Sweden 2 weeks

[Penguinsetpandas]

Ryanair are doing very cheap flights to Stockholm over next summer (£243 for 4 of us). Going to take a risk on it as its cheap and say they'll refund if no deal.

Obviously only booking completely cancelable things at this stage but would be good to hear any ideas of where to go, where to stay, what to do. Children will be 13 and 12. Would consider anything, love animals though in the wild, love staying places with homecooked food, love watersports / active things, son loves a beach. Prefer away from crowds. Thinking of doing the Wild Sweden moose, beavers etc and maybe bears but saw them in Finland. Would go round Sweden. No camping and kids thinking no Wifi is a near death experience. Thanks very much.

If you are on a budget you really need to do some research as to the cost of things. Sweden is beautiful but it is a very expensive holiday destination.

Only going for cheap flights due to Brexit plus did Australia this summer so want somewhere close and less expensive but we aren't on a tight budget especially maybe £6k for 2 weeks for everything flights, food, hotels, activities. Have been to Sweden and Finland before so have idea of prices. Also its quite a lot cheaper out of cities.

I'd stay in Gothenburg for a few nights. Your DC might enjoy Liseberg, Maritiman, Klatterdomen and Universeum. In fact, there's loads there that you all might enjoy www.goteborg.com/en/gothenburg-for-kids/?page=3&tags=&startdate=&enddate=&datetype=&view=listing

I'd be renting a cottage in the archipelago. I don't know the area at all. I've only ever been on weekend breaks to Stockholm and that was eons ago. But my dream is to spend an entire summer in a red clapboard cottage in the Stockholm archipelago.

Ooh, I really want to do Stockholm next summer and the flights sound great value. Which dates were you looking at? We did 2 weeks in Skane (south Sweden) last summer and loved it, did a ferry ride to Denmark, stayed next to Sodarasen National Forest, went to outdoor sculpture parks and out for Fika. It was the most relaxing holiday we've had in years. I haven't yet blogged about it but let me know if you need any tips on this part of Sweden.

Thanks very much. Pretty much the whole summer was the whole price with Ryanair using the Stockholm Skavsta airport. Looks like their school summer break goes to mid August which means there's more activities before then but would guess prices are higher then too.

Thanks so much for the ideas - am looking into them all. Just wish I could book things but too risky at the moment with the political situation. Last time we went to Sweden (10 years ago) we flew to Copenhagen and back - it was really cheap on Norwegian (though they moved our flight seat bookings to seat our then 3 year old DD alone ) and loved Copenhagen - have a friend there and we went round Tivoli and on a boat, would love to visit there and see my friend again. I saw you can drive there in 7 hours from Stockholm though don't know if car hire restrictions - looks like you can but would need to check that out. Think we went into Stockholm on a boat and the archipelago did look good so will investigate that further. We also stayed at a hotel in central Sweden - beautiful hotel but whole area was flat and identical looking.

We will definitely try and do the Wild Sweden beaver and moose tours and there seem to be a few home stay places around that area where can do horse riding, picking berries and mushrooms, canoeing etc - even found one which had a kids course on making fires and using knives, axes and saws in an efficient and safe way but not sure about that!

Second whole should say same.

We flew into Copenhagen and hired a car there, drove over The Bridge and used it all round Skane. Be warned the bridge is really expensive, something like €50 from memory, although we got it a little cheaper from our car hire place. We went mid - end of August, the Swedish kids were back at school but everything was still open. We got the ferry from Helsingborg to Helsingor, there is a great little maritime museum there, then drove to Christiana art gallery which has children's area and a brilliant hill for kids to run/roll down. Stopped off for take home pizza on a Danish beach on way home, it was a perfect day.

We're just arranging a holiday to Denmark next Easter, either Aarhus or Copenhagen, hopefully we will get time in the latter.

Which area are the Wild Sweden activities in, these sound like lots of fun. My kids would love the making fires ones!

This is the wild Sweden website and they do beaver, moose and bear tours. Beaver and moose are about 2 hours out of Stockholm, bears are further north. www.wildsweden.com/

They also have where to stay page on that site and some of those can do activities - the fire and axe one was only certain weekends at the school house one, looks like this year it was dates in the Swedish school holidays but I was wondering about messaging them and asking them if they would run one when we go. Don't know if they have minimum numbers though:

skolgarden.wordpress.com/family-bushcraft/

Novasol are meant to be good for cottages in Scandinavia though I haven’t used them yet. We went years ago and stayed at Stenebynas which is a gorgeous farmstead with a handful of holiday homes. It’s right on a lake and they have kayaks etc. Www.stenebynas.se

Just be careful with visiting outside Swedish holiday season as a lot of things close. You'll probably be fine in big cities, but in smaller holiday places, restaurants etc close at the end of summer season.

Thanks very much. Cottages look lovely. We are thinking now of also going into Norway and doing Oslo to Bergen route and back, seems to have lots of good stops enroute.

Booked lovely place in Norway through Novosol in Tysse for a week, so much to do around there and looks so beautiful in the fjords / Bergen. Got a lovely alpaca B and B for start in Sweden. Flying back from Norway now.