Sweden is a city and a season.
Which archipelago boat earns a whole afternoon. What a night out under the lights in Abisko actually includes. Whether the Vasa is worth a guide. Priced, rated and ranked by the people who went.
Sweden’s most-booked days are almost all in Stockholm.
Every review →Ranked by how many travellers have actually been. A museum ship, a boat out through the islands, an evening walk round Gamla Stan — the capital wins because it is where the boats leave from.
1
ABBA The Museum Entrance Ticket
Skip the ticket line to ABBA The Museum on Djurgården. Try virtual costumes, sing in Polar Studio, and step onto the stage with ABBA.
From · $28
Read our review →
2
City Archipelago Sightseeing Cruise with Guide
from $41
3
Skansen Open-Air Museum Admission Ticket
from $27
4
Hop-On Hop-Off Bus or Boat Option
from $24
5
Archipelago Boat Tour
from $39
6
Paradox Museum Entry Ticket
from $28
7
Highlights Boat Tour
from $43
8
Ghost Walk and Historical Tour
from $33
By base — seven towns worth staying in
Stockholm344 tours
Kiruna89 tours
Gothenburg53 tours
Abisko26 tours
Malmö22 tours
Luleå20 tours
Uppsala11 tours- Every Swedish review →
Stockholm sits on fourteen islands, so most of it is best seen from the water.
The archipelago runs to some thirty thousand islands and skerries and the boats leave from the middle of town. An hour under the bridges with an audio guide, a hop out to Vaxholm, or a full day to the bare outer rocks — the water is the cheapest good decision in the city.
All 51 Stockholm boat trips →
Gamla Stan is small, and that is the whole problem.
The old town is a few blocks of ochre and rust-red fronts on an island you can walk across in ten minutes, which is why it holds a crowd by eleven in the morning. Go early with a guide who knows which lanes stay quiet, or go after dark, when the ghost walks have the place to themselves.
- 1Stockholm Gamla Stan: Old Town Walking Tour with Local Guidefrom $16
- 2Walking Tour of Stockholm Old Townfrom $24
- 3The Original Stockholm Ghost Walk and Historical Tour – Gamla Stanfrom $38
From Gamla Stan to Abisko: the days that fill up first.
A walk through the old town, a boat into the islands, the warship, a snowmobile, a husky team, a night spent watching the sky. Most trips here are some combination of those, and the operators worth booking sell out first.
Sweden priced honestly, from a fika walk to a night out on the ice.
Every tour here sorted by what one person pays. Charters priced per group are quoted differently and are left out of these four bands.
Museum entry, a fika walk, an hour on the water. The everyday version of the city.
The standard half day: a guided old-town walk, an archipelago boat, a bike tour.
- 1Stockholm Archipelago Cruise with Guidefrom $47
- 2Guided Bike Tourfrom $62
- 3Archipelago cruise with guidefrom $47
Full days and small groups — Sigtuna and Uppsala, the Vasa with a guide, a husky morning.
- 1Swedish Food Guided Walking Tourfrom $112
- 2Winter Kayaking, Swedish Fika, and Hot Saunafrom $138
- 3The Nordic Food Walk Stockholmfrom $122
Where the north lands. Snowmobile days, private guides, aurora chases with a photographer, and the long drives out that come with them.
A raised warship, a rune stone and a frozen lake.
Not the obvious three. A seventeenth-century flagship that sank on her maiden voyage and came back up nearly whole; the country’s oldest town and the stones its Vikings carved; and a national habit of skating clean across a lake.
The Vasa
She was the most expensive thing Sweden had ever built and she sailed about 1,300 metres before a gust laid her on the bottom of Stockholm harbour. Cold brackish water with no shipworm in it kept her intact; she was raised in 1961 and now stands almost complete in a hall built around her. Take a guide or the audio — the hull does not explain itself.
- 1Vasa Museum and Vrak Museum of Wrecks Combo Entry★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 2,131 reviews
- 2Vasa Museum Tour with Entry Ticket & Guide★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 537 reviews
- 3Vasa Museum Guided Tour, Including Ticket & Guide★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 330 reviews
Sigtuna and the rune stones
Sigtuna was a town while Stockholm was still marsh, founded around the year 980, and its main street still follows the medieval line. The fields around it hold the densest concentration of rune stones anywhere in the world. Most tours pair it with Uppsala’s cathedral and burial mounds and make a full day of it, an hour north of the city.
- 1Stockholm Viking History Full Day Tour to Sigtuna + Uppsala★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 283 reviews
- 2Viking History, Runes & Countryside 9h Tour to Sigtuna & Uppsala★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 283 reviews
- 3Viking History and Swedish Countryside Tour to Sigtuna & Uppsala★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 162 reviews
Skating a whole lake
When the ice comes in, Swedes do not go round a rink — they put on long blades and cross lakes. Guided groups carry ice claws, a rope and a pole for testing the surface, and the route gets chosen on the morning of the tour, because the ice decides. Beginners are welcome and going over is part of the day.
- 1Nordic Ice Skating for Beginners on a Frozen Lake★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 104 reviews
- 2Ice Skating in the Moonlight with Hot Chocolate★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 92 reviews
- 3Beginner friendly Nordic Ice Skating On lakes in Stockholm★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 75 reviews
Gothenburg’s canals, Malmö’s bridge, Uppsala’s mounds.
Gothenburg is the real second base — a canal and tram city with its own archipelago of bare granite islands an hour offshore. Malmö is booked as a day out from Copenhagen as often as from Stockholm. Uppsala is close enough to pair with Sigtuna and still be back for dinner.
- 1Archipelago cruise with guidefrom $47
- 2City Canal Sightseeing Cruisefrom $30
- 3Universeum Entry Ticketfrom $27
The bookings in Sweden that will not wait until you land.
Most of this site can be sorted from a hotel lobby the night before. These cannot. They run on a short season, a fixed calendar, or a building that melts every spring.
- 01Icehotel and Sami Camp Day TripRebuilt out of the Torne river at Jukkasjärvi every winter and gone by spring. One small village’s worth of rooms, and a visiting season that runs roughly December to April.
- 02Kiruna Northern Lights Tour with PhotographerA dark-sky season rather than a year-round attraction — roughly late September to late March — and the best-reviewed minibuses fill weeks out.
- 03Christmas Traditions & Food Small Group TourStockholm’s Christmas markets run for a few weeks only and are packed away before the twenty-fourth.
- 04Stockholm Must See: City Hall, Gamla Stan and Vasa MuseumThe hall the Nobel banquet is held in can only be seen on a guided visit, on set departures through the day.
- 05Guided Kayak City Tour & Optional Midsummer MealMidsummer is a fixed weekend in late June and the country shuts for it. The handful of tours that run that weekend are the entire supply.
The night train from Stockholm to Abisko, stop by stop.
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