Stockholm sits on fourteen islands. The other thirty thousand start at the quay.
Which archipelago boat actually stops at an island. What a night under the aurora costs out of Kiruna. Whether the Vasa is worth a guide. Reviews of every tour you can book in Sweden.
Three ways to spend a Swedish day
Out in the archipelago
from $35 
Under the aurora
from $59 
On foot through Gamla Stan
from $14 A boat, an open-air museum, a dark alley and one night above the Arctic Circle.
The four bookings a first Swedish trip tends to hang off. What each one costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The first afternoonCity Archipelago Sightseeing Cruise with GuideOut through the inner archipelago with a guide, past the red boathouses everyone photographs from the shore.
02Sweden in one parkSkansen Open-Air Museum Admission TicketFarmhouses moved here from every province, wooden church included, on the hill above Djurgården.
03After dark in Gamla StanGhost Walk and Historical TourPlague pits, executions and the lanes they happened in, walked at dusk with somebody who knows the dates.
04The reason you fly northKiruna Northern Lights Tour with PhotographerA photographer drives out of Kiruna until the cloud breaks, then shoots you standing under the whole sky.
In Sweden the good day usually starts on a jetty.
Stockholm hands you the water at the end of every street, and the archipelago runs east from there for sixty kilometres. Three ways to get onto it, and what boarding each one costs.
Stockholm first, then as far north as your nerve takes you.
A capital built across a strait, an iron-ore town under the aurora, a west-coast harbour that eats better than it lets on, a mountain valley with the clearest sky in Lapland, a bridge to Denmark and a cathedral city full of runes. Six places, and the best day out in each.
Stockholm: get on the water early, into a museum by three.
Everything in Stockholm →
The city fits into a long weekend and rewards doing it in that order: a boat while the light is on the water, Gamla Stan before the cruise groups reach Stortorget, and something indoors once the afternoon goes blue. These three carry more travellers than anything else in Sweden.
- 1City Archipelago Sightseeing Cruise with Guidefrom $41
- 2Skansen Open-Air Museum Admission Ticketfrom $27
- 3Archipelago Boat Tourfrom $39
Canal loop, or straight out to the islands
The short loop runs under the bridges and past Djurgården in an hour. The longer sailings leave the city behind entirely and drop you at a jetty with a café on it.
Skansen, the Vasa hall and the Nobel rooms
Three very different museums within a tram ride of each other: a whole country rebuilt outdoors, a warship raised from the harbour mud, and the room where the prize is announced.
Old towns, before the cruise ships land
Stockholm’s old town is four blocks wide and mostly staircase; Haga in Gothenburg is much the same idea in wood. Go at nine, while the guides still outnumber the crowds.
The Swedish days out more travellers take than any other.
Every Swedish tour we have reviewed →The bookings that keep coming back at the top, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
City Archipelago Sightseeing Cruise with Guide
See Stockholm from a classic archipelago ship on a 1.5, 2.5, or 3-hour cruise. A live guide in English and Swedish explains the islands, landmarks, and local history. You can sit inside or outside, buy drinks and snacks onboard, and use the restrooms and WiFi.
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
Stockholm Pass: Save up to 50% – Includes Vasa Museum Ticket
from $95
6
Ghost Walk and Historical Tour
from $31
7
Walking Tour of Stockholm Old Town
from $24
8
The Original Stockholm Ghost Walk and Historical Tour – Gamla Stan
from $38
Lapland runs on darkness, and sells it by the night.
From October the sun gives up on Kiruna and Abisko, and the whole economy turns to the sky: aurora chasing, sled dogs, snowmobiles across frozen lakes and a hotel carved out of the Torne river each December.
What a day in Sweden actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. The gap between a Stockholm morning and a Lapland night is the single biggest number on this page.
Old-town walks, museum entry, the fika stops and most of the boats that leave from the city quays.
- 1City Archipelago Sightseeing Cruise with Guidefrom $41
- 2Skansen Open-Air Museum Admission Ticketfrom $27
- 3Archipelago Boat Tourfrom $39
Guided museum halls, kayak mornings, the food walks and the full-day runs out to Sigtuna and Uppsala.
Almost everything north of the Arctic Circle, plus private guides and the RIB runs through the skerries.
Three things that only happen in Sweden.
Museums and boat trips exist everywhere. A hotel rebuilt from river ice every winter, a coffee break with its own national grammar, and a field of rune stones nobody moved do not.
The hotel that melts every spring
Ice is cut from the Torne river in March, stored through the summer and rebuilt into rooms each December, with a new set of artists carving the suites every year. By May the whole thing has run back into the river it came from. The village sits seventeen kilometres east of Kiruna, and the day tours go out from there.
- 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
Fika, and why the country stops for it
Fika is a coffee break with rules: something sweet, somebody else at the table, and no hurry about it. Offices schedule it. The cinnamon bun has its own day in October. On a tour it usually means a bakery in Haga or a wooden café on an island, and it is the cheapest genuinely Swedish thing you can book.
- 1Secrets of Gamla Stan Guided Tour w/ Fika Option★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 282 reviews
- 2Winter Kayaking, Swedish Fika and hot Sauna Experience★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 156 reviews
- 3Stockholm Archipelago RIB Speed Boat Tour with Swedish Fika★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 95 reviews
Rune stones standing where they were raised
The country between Sigtuna and Uppsala carries the densest concentration of rune stones anywhere, most of them still in the field or churchyard they were set up in a thousand years ago. Old Uppsala adds three royal burial mounds you can walk over. Day trips out of Stockholm take nine hours and cover both.
- 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 will not wait.
Most of this country can be arranged over breakfast. These four run on a building season, a kennel roster, a clear sky or the hour the light goes, and none of them care when your flight lands.
- 01Guided Tour to Icehotel and JukkasjärviIt is carved from river ice each December and melts in spring. The season runs to about April, and that is the whole of it.
- 02Sit Down Husky Ride Dog Sled Tour in KirunaOne sled per driver and a fixed number of dogs at each kennel. In the February half-term weeks the good runs are gone well ahead.
- 03Kiruna Northern Lights Tour with PhotographerChasing needs a hole in the cloud, so the groups stay small and the departure moves at a few hours notice.
- 04Moose & Wildlife Safari with Campfire DinnerElk feed at dusk, so these leave on a sunset time that shifts every week of the season, in minibuses that seat very few.
When Stockholm gets four hours of daylight, book indoors.
From November the light arrives around nine and is gone by three, and the wind comes off the Baltic. The city answers with heat and ceilings: wood-fired saunas with a hole cut in the ice beside them, museum halls, long afternoons over coffee, and skating on lake ice once it holds.
By place — capital, coast and Lapland
By kind of day — deck, sled, museum or table
Stockholm, the rune country, the west coast, then the sleeper 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 →
Archipelago Guided Boat & Walking Tour of Vaxholm
Read our review →
Vaxholm & Stockholm Archipelago: Guided Excursion, Day Trip
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 →