- 1Full-Day Reindeer Tour with Pickup in Kiruna★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 85 reviews
- 2Sami Reindeer Experience★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 53 reviews
- 3Reindeer Herder Tour with Sami Dinner and Transfers★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 33 reviews
Moose in the forest
Sweden holds something like three hundred thousand moose and almost none of them want to meet you. The evening safaris work logging tracks and clearings an hour or two out of Stockholm, going out when the animals come to feed and the light has gone long and low.
- 1Moose & Wildlife Safari with Campfire Dinner★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 269 reviews
- 2Moose safari in the wild Sweden Tiveden★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 224 reviews
- 3Evening Wildlife Safari with Campfire Dinner from Stockholm★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 155 reviews
What a day out in Sweden actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. Sweden has a reputation for being expensive, and the old town walks and museum tickets quietly ignore it.
Old town walks, museum entry, the city cruises and the bus in from Arlanda.
- 1City Archipelago Sightseeing Cruise with Guidefrom $41
- 2Skansen Open-Air Museum Admission Ticketfrom $27
- 3Archipelago Boat Tourfrom $39
Full days: archipelago crossings, the Vasa with a guide, bike tours and the moose safari.
Aurora nights with a photographer, sled teams, reindeer days and the ice hotel.
Four Swedish bookings that will not wait.
Most of a trip here can be arranged the night before from a bar stool. These four run on a season, a herd, or a river that froze in November, and none of them take any interest in when your flight lands.
- 01Guided Tour to Icehotel and JukkasjärviThe rooms are cut from the Torne river in winter and gone again by late spring. Outside those months there is no ice hotel to walk through.
- 02Kiruna Northern Lights Tour with PhotographerThe season runs roughly September to late March, when the nights are long enough to see anything. Midsummer up there has no darkness at all.
- 03Sit Down Husky Ride Dog Sled Tour in KirunaA sled team is a fixed number of dogs, so a full tour is genuinely full. The peak weeks around Kiruna go months ahead.
- 04Full-Day Reindeer Tour with Pickup in KirunaThese run out of working herding camps that take a handful of visitors at a time, and only while the herd is close enough to reach.
When Stockholm gets six hours of daylight, book indoors or book the dark.
From November the light is gone by mid-afternoon and the weather arrives off the Baltic. There are two answers. Go inside, where the museums run late and the fika is the point of the walk, or make the darkness the reason you came: a ghost walk over wet cobbles, a sauna, and a hole cut in the ice to climb into afterwards.
Kiruna is a mining town that sells the sky.
People fly to a town of eighteen thousand inside the Arctic Circle for one thing, and everything else here is built around the same dark half of the year: the sled dogs, the reindeer herds, and a hotel rebuilt out of river ice every December.
Every Kiruna night out →
Gothenburg keeps its canals, its seafood and its own archipelago.
The second city runs on trams and boats. The canal cruise ducks under bridges low enough that everyone has to lie flat, the fish market sells lunch across the counter, and the ferry from Saltholmen reaches car-free islands in half an hour.
- 1Archipelago cruise with guidefrom $47
- 2City Canal Sightseeing Cruisefrom $30
- 3Go City All-Inclusive Pass with 20+ Attractionsfrom $47
By place, from the capital to the Arctic
Stockholm, a day on the water, the Viking country, then the train north.
SigtunaThe newest Swedish tour reviews.
The rest of the new ones →
World War II Stockholm Old Town Walking Tour and Army Museum
Read our review →
Vaxholm & Stockholm Archipelago: Guided Excursion, Day Trip
Read our review →
Archipelago Guided Boat & Walking Tour of Vaxholm
Read our review →
Self-Guided Audio Walking Tour Through Kurt Wallander’s Ystad
Read our review →
Uppsala Must See 2h city walk – 2h tour of all big attractions!
Read our review →
Uppsala’s biggest attractions – 1h city walk in Uppsala city.
Read our review →
Uppsala bloody history 1h- racial biology, 18th century plague, 19th century prostitution etc.
Read our review →
Guided tour 90min at Old Uppsala mounds and old Uppsala church
Read our review →
Visit the Sami and Reindeer in a Day Trip from Abisko
Read our review →
Private Walking Tour of Visby with Cathedral and Gardens
Read our review →