To ask what Nordic country you would move to, if forced?

[Wildwildwildwest]

Just that really. Bored on a Saturday evening and wonder what others might think! What would be your number one choice, ranking from favourite to least. For reference the Nordic countries are Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Denmark and Finland.

Agree. Truly beautiful city and I'm already eyeing up the Sunmor mountains for some serious hiking!

Norway maybe, purely because its got a lot of money and manages it well

That said ive got a few swedish & finnish friends and all are lovely. Im less sure about the Danes & Norwegians

Denmark for the cycle-friendliness.

I love Berfgen. But OMG - the rain!

They do have midges at myvatn but they are non bitey ones.

It's interesting people go on about the dark winters. When we were in Copenhagen I honestly didn't really notice it- yes at it's worse it was dark about 3.35 but once it starts to open up in mid January it starts to do so very quickly and everyone had their lights up on trees and hedges and balconies till late Feb- we also felt there was less rain too and in sumner it's light till 11pm or so -

Norway, Finland Austria or germany

Haha! Cant believe you mention Myvatn. I live 30 minutes away. Yes I’m from Iceland and live there now, after a decade in London. But its been spectacular hearing what the posters think. I love the UK and have a British husband. I love being home (not as much as my husband though) but would like to live in England again. All the Nordic countries have their positives though, love them all for different reasons

@Helenloveslee4eva above was for you. I’m just hopeless on mumsnet 🤣

Denmark probably although I quite liked Estonia.

Sweden every time. I spend a lot of time on Copenhagen and I really want to love it but I just don’t. Stockholm on the other hand, I’ve always wished I’d married a Swede.

Yes, but Copenhagen is about as far south in Scandinavia as you can be. The other Scandinavian capitals are a good 400-500km north of that, let alone the actual northern parts of these countries.

Having said that. I've lived North of Stockholm and much preferred the dark but snowy winters there over the grey winters in the south.

Ha, I wonder how many of us are saying we’d love to “live” there when actually we mean fantasy life move where you don’t have the school run, work, mental load, daily grind of real life. “I’d love to live in Sweden in a little red farmhouse by the lake just reading books and baking and stuff!”

Sweden. Amazing country in many ways and I'd have cinnamon buns every day.

Sweden is also almost twice as big as the others in terms of population including a high proportion of immigrants which makes it much more open minded and diverese than the others. Denmark and Norway have strong anti immigration policies. Iceland is just too small at ~300k people

Absolute rubbish. Icelanders are individualistic and hate being told what to do - goes back to centuries of being denied independence as a nation. They would not tolerate this.

I lived there and what you've written is absolutely not true.

Stockholm - I doubt the city misses me!😂
In my experience, the people were very self-contained, distrusting, very serious-minded, lacked spontaneity and fairly xenophobic. I would recommend Sweden, very cautiously, to people who don't like people much.

You’re missing one: the Faroe Islands. It’s self governing anyway. Beautiful and not very far from us.

The Faroe Islands are not a country.

The one that tastes like fudge?

Had you gone to Gothenburgh or further south you’d probably have a much different experience. But who knows.

We have loads of Icelandic people where I live. They come here go train and work as doctor’s for a few years and then go back. Some families stay. Lovely down to earth people, eager go learn the language and Swedish traditions. I’ve had to learn some words through my work, it’s great!

And I agree with you, I also love all of our Nordic countries. They are similar but all different, and all very beautiful. I could easily feel at home in any of them.

*to, not go

Finland. Specifically Rovaniemi - I have lots of fond memories of it.

I like the food, the cold, the scenery, can do a miniscule bit of the language so I'm considering that a head start... and I like the Hydraulic Press channel on YouTube 😄

@MTGBTTATP interesting as we know quite a few people in Stockholm and went a fair bit when we lived in Copenhagen- I found the people friendly and jolly but probably because we know them. I think the scandis in general are often quite self contained and not seeking to expand their friendship circles, but I think this is partly because they don't tend to move around a lot. They have good social housing in many of these cities, plus more consistent prices if you own, so aren't constantly moving away for more space - in Copenhagen it was noticeable how the population was more mixed age groups- still lots of older people of all 'classes ' I spoke to a 40 something Cooenhagener I met at the business centre and she said it's common to still have family and school friends and old Uni friends locally and hence they don't rush to meet new people and are very family focussed too - it's just the mindset they have. It sucks a bit in this aspect if you move there , depends if it bothers you, but as we found it's even harder if you work for yourselves and lots of the international meet ups are very very young folk.

If you don't want the very very early dark winters and only modest snow once or twice in winter then we found Denmark was a good option- it is flat though and whilst scenery is very nice in parts and lots of woodland and lakes in parts- it's not Norwegian style majestic. To be honest though the scenery and nice seafood was the only thing I really liked about Norway, apart from that I found it a bit dull . I would say the same too for large parts of Sweden with regards to scenery- Sweden is considerably cheaper we found than the other places too - more like UK prices these days,