Walking through the streets of Stockholm feels like what I imagine walking through medieval Europe would have been like. The buildings are tall and grand with cobblestone streets. Arches line the alleyways while statues and fountains are present in every town square.
While the architecture acts as a time machine, the inhabitants of Stockholm are probably the trendiest I’ve ever come into contact with: high-end shops are littered with beautiful blonde Swedes in impossibly tall heels regardless of the weather. In a nutshell Stockholm manages to be historic and completely modern all at the same time.
Central Station.
The walkway between Gamla Stan and Norrmalm.
Trefaldighets Church.
The Royal Palace.
Even in freezing weather, people in Stockholm manage to be quite fashionable.
The main church of the Gamla Stan, the "Old City."
Old stone houses.
The National Museum.
The reading area in the library of the Culture House.
Johannes Church.
The Nordic Museum.
In Djurgården, an old greenhouse was turned into a trendy cafe.
Scandinavia has a bad reputation for being the most expensive region in the world. Denmark is bad, Sweden is worse, and Norway takes the cake. In fact, you can see the effects of pricing by where the locals buy their booze — Norwegians head to Sweden, the Swedes go to Denmark, and everyone tries to get to Germany where beer is cheaper than Coke.
But is Sweden expensive?
Yes, Sweden is expensive, but not for everything. If you’re comparing your wine prices against Germany, you’re going to be unimpressed, especially if you’re looking at the cheapest bottle available in each country. But compare against mid-range prices in the UK or New Zealand and it all doesn’t seem quite so bad. The tax on wine seems to be a per-bottle price, so there’s no low-range options, but if you’re prepared to spend the same as you’d pay for a nice bottle back home, you can get a nice bottle in Sweden too.
It’s similar in the supermarkets. If you’re accustomed to buying the cheapest options at home, you’re not going to enjoy grocery shopping in Sweden – there doesn’t seem to be a lot of budget options. But the mid-range prices aren’t unreasonable.
Where you might have problems though, is the transport: it is definitely not cheap. Even the locals complain about the prices of long-distance train travel, and local transport is a wallet drainer as well. One ride on the public transport network in Stockholm is 30 kroner, and a 72-hour pass is 200 kroner. It’s better in Goteborg, where you’re looking at 25 kroner and 130 kroner for the same tickets. Scandinavia is one of the regions where a Eurail or Interrail pass is definitely a good investment.
Accommodation is comparable to other places in Europe – a bed in a hostel dorm will cost you about 25 euros, which is expensive but not more than you’d pay in many parts of Germany, for example. But you can get around that by couchsurfing – just buy your host a bottle of wine!
Scandinavia is a fantastic region of the world. We’d been wanting to spend time there for a while, and apart from a weekend in Helsinki in 2007, didn’t manage to get there until earlier this year. Mostly, we’d been put off by prices – we’d heard that everything was expensive, especially accommodation, transport and alcohol, and this had been proven correct during our brief time in Finland.
But thanks to eurail.com and couchsurfing.org, we managed to have a great time on a leaner budget than we’d expected.
Getting to Scandinavia doesn’t need to be expensive. Many budget carriers fly to the capitals and smaller cities as well, and you can often grab a bargain. Use toandfromtheairport.com to check out prices for getting from the airport to your accommodation though, or you might end up spending more on that than you spent on your flight.
You can also arrive by bus or train, train being the more comfortable option. You could buy point-to-point tickets in person or online (although it’s difficult to buy tickets between countries online in Sweden and Norway), or use a Eurail pass.
We found our pass (courtesy of Eurail.com) invaluable in Scandinavia, especially for the longer journeys. Sometimes it didn’t save us as much as we would have expected, but just being able to show up and jump on a train was awesome. And in Sweden you get free coffee if you travel in first class (Norwegian trains didn’t seem to have first class, oddly).
This 'Angered' tram runs through Goteborg, Sweden
Accommodation
Yes, accommodation in Scandinavia is expensive. Hostels cost at least twenty euros a night, and hotels are often booked out and therefore what is available is even more expensive. Booking.com can help a lot, as can booking your hostel in advance through hostelbookers, but the best thing to do is to couchsurf.
Wandering Copenhagen serves up iconic views
You can stay free of charge with locals through couchsurfing, the idea being that they get to meet cool travellers like you, and you get to interact with locals – a cultural exchange. We met some awesome people through couchsurfing – Mona, Therese and Ola, Benny, Morten, Magdalena and Nahikari. Most of these guys are locals and most spent time with us, introducing us to their town and their cuisine. It was awesome, and I wouldn’t swap the experience for the best hotel.
Food and booze in Scandinavia
A trip to the supermarket is likely to cost you more than back home, but you can save a little by going to cheaper supermarkets like Aldi.
Drinking out is expensive, buy booze at the shops and drink at home. Strangely, in Sweden there’s a government monopoly and you can only buy alcohol from the special shops. Well, you can buy low-alcohol beer and cider from the supermarket, but that’s all.
The military fortress in Copenhagen, Denmark affords views of towards the harbour
Wine is costly, but it seems that the tax that racks up the price is a per-bottle one, so cheaper wines seem expensive but mid-range ones aren’t too bad. Just don’t compare prices with super-cheap Spain and Germany — you’ll just get sad. Wine is most expensive in Norway, Sweden is a little better, and Denmark is cheapest – but buy in Germany before you arrive if you can. If you’re crossing from Estonia to Finland, definitely buy alcohol before you go, it’s so much cheaper.
Jen Ryder
Hi Linda! Just found your blog and I'm really
Megan
HI Dave! Like Fiona, I'm considering the prog
Since November 2006 the Indie Travel Podcast has evolved into an independent travel hub with regular audio and video podcasts along with articles by travellers from all over the world. 
Hosts Craig and Linda Martin started travelling in February 2006 and have been to over 50 countries. They were 